i66 
[September i, 1890. 
THF TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
The question is a curious one, for it involves a 
good deal of human nature. Is the value of a 
precious stone wholly dependent upon its rarity, 
and the consequent proof it affords that its owner 
is possessed of unusual weaTb, or, at all events, 
of wealth which he can afford to waste ? That 
is a nearly universal assumption, especially with 
those to whom wealth is in itself an offence, and 
it has this support at least, that many a woman 
who would despise pretence thinks, if she actually 
has the diamonds at her bankers’, she may wear 
their copies in paste. We venture, nevertheless, 
to question its entire correctness, The enormous 
market price of precious stones, as compared with 
their bulk and utility, is no doubt due to their 
rarity, and the consequent gratification to vanity 
which their possession affords ; but their whole 
value does not consist in that. The desire for 
them is provoked algo by their inherent beauty, as 
of flowers gifted with an attribute of permanence, and 
possibly also by that instinctive taste for shining 
things which has made dewdrops strike all races 
as exquisitely beautiful — nobody dver paid for a 
dewdrop — and which, as many doctors know, rises 
in some men and women to a well-marked kind of 
insanity. Many kleptomaniacs can control them- 
selves against their temptation so long as the 
coveted article does not glitter. No possible case 
of manufacture can make an eternal dewdrop other 
than beautiful, or take away the ruby’s gift of 
setting off flesh, or dim the strange flash of the 
opal, so utterly unlike anything else that Nature 
has produced. [By-the-way, the reference to the 
opal may be a mistake, for the beauty of that jewel, 
being the result of Nature’s failure and not of her 
success — for she can hardly have intended those 
hiatuses which yield the iridescence — may be wholly 
beyond even the ablest chemist’s art.] The taste 
for jewels would be universal, if only the people 
ever thought of them as possibly procurable ; and 
if they sank heavily in price, they would be uni- 
versally worn, as, indeed, the cheaper jewels and 
the imitations are already. What would happen, 
we believe, therefore, if jewels became cheap, is that 
the rich would abandon them in their present 
form, which tends more and more to a costly 
simplicity, — the stones being, as it were, bared 
of all other ornament — and that whole populations 
would take them up, thus constituting them once 
more a great article of commerce. Every woman 
above the poorest would use the stones for ornament. 
It is Birmingham jewellery that would die, not the 
real article. The rich, moreover, would defend 
themselves by calling art to their aid, and we should 
see not only a wonderful improvement in goldsmiths’ 
work, now often devoid of even a pretence of art- 
feeling, but a sudden and splendid revival of the art 
of the gem engraver, now so nearly dead. The 
ruby collar of the Marchioness would be almost 
as costly as ever, as a triumph of design and 
workmanship— even Socialists could hardly make 
the first designer in Europe use his gift with a 
willing heart for a pound a week — while diamonds 
would become with the women of the people what 
pearls used to be in some parts of Italy, ornaments 
with which it was almost indecorous, certainly 
quite bad form, on high occasions to dispense. The 
jewel trade would bo destroyed as it is, and all 
jewel-owners would fed as if they had bought Irish 
land or the bonds of a repudiating State ; but there 
would be a new jewel trade embracing entire 
populations. Plain people would be too wise 
for such folly ? That is not quite so cer- 
tain. Plain people now are very like the 
select pe.iple of a century ago, and it is the 
picked “classes” of earth, the first in wealth and 
tsite and the means of enjoyment, who in all 
ages have admired the flash apparently so self- 
derived, though it is as much a reflection as if 
it came from a mirror, that makes the first beauty 
of precious stones. We do not believe that the 
enlightenment of mankind will alter the taste for 
them much — it has certainly not done it yet, — nor 
do we see why, when the Smith of tomorrow has 
been raised to the level of De Vere of today — a 
consummation still some way ofi — Smith’s tastes 
and De Vere’s should be so utterly unlike. The 
jewel trade will not die ; but we do not feel quite 
so certain as Mr. Bryant apparently does, that it 
may not be totally transformed, to the pecuniary 
injury of present holders. Fortunately, if science 
should produce such a catastrophe — and since, 
though usually favourable to the capitalist, is not 
invariably so — the area of ruin and misery would 
be comparatively limited. Dealers now rich would 
be pauperised ; but the mass of those who possess 
precious stone.s would lose only potential wealth. 
Their gems produce no interest, and if destroyed 
in value, would still in one way remain as valuable 
as they are now. They are only gold in the 
mine so long as they are locked up. — Spectator. 

IMPOETATION OP ADULTERATED TEA. 
A bill (H. R. 10,720) has been reported to the 
House of Representatives as substitute for H. R. 
bill 8,744. It is to amend the act entitled “ An 
Act to prevent the importation of adulterated 
and spurious teas,” approved March 2nd, 1883, 
The bill prohibits, after July 1st, 1891, “the im- 
portation of the article commercially known as ‘ tea 
dust ’ in seperate packages * * * and all ‘ tea 
dust ’ so imported shall be destroyed under the 
direction of the Collector of Customs.” We will 
publish the full text of the bill in our next, it 
having been received too late for the present issue. 
— American Grocer, June 18th. 
[We fear this will shut out genuine tea dst 
which is really wholesome and good tea. — En. T. A.] 
Coconuts. — It must be gratifying news to coconut 
estate proprietors to note advices received by wire 
of coconut oil being quoted at £28'10 per ton, the 
price having been a long time at a standstill bas 
£2.5. This, together with the fact that two mills 
preparing nuts for confectionery purposes utilize about 
20,000 nuts per diem between them, must be con- 
sidered good news by al) those interested in coconuts. 
The shipping of busked and unhnsked nuts seem to 
be steadily increasing, but in this particular line, owing 
either to ignorance or dishonesty of many entrusted 
with the choosing and buying of ripe nuts, complaints 
often reach the shippers of the bad quality of the 
nuts when they reach their destination. I see the 
Tamil member is utilizing the time when Council is 
not sitting to frequently visit his different allotments 
of coconut land in Western Province and to put on 
a spurt to work them up. 
A Very Interesting Paper has been published 
in the Burma official Gazette horn the Deputy Com- 
missioner of Bhamo, Mr. G. W. Shaw, on the 
Myauk Kudoung division of Momeik, a tract some 
50 miles long and 30 broad, unknown until the 
other day when our troops were acting against Kau 
Hlaing, a noted outlaw of those parts, and his 
following of Kachins, Shans and others. Mr. Shaw 
describes the tract as a mass of hills some 7,000 
feet above sea-level. The only flat ground consists 
of elevated valleys found here and there between 
the hills. Rice is cultivated and a little tea. The 
tea, however, is said to be bitter and of small 
value, fetching only one-fifth the price of Taung- 
baing tea of the same kind. The people say they are 
sufficiently occupied with growing rice for home 
comsumption and have not time to look after im« 
proving their tea.— June 21st, 
