238 LIVES floortened by TEA. 
earth, converts green tea into bohea; it gives an aftringency 
in the mouth, with a fweetifh tafte, and a brown color, to 
that which had neither color nor tafte before : it alfo adds 
twenty-five per cent, to the weight. This mock tea thus be- 
comes an aftringent, and often occafions a dry cholic : and 
what remedy for the cholic fo good as gin ? or what remedy fo 
cheap, or fo easily procured ? But whether the diforder arife 
from this, or any other kind of tea, we have too much reafon 
to think that common nurfes often drink drams • and were it 
only a dram occafionally, the poor infant, if it is not ftarved 
for want of wholfome food, is poifoned with the noxious effects 
of fuch aliment. Was this the pradice in the days of our 
grandmothers ? Did women, with children at their breafts, 
venture to fwallow a fingle drop of liquid fire, except as a 
medicine in urgent cafes ? A temperate draught of cold fmall- 
beer, or a mess of warm milk-porridge, created no neceftity or 
defire of gin. But this is not the cafe of tea ; there are numbers 
of tea-drinkers who find gin more neceflary to fupport their 
spirits than bread. The fipping of any liquid is apt to cre- 
ate a flatulency ; but the fipping of the infufion of bad tea, al- 
ways made ftrong, and generally loaded with fugar, not only 
creates a scorbutic habit, but generally gives them the fpleen, 
or hypocondria. Thefe diftempers were not familiar before tea 
came in ftiftiion, even amongft fine ladies, but hardly ever 
known amongft the poor. Thus whilft thefe nurfes ignorantly 
or vicioufly injure their own conftitutions, what can we exped 
will be the fate of the poor infant ? 
I 
