Tea, with which we are all so familiar, is in reality a number of dried rolled leaves of the tea plant, Camellia Thea, cultivated chiefly in China and the contiguous countries. It is used excessively throughout Australasia--for has it not been shown that our four million people use more of this beverage than the millions who inhabit Continental Europe, if Russia be excepted? This fact is much to be deplored, for when taken in excess it causes severe functional derangement of the digestive organs, and prejudicially affects the nervous system. The gentler sex are greatly given to extravagant tea-drinking, exceeding all bounds of moderation in this respect. Many of them, moreover, live absolutely on nothing else but tea and bread and butter. What wonder, then, that they grow pale and bloodless; that their muscles turn soft and flabby; that their nervous system becomes shattered; and that they suffer the agonies of indigestion? Their favourite time for a chat and the consumption of tea is at any period between ten o'clock in the morning and three in the afternoon. Now, if there is anything of which I am certain, it is that tea in the middle of the day, say from ten o'clock to three, is a deadly destructive fluid. And I am equally certain, too, that innumerable numbers of young girls employed in business do themselves an irreparable amount of injury by making their mid-day meal consist of nothing else but tea and a little bread and butter. There is no nourishment whatever in such fare, and it inevitably leads to the bad symptoms already detailed and general unhealthiness, if not to the onset of graver disease. No, they require something which is nutritious, such as a little warm soup of some kind, a modicum of bread, and say two different varieties of vegetables to follow. Of course this may be extended to include pudding, stewed fruit, &c., but the former is ample enough in many respects. This is a very important matter to which the attention of proprietors and managers of large establishments, factories, and other places employing many female hands might well be directed. And, moreover, if ever there was an opportunity for an active organization to achieve really valuable work, it would be in seeing that our city girls had something better to eat in the middle of the day than tea and bread and butter.