But the argument that tea shortens the life of every man who drinks it is absurd. "It is said," remarked Wm. Howitt, "that Mithridates could live and flourish on poisons, and, if it is true that tea or coffee is a poison, so do most of us. Wm. Hutton, the shrewd and humorous author of the histories of Birmingham and Derby, and also of a life of himself, scarcely inferior to that of Franklin in lessons of life-wisdom, said that he had been told that coffee was a slow poison, and he added that he had found it very slow, for he had drunk it more than sixty years without any ill effect. My experience of tea, as well as coffee," added Howitt, "has been the same." Howitt's experience is the experience of tens of thousands of people. The moral in this, as in other matters, is that people must judge for themselves whether tea is injurious or beneficial. As Dr. Poore candidly admits, "a properly controlled appetite, or instinct, is as safe a guide in the matters of diet as a physiologist or a moralist." FOOTNOTES: [5] "It is not safe, in regard to the action of a drug on animals, to conclude that its effect will be the same on men. For instance, belladonna, which is a deadly poison for men, does not hurt rabbits."--_Professor Rolleston._ [6] There may be some truth in this statement. "I do not remember any mention of tea in Wycherley, but in Congreve's 'Double Dealer' (Act 1, Scene 1, p. 175 a), the scene is laid at Lord Touchwood's house; and when Careless inquires what has become of the ladies, just after dinner, Mellefont replies, "Why, they are at the end of the gallery, retired to tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.""--_Buckle, Common-Place Book._ CHAPTER VIII. TEA AS A SOURCE OF REVENUE. Tea heavily taxed--How it was adulterated in the "Good Old Times"--Efforts to secure a reduction in the duty--Why crime and ignorance prevail--Mr. Disraeli's proposal to reduce the duty on tea, opposed by Mr. Gladstone--Mr. Gladstone's legislation--The Chancellor of the Exchequer memorialized to reduce the duty on Indian tea--The annual expenditure on tea--Professor Leoni Levi's estimate of its consumption by the working classes. Tea had not been in use many years before the government discovered in it a valuable means of replenishing the national exchequer. Accordingly they passed a law, in 1660, imposing a duty of eightpence per gallon on all tea made and sold in coffee-houses, which were visited twice daily by officers. It would occupy too much space to describe subsequent legislation, but the subject appears at times to have been almost as perplexing as the liquor traffic to the various governments.