“Burned! when so many people would be glad of it! Would not the common people in England like it, if they could get it as cheap as salt? If they did, they would make the fortunes of the people here.” “And then the people here would make the fortunes of a great many of the working people in England. This would certainly be the case.—What do you think the people in England eat most of, Alice?” “Bread, I suppose.” “Yes; and salt comes next. And what next?—Another sort of seasoning.” It was not pepper, nor mustard; but something that every body liked and used,—from the infant that will leave sucking its thumb for it, to the old man that has but one tooth left in his head;—from the king who lets his queen put it into his coffee, to the labourer’s wife who carries home a coarse sample of it on the Saturday night. “That must be sugar. But I think almost every thing that is good with sugar would be better with cinnamon; and if cinnamon was made very cheap, what a quantity would be used, and how rich the growers might be! They would grow more and more, and employ more people, till this whole large island was one great cinnamon garden——” “Every part of it that is fit for such a purpose; every part that has a light dry sandy soil like that which we are riding over so pleasantly. And then much more use would be made of the rest of the land, the richer the inhabitants grew. There would be more rice, and more fruits, and more dye-woods, and more timber, and more of all the useful and beautiful things that this paradise will produce.” Alice wondered that the whole world did not cry out for more cinnamon; and her father agreed with her that such a cry would probably be raised, if the greater part of the world did but know how good cinnamon is. They never could have known, or they would not so easily agree to go without it, for the sake of the pockets of the East India Company.