The New York herald., 1873-12-10
Tea Drinking Ex,raordinary.


The ladies have not yet fully made up their
minds as to what they will do next Tuesday,
the one hundredth anniversary Of the up
setting of the tea in Boston harbor They
have one week remaining and within that
time we hope they will be able to compass
definite and useful action. Any structures
therefore, which this article may be con-
strued as insnuating will have refer
ence rather to what we understand the
ladies in various parts of the United
States intend doing than to anything we
absolutely know on the subject. When
the sex most interested is ignorant Of
its own intentions it ought not to be ex-
pected that our knowledge should be exact
and comprehensive. But we believe
certain ladies in Philadelphia, not un-
connected with the womans rights move
ments and owning to semi-patriotic,
semi-progressive interest in the Independence
Centennial intend holding next Tuesday
night mammoth tea-drinking upon the stage
Of the Academy Of Music, in that city. If SO,
the sight will certainly be instructive, and will
probably draw better than either Nilsson or
Salvini We have heard whispers of q similar
movement in Boston, and our prayer is that
the beverage may not be too strong for the
fragile organizations that are to be subjected
to its influence. It will be learned without
astonishment that like enterprise is enter
tanned in Salt Lake City. The less hold q
woman has over her husband the more she is
addicted to drowning her sorrows in the in
toxicating teacup, and when she finds her
chances Of conjugal tenacity lessened by COM
petition with twenty other wives the more
certain it is that she will fly to the
divine herb of China for relief. We
believe that the ladies of New York
have abjured Oolong and English breakfast" 4"
and have addressed themselves to sterner
and weightier matters of the law. Still it is
difficult to resist the conviction that the gen.
eral sentiment Of ladies who have taken the
trouble to form an opinion on this matter is
decidedly in favor Of tea fight A conversa-
tional skirmish over cup and saucer is what
very few of the gentler sex can at any time re-
sist. Between their husbands, their children,
their servants and their ailments it is impos-
sble that under social conditions such as
this, the current of confidence should easily
ebb. How much greater must be the tempta-
ton to indulge when dignifed by the patriotic
and picturesque associations which the
remembrance Of Boston harbor and
Grif6n's wharf presents? With the third
cup of tea every wronged woman (and
what woman is not wronged?) will imagine
she has demolished man. But it is to be
hoped that the avidity with which she quaffs
the fragrant mixture is not typical of quies-
cence under injury. When man is taxed
without representation he upsets his tea;
when woman suffers in the same way she sits
down and drinks it. Will she similarly swal-
low her wrongs? Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Liver
more, Miss Anthony, ye sacred three, forbid
At the same time, we are willing to admit
that their commemorative tea drinking might
be made pretty and touching affair, borrowing
its traits of beauty from the virtue, gentleness
and grace of the sex especially partaking in it,
and its dignity and sentiment from the heroic
favor of q fact whose renown has survived a
century. It is our wish to look at the celebra-
ton in its true and legitimate light, divested
of those burlesque characteristics which few
earnest but over-zealous ladies unconsciously
give to it.