222 Bad EffeSts of Tea , and Opinions of Doctors. 
LETTER V. 
To the fame . 
M At) AM, 
T HOUUH habit reconciles us to the life of tea, as it 
does turks to opium, may we not with great propriety 
afk thefe limple quedions ? Is it not didurbing the operations 
of nature to drink when neither third; nor heat provokes ? Do 
we not often drink tea when we have already drank too great a 
quantity of water, or other diluting liquors? Would not cold 
liquids fometimes relieve nature better than hot ?— 1 The polite 
quedion is, “ have you drank your tea ?” It is fuppofed that 
every body drinks tea every evening, and every morning. 
Will the fons and daughters of this happy ifle, this reputed 
abode of fenfe and liberty, for ever fubmit to the bondage of fo 
tyrannical a cudom ? Mud the young and old, and middle 
aged, the dckly and the drong, in warm weather and cold, 
in moid and dry, with one common confent, employ fo many 
precious hours, and risk their health in fo low a gratification as 
drinking tea ? Mud we be bred up from generation to gene- 
ration to this unnecedary and abfurd expence ; and by creating 
a want which nature does not make, become unhappy, if it is 
not regularly fupplied ? 
I am not young, but methinfes there is not quite fo much 
beauty in this land as there was. Your very chamber maids 
have lod their bloom by sipping tea ; even the agitations of 
the pallions at cards are hardly fo great enemies to beauty. 
What 
