But John, “with all his easy gullibility,” will, no doubt say, “this is all stuff; show me proofs.” Well, John, thou art a good creature, thou wilt never believe “aught against thy enemy,” until he hath robbed thee of thy senses, and what is dearer to thee, thy “_stuff_.” But to prevent a too frequent repetition of thy misfortune, I will open the budget to thy admiring eyes. Look, John, over thy files of the London Newspapers, particularly the “Times” and “Courier,” from March to July, in the year 1818, and there thou mayest entertain thy optics and cerebral nerves with a goodly array of prosecutions and convictions of manufacturers and venders of factitious tea. In one instance, thou wilt read of £840 damages being given against one culprit. Nor is this all of the illicit doings, John. There have been many prosecutions and convictions since the time specified, with which I recommend thee to recreate “thy often infirmity” of incredulity. Mr. Accum, at page 203 of his work, says that, in Scotland and Ireland, the penalties imposed for this offence “amounted, during a few months, to more than fifteen thousand pounds!” With respect to the medicinal or deleterious effects of tea on the animal economy, it would be misplaced to occupy the pages of a work of this nature with their discussion. To such of my readers as may wish to inform themselves on this subject, I recommended the perusal of “The Oracle of Health and Long Life; or, Plain Rules for the Preservation and Attainment of Sound Health and Vigorous Old Age. By Medicus;” as the intelligent author of that publication has discussed the matter with great ingenuity, and furnished a variety of hints and information calculated to be of essential service to the consumers of this most important article of Asiatic imports. Here it will be more useful to detail the ready tests or methods of detecting its adulteration. For it is an undoubted fact, as “Medicus” observes, that many of the noxious qualities attributed to tea, arise from the two-fold sophistication which it is frequently doomed to undergo both from the Chinese and English adulterator before it reaches the hands of the consumer. Where it is suspected that tea is adulterated with the leaves of other shrubs, the fraud, if not discoverable by the appearance and fragrant odour of the article, may be detected by putting a grain and a half of blue vitriol into a cupful of the infusion, when, if it be genuine green tea, and set in a good light, it will appear of a fine light blue. If it be genuine bohea, it will turn to a deep blue, next to black; but when an adulteration has been made in either case, a variety of colours, as green, black, yellow, &c. will be seen in the samples submitted to the experiment.