How did tea-meetings originate? According to a writer in the _Newcastle Chronicle_, the teetotalers were the first to introduce these popular social gatherings. "Originally started as a medium of raising funds," he says, "they were conducted in a very different style from that so widely adopted at the present day. Our friends knew of no such thing as a contract for the supply of the viands at so much a head, and they had no experience to teach them how many square yards of bread a pound of butter could be made to cover. Our wives and sweethearts then undertook the purveying and management of our tea-parties. Each took a table accommodating from sixteen to twenty persons, and presided in person. And, oh! what hearty, jolly, comfortable gatherings we used to have in the old Music Hall in Blackett Street, amidst the abundance of singing hinnies, hot wigs, and spice loaf, served up in tempting display, tea of the finest flavour served in the best china from the most elegant of teapots, accompanied with the brightest of spoons, the thickest of cream, and the blandest of smiles! It is much to be regretted that this excess of gratification should have produced an evil which ultimately changed the character of these pleasant assemblies. A spirit of rivalry among the ladies as to who should have the richest and most elegantly-furnished table became so prevalent that their lords and masters were obliged to protest against the excessive expenditure; and thus the ladies, not being allowed to have their own way, declined to take any further share in the work. This was a great misfortune, as the proceeds considerably augmented the resources of the Temperance Society." No such fate met these popular gatherings in other towns. They were conducted on a scale of great magnitude, especially in the birthplace of the temperance movement in England, the town of Preston. Here lives Joseph Livesey, the patriarch of the movement, now in his ninety-first year. The third tea-party of the Preston Temperance Society in 1833, at Christmas, is thus described:--