There is a certain class of people who take every opportunity of sneering at their neighbours for indulging in the “folly” of drinking tea, which they tell you is poisonous, and for the use of which the Chinese, as they say, make a point of laughing at us. I have generally remarked, that those who in this manner condemn the use of tea are themselves addicted to the drinking of intoxicating liquids of some kind or other, and that, in most instances, they are not a bit more healthful or more innocent than the unhappy tea-drinkers whom they affect to pity. In the way that tea is usually made, with a large mixture of sugar and cream, both which ingredients are highly nutritious, it is fully more salutary, and a great deal more refreshing, than any other light liquid that could be poured into the stomach. With all due deference to Cobbett, milk, even entirely divested of its creamy particles, is _heavy_; and though it may be used with advantage as a meal, when work is done in the open air, it can never suit the appetites of the great mass of the people, who are confined by sedentary employments. Milk is the food of men in a rude state, or in childhood; but tea or well-made coffee is their beverage in a state of civilisation. It would seem that the civilised human being must use a large quantity of liquid food. Perhaps solid meat is more nutritious; but there are cases in which a small degree of nutriment is quite sufficient. A lady or a gentleman of sedentary habits does not require to feed like a ploughman, or a fancy man training for a pedestrian excursion. They can subsist in a healthful state with a small quantity of solid food, but they do not do well unless with a large quantity of liquids, and these of a light quality. Good beer has been recommended as a substitute for tea; but beer is at the best a cold ungenial drink, except to robust people who have much exercise. Beer may certainly be made almost as light as water itself, but in that case it is filled with gaseous matter or confined air, and it cannot be drunk with comfort as a simple refreshment.