Morning journal and courier., 1880-12-17
Tea and Tea Drinking.

A writer in the London Telegraph argues to show that it is not true that British work ing people drink tea excessively, or that it has become so far substitute for wholesome food as to have pernicious effect on their physical condition. He then goes on to say Cocoa is certainly cheaper than either tea or coffee and the nut of the cocoa, which forms one of the ingredients of the modern prepa- ration known as COCOA is said to contain no less than fifty per cent. of fat in the form of stearine and oleine, called ''butter of cocoa" An abundant regimen of cocoa might make working people fat, as one of chocolate would probably make them bilious; but would it make them strong? That is 8 question which has puzzled many of the long est heads among the physicians and chemists, notably in Germany.
 nitrogenized, ,crystallized principle, called s'theobromine, D has been discovered in the seeds of the cocoa, and has been pronounced to be very similar to t'caffeine :" which on it's part is crystalline, salifable base, which has been found to be identical with ''theine" or t'theina," the fundamental principle in the tea which we drink, although it is not con- sidered as the principle which imparts to the tea it's peculiar properties. Liebig held that stcaffeine'' or 'theine, with the addition of oxygen and the elements of water yield ''taurine," the nitrogenical compound pecu- liar to bile j; while the flavor of tea is said to depend on it's volatile oil, which alone acts as narcotic, but, in connection with the tannin evolved by the action of the hot water on the tea leaves, is slight stimulant. A high authority on dietetics, Dr. .Pereira, writ ing more than five and thirty years ago. was obliged to admit that, notwithstanding the extensive employment of tea in this country, it is no easy matter to ascertain its precise effects on the constitution ;'' nor has the sum of information on the subject perceptibly in creased since the learned physician in ques- ton wrote his celebr ated work on food and diet.
 This much, however, is known, that it's as- tringent qualities, due to it's tannin, may be made useful in cases of poisoning by opium or by poisonous mushrooms that it may be employed as an antisoporifc to counteract the effects of intoxicating iqrors that it is 8 se- datiyo to the heart and blood vessels; that it will relieve the stupor of fear and that it Is well adapted for the treatment of febrile and infiammatory disorders Moreover, Dr. Per eira held that, if the suggestions of Liebig were correct, tea was by no means to be con- sidered as mere dilutent, but as possessing nutritive power of no mean kind.
 On the other hand, it is obvious that it is as possible to use too much tea as it is too much tobacco, or to eat too much lentil soup, or too many sweatmeats. It has been well pointed out that the immense extension of the consumption of tea and cofee-both con- taining, the same organic principle-among all classes of society in Great Britain can only be accounted for by that wonderful in stinct which often takes the place of reason and science.
 Nearly thirty years ago Mir. Charles Tom linson observed that much had been written on the folly of poor people spending money on the purchase of tea instead of directly nu- tritive food; but if the authority of Liebig were to be recognized, the folly was with the writers in question and not with the pur- chasers of tea; for, to say nothing of the di- intuition of inhammatory diseases consequent on it's general use, tea proves to the poor substitute for animal food, and to females and to persons engaged in sedentary pursuits it becomes substitute for bodily exercise. Surely among the ''infammatory diseases' thus generally mentioned should be reckoned the particularly and disastrously inhamma- tory disease of intoxication. While excess in tea drinking, as in everything else, should be deprecated, there was perhaps never a time when it was more impolitic to warn the wife of the workingman against indulging in comfortable cup of tea. As rule it would do vast amount of good if she would drink more tea and less beer and gin. It is the duty of the real, not the fanatical, friends of temperance to point to the fact that habitual drunkenness among English women of the working classes is advancing in alarming strides