March 1, 1902.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 601 
particularly Jeaclly when eaten by cattle, to 
which it is fatal in a very few hours. Another 
plant used for preparing poison in India, 
which produces a drug used by some tribes 
of Thugs for procnririg the death of their 
victims, datura or stramonium, has now found a 
place amongst our wild flowers. It has an 
English name, thorn-apple, and is said to have 
been naturalised by the gipsies who used the seeds 
as a meiicine and narcotic and carried them about 
with them in their wanderings. Like henbane 
it is often seen on rubbish-heaps and in old 
brickfields. The leaf is very handsome and the 
flower white and trumpet-shaped. Both this plant 
and the henbane retain their poisonous properties 
even when dried in hay, and stalled cows have 
been known to be poisoned by fodder containing 
mixture of the latter plant. 
Cattle have a delicate sense of smell which 
warns them of the danger of most poisonous 
English herb?, though apparently this warning 
odour is absent from the plants which kill so many 
horses when the grass grows on the South African 
veld, and also from our English yew. Yew was 
anciently employed as a poison in Europe, much 
as is the curari today in Central America. Dr. 
W T Fernie, the author of 'Herbal Simples 
Approved for Modern Use,' says that its jaice is 
a rapidly fatal poison, that it was used for 
poisoning arrows, and that the symptoms corre- 
spond in a very retnarkable way with those which 
follow the bites of venomous snakes. It is be- 
lieved that in India there is a poison which pro- 
duces the same elfect. An Indian Rajah once 
desired that a notiee should be put in a well- 
known paper that he did not intend to raise his 
rents on his accession to the estales. The pro- 
prietor of the paper asked him his reasons for 
wishing for such an advertisement. The Kajah 
said that his grandfather bad raised the rents, 
and had died of snake ; that his father had done 
the same, and had also died of suake-bite, and 
that he concluded that there was some connection 
of cause and effect. The notice was inserted, and 
this Rajah did not die of snake-bite, tr rather of 
the poison which simulates it. — Spectator, Jan. 11. 
We do not imagine the Ohancellor of the Exche- 
quer needs very many hints even from economists like 
Sir Robert Giffen. While glad, no doubt, of the 
opinion of soice wellkuown authority within the 
charmed circle of oflicialism, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach 
is an oM Parliamdntary hand, and he knows the tax- 
able capacity of most men and things. He may not 
just now be very particular as to his victims, but 
he v/ill show a remarkable disregard of circumstances 
should he, in the face of the lepL-eseutations made 
to him, burden the tea industry with any further duty. 
Even a Chancellor of the Exchequer must have some 
sense of the eternal fitness of things, and to pile up 
the load on the shoulders of people already tottering 
under a heavy weight should be repulsive to his notion 
of justice and true political economy. 
Apropos the brilliant suggestions made by Sir 
Robert Giffeu about t'-xation, the "Speaker" cites 
the following passage in one of Sir Robert Giffen's 
Essays in Finauce." The essay in question 
is a generous appreciation of Mr Gladstone's 
work in finance and was composed in 1868, the first 
year of Mr Gladstone's first Ministry. Mr Giffen, aa 
he then was, thought that there was much still to be 
accomplished for he wrote : " The duty on corn, the 
taxes on locomotion, not a few of the stamp duties 
the fire insurance tax, the tea and sugar duties are all 
burdens whose abolition would benefit the couutry and 
for the most part put monsy directly into the pockets 
of the poor." And a complacent footnote is added to 
the edition of 1880 : The taxes here referred to have 
almost all been abolished since 1869. ' Since 1880 
many things have happened and amongst them it ia 
noticeable that Sir Robert Giffen does not think as did 
Mr Giffen about the tax on tea, for he now suggests 
that instead of abolishing the tax altogether it should 
be largely increased. 
THE THREATENED INCREASE IN 
THE TEA DUTY. 
The sensitive state of commercial feeling with re- 
sard to the intentions of the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer may find no settled relief until the budget 
Broposals are announced, but we are glad to see that 
a deputation from the tea industry will wait upon 
the Chancellor next week. The mystery surrounding 
everything connected with future taxation is supposed 
to be profound, but occasionally the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer unbends and throws a crumb of comfort 
to those who clamour for it. We trust he may do 
BO in the case of the tea industry. Since ihe letter 
of Sir Robert Giffen to the Times, and the comments 
it called forth, there have been no further staiLiing 
theories put forward on the subject of taxation. One 
home iournal, by the way, has taken exception to 
the comments cabled here of a Calcutta coatem- 
norarv which, if its remarks were correctly reproduced, 
suegested that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
instead of imposing an additional burden on tea, 
should rather tax cocoa and other produce, ihese 
remarks were resented by the home 30urnal, the 
iuftience beiua th^a it is uot the province of an 
Indian paper to makt suggestions affecting British 
taxpayers, an idea which, if pat into practice, would 
knock the Imperialistic doctrine into a cocked hat. 
The meetings held in India and Ceylon show tha 
tea pi inters have lost no time in protesting against 
the danger of the situation. If once the deed be done 
protestation will be unavailing. The Chancellor of the 
Exchequer it IS argued is not a sentimentalist and he must 
have money and plenty of it and therefore in case he 
should take Sir Robert Giffen's hint, it is well to know 
that the tea planters of India and Ceyon have protested 
vigorously. It ia a remarkable thing that while the 
British Government is professing the deepest anxiety 
for the West Indies and sugar producers there and 
laudable efforts are being made with a view to the 
relief of the depressed sugar iudustry, some of our 
political economists just to show the irony of things 
seem anxious to bring about disaster to the tea 
iudustry of India and Ceylon. — E. C. Mail, Jan. 24, 
CARDAMOMS IN FRENCH INDO-CHINA, 
The Revue cles Cultures Coloniales of Nov- 
embei 5th, in the course of a long article 
on the cardamoms of Frencli Indo-China, states 
that the exports to Singapore and Hong- 
kong may be considered as representing the 
total production of the country, the quantity 
consumed locally being insignificant. Neailythe 
whole of the crop is sent to China via Hong- 
kong. It is the Chinese, moreover, in (Jainhodia, 
Lr!0=, Annam and Tonkin who buy or exchange 
the cardamoms with the producers, and I hen send 
them to the different ports wlience rhey are ex- 
ported. This trade is said to be entirely in their 
liands. The port of shiiimetit for Cambodia 
fcii i apart of Laos i;- Saigon, with Cholonasenire- 
ipot and market. The exi">i's from Annam and 
the region round Lhcs go via Vaili, and Tonkin 
via liaipong. This later port; also receives many 
earaamoms from Annam. The following tabl? 
