For a time it appeared that so far as one class of the community was concerned, the use of Tea was likely to be checked by the imperious sway of inconstant Fashion. It became the custom in the houses of the aristocracy to supply only coffee after dinner, so that, for a period, Tea was ostracised. Recently however, a reaction has set in, for we find that the most agreeable meetings in “Society” are those which assemble at “the five o’clock Tea.” Accordingly one of the whirligigs of time has so conspired, that while the fashionable breakfast and dinner hours are completely revolutionised, the hour for Tea has reverted to the precise period of the day at which it used to be taken one hundred years ago. Although noble ladies have not now black pages to hand round the tea-cups, yet the very china used by their great grandmothers is called into requisition simply because of its antiquity. One circumstance calls for special notice. It is this, that in the words of Dr. Johnston[B] “Everywhere unintoxicating and non-narcotic beverages are in general use among tribes of every colour, beneath every sun, and in every condition of life. The custom, therefore, must meet some universal want of our common nature.” [B] Chemistry of Common Life. Philanthropists and sociologists are now fully alive to the moral effects produced by such non-intoxicant drinks as Tea and Coffee. Intemperance is the bane of the nation. And now that legislation has utterly failed to restrain the evils arising therefrom, philanthropy, full of faith in the experiment, endeavours by the establishment, in divers quarters, of quite a different class of “Public Houses,” to arrest an evil which is assuming the gravest character. And there can be no doubt that if the masses could be induced to substitute the pure beverages Tea and Coffee for the deleterious fluids they are wont to imbibe, the country would be vastly benefited by the salutary change. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. THE “DRINK OF HEALTH.” Now that the benefits derived from the use of Tea can be fairly estimated, it may be said, in the language of an eminent statesman: “What was first regarded as a luxury, has now become, if not an absolute necessity, at least one of our accustomed daily wants, the loss of which would cause more suffering and excite more regret than would the deprivation of many things which once were counted as necessaries of life.” Consumed by all classes, serving not simply as an article of diet, but as a refreshing and invigorating beverage, Tea cannot be too highly estimated. The wisdom of successive financiers, and the enterprise of generations of merchants, have combined to deliver Tea in this country at a price which brings it within the reach of every individual, making it, perhaps, the only real luxury which is common to rich and poor alike.