May i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
753 
« BENEFACTORS OF THE CEYLON 
TEA INTEREST 1" 
With reference to our remarks on the immense 
importance of multiplying Agencies all over the 
world for the sale of Ceylon teas, it is of some interest 
to place on record the names of those who have already 
opened Establishments : pour cncourayer Us autres ! 
Special Agencies for the sale of Ceylon Teas : — 
London :— Messrs. Shand and Haldane. 
„ John Tyndall & Co. 
„ „ Buchanan Bois & Co. 
„ Mr. W. A. Massingham. 
Bournemouth : — Mr. F. J. Horsfall. 
Sheffield :— Mr. J. A. Robertson. 
Glasgow :— Messrs. Jas. Wight & Co. 
„ Rogers & Bett. 
Edinburgh— (?) 
Aberdeen :— Mr. Wm. Westland. 
Dublin ;— (?) 
Philadelphia: — Messrs. J. McOombie Murray & Co. 
Melbourne (Victoria) : — Mr. S. W. Foulkes. 
Adelaide (S. A.) Messrs. Drummond Brothers. 
Sydney (N. S. \V.) :— Messrs. D. W. Campbell & Co. 
Albany ( W. A.) -.—Mr. H. Pierssene. 
New Zealand :— Mr. J. F. Wingate. 
Tasmania : — Mr. Geo. Finlayson. 
The above are apart from a great body of selling 
agencies which blend Ceylon with other teas. There 
are some blanks in our list and no doubt many othe r 
names to be added which we shall be glad to learn- 
A member of the mercantile community remarks : — 
"I cannot add to the enclosed list. There are many 
people like myself who try their best to get people 
to take Ceylon tea and who do get them and their 
friends to take a fair quantity, but there are no 
other special agencies I know of. But I do think 
that the Clan Line of steamers, and I think the 
Norddeutscher also, take nothing but Oeylontea, and 
by doing so do spread the taste for Ceylon tea far 
and wide." Another member says : — " I think I 
might also claim to be a ' benefactor ' in view of 
the many thousands of pounds of Ceylon tea I 
have disposed of direct to the consumer in all 
parts of the U. K. ever since 1883, vide my adver- 
tisement in your Overland issue. I might almost 
say that I set the ball a rolling in this line." 
TEA IN RAKWANA. 
Ratnapura, April 3rd. 
The vateran planter and merchant, Mr. O. Shand, 
looking bale and hearty, has escaped from Colombo 
heat to the hills of Rakwnna where he intends to 
stay a month for a change. He eouid not have arrived 
at h better time, to see what Bakwana tea can do 
in the way of flushing, for tbe lat i .ains have sent 
out flush after flush, faster than it can be seoured. 
Several natives have got tea properties in Rakwana, 
and one specially enterprising man named Nicholas 
bus got 50 acres of fine jiit in full bearing, and he 
is going in for every European appliance for cur- 
iug, even to a Jackson's hand roller, which is being 
trected in a fine new iron-roofed store, now almost 
finished. 
The villagers Eroin the surroundiug loweountry 
m ike 50 lb tea boxes, from the jungle mango wood, and 
dehver them at the tea stores for 75 cts. each, and 
transport to Colombo only costs 1 ct. per lb, which 
rates ctnnot be oomplaiued of, and ought to help to 
make R ikvvana tea a payiu^ investment, should prices 
keep up. 
95 
Spring "Vale estate was sold by Fiscal last Friday, 
at the instance of the mortgager, who let it go for 
R9,000, about J of the mortgage amount. Mr. Justice 
Dias' superintendent of Depedene, the adjoining 
estate, purchased for his chief, who is lucky to get nearly 
150 acres of fine tea almost all in bearing for such 
a low figure. — Cor. 
WOMEN AS DEALERS IN TEA. 
20th March 1889. 
(Extract from " Ceylon Observer.") 
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR SURPLUS WOMEN ? 
" I am very patriotic and I cannot understand why 
America should be so much to the fore just now ; 
why American newspapers should take offices and 
publish themselves in the Strand, without even chan- 
ging their names, or why American women should 
secure so many prizes in the English matrimonial 
market, when we are left with a superabundance of 
spinsters in our midst. It made me sad to be told, 
too, on good authority by an English official, that at 
a recent declaration by the Government of thirty 
vacancies for female clerks in the Post Office, all of whom 
must be educated young women, able to pass a some- 
what difficult examination, there were 8,600 applicants. 
What are we to do with our surplus women? This 
is, I think, one of the most important question of the 
day ! How can we help to solve it ? Penelope." 
DREAMY THOUGHTS INDUCED BY THE ABOVE MOMENTOUS 
QUESTION — BY A KNIGHT OF THE CEYLON TEA BUSH. 
" The women then began 
To quarrel with the men." 
(Old English song.) 
What has been the net result of the heap of 
nonsense that has been written of late years upon 
the still vexed questions, "women's rights" and 
"what shall we do with our daughters?" 
Well ! assuming that, with regard to the first 
question, women have " rights," why do they not 
combine and set about vigorously to exeroise them ; 
if they would carry out thoroughly the following 
suggestion, they would at once solve the second 
question " what shall we do with our daughters ?" 
My plan is simply (?) this. As probably not one man 
in a thousand cares, or, if even he did, dares, to 
interfere with the tea department of his household, 
why should not the ladies make this department 
distinctly their own ? It only requires a good 
leader and my proposed transformation would 
speedily be accomplished. One has only to con- 
sider the thousands of women at present employed 
by the Post Office, and the thousands more em- 
ployed as clerks, to see that "want of organiza- 
tion and business habits" could scarcely be the 
causes which would result in the failure of my 
scheme, supposing it were taken up with something 
like the enthusiasm it deserves. From the buying 
of tea in Mincing Lane, or even its importation 
direct from India and Ceylon, down to its final 
distribution amongst all classes of the community, 
why should not the grand enterprise be conducted 
throughout (excepting of course the "haulage" 
where men's services must be employed) by women 
and women alone? 
How many gentlemen of the present day, retired 
officers of the Army and Navy, men from our 
universities, &o. &c, find profitable employment 
in establishing themselves as agents for the sale 
and distribution of produots which closely con- 
cern their sex and in whioh business women, as a rule, 
do not care to interfere. 1 refer, of course, to the 
enormous business done in the supplying of wineB, 
spirits, cigars, tobacco, &c, &o. &o. — a far vaster 
business than the tea trade could be ever ex- 
pected to become 1 — Well, let the gentlemen keep 
o this class of business nad as gentlemen leave 
he tea business to the ladies 1 Surely there is no 
