Lord Wolsely, late Commander in Chief of the British Army, wrote as follows:-- "It fell to my lot to lead a brigade through a distant country for more than 600 miles. I fed the men as well as I could, but no one, officer or private, had anything stronger than tea to drink during the expedition. The men had peculiarly hard work to do, and they did it well, and without a murmur. We seem to have left crime and sickness behind us with the 'grog,' for the conduct of all was most exemplary and no one was ever ill. " Mr. Winter Blyth, Medical Officer of Health for Marylebone, (London), says in reference to long cycling excursions, and experiments with beer and spirits,--"My own experience as to the best drink when on the road is most decidedly in favor of Tea. Tea appears to rouse both the nervous and muscular systems, with, so far as I can discover, no after-depressing effects." "Edward Payson Weston, the great Pedestrian, finds in Tea and rest the most effective restoratives. He once walked 5000 miles in 100 days, and after each day's work, lectured on 'Tea versus Beer.'" C. J. Nichod, late Secretary of the London Athletic Club, writes in his book--"Guide to Athletic Training," that "Tea is preferable for training purposes, possessing less heating properties and being more digestible than beer or spirits." Cowper's lines, however hackneyed in quotation, are still classic in their application to English homes and their evening accompaniment, Tea. "Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in." "Tea" was the designation of the customary evening meal in most American families for about two centuries, and as late as 1850, since which time it has merged in the more substantial "late dinner," in cities and towns especially, although the last meal of the closing day is still "Tea" in spirit and in name in many families where commercial necessities have not compelled change. The same is true of England from which we derive our customs, and with which we also changed it. According to Washington Irving's veracious History of New York, tea-parties were indulged in by the Dutch inhabitants of New Amsterdam during the reign of Governor Wouter Van Twiller (which commenced in 1633). Irving says: "But though our worthy ancestors were singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bonds of intimacy by occasional banqueting, called tea parties.