PERMISSIVE BILL FOR TEA DRINKERS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1117, 21 October 1873, Page 3

PERMISSIVE BILL FOR TEA DRINKERS.

[jIEIJBdUBNE A'RCiUS/] What about a permissive bill to 'restrain 'Or repress the sale and consumption of tea;? A very .plausible <case is made out in favor of a legislative •enactment of this 'hind by a well-known in the St. Paul's Magazine; •and at the -fluctuating •tendencies of ipublic opinion, it is quite upon the cards that we may •find a number of social reformers, with ; a strong antipathy to tea toleration, 'banding themselves together to .prevent :and perhaps prohibit, the demoralising •and destructive <habit of tea drinking. 'Our authority for the application of 'these disparaging epithets to the leverage which -Pope has immortalised in the "Rape of the Lock," is the referred to above, who quotes •medical testimony m proof of the •deleterious effects of the Chinese herb, : and discovers in its universal use the •cause of our national demoralisation. He says ;—" England, considered as a ■mart, is one vast gambling hell. From 'the rotten banks and rotten insurance •companies, down to rotten ships, -it is -all the same story." Tennyson, if we remember rightly, said something of the same sort in Maud, when he asked, " Who but a fool would have faiflb in a tradesman's ware or his word ? " What •is it then, -which has so relaxed the moral fibre of the nation ? What has sapped the foundations of British •manliness and in'tegrity ? 'Where is English ? " des/pondingly inquires the writer in St Pauls ; and the answer he gives to his own question is, **' Drowned in ihe tea-pot." The " smoking tide "is responsible for all the mischief. The frequent cups which prolonged the rich repast of Belinda •and Clarissa'have acted "through the •nervous system on the conscience, and turned us into a nation of sneaks." •Accordingly, in a mingled strain of •seriousness and irony, our social ireformer proceeds to argue in favor of the whole tea trade to legislative <cheoks. Visitors, appointed by 'the Govornmerit, sliould go from house to ibouse, armed with authority to '" inqifire into the quantity of tea drunk in every ihonselidld, whether hlack or "mixed, and the strength of the infusion. Let-every tea-'dealer keep a register of his customers, and if, upon a monthly or ;a quarterly average, it is found that his sales go beyond « quarter of a pound a year for each adult, fine him, or nail his -ear to the door-, or something of that sort." These recommendations involve no greater absurdity, and, if carried into effect, would lead to no more injurious restrictions upon individual freedom than would result from the adoption of the Permissive Bill originally introduced into the Assembly; and the promoters of legislation of this kind would do well to remember that there is a possibility of their own weapons being turned against them in a manner they do not contemplate.