is it a mixture of? Exhausted tea leaves,
leaves other than those of tea, beech,
elm, sycamore, horse chesnut, plane, plum,
fancy oak, willow, poplar, hawthorn, and sloe,
lie tea, paddy hush, Dutch pink, rose pink,
indigo, Prussian blue, mineral green, turmeric,
logwood, Chinese yellow, verdigris, arsenite
of copper, chromate and bichromate of potash,
gypsum, mica, magnesia "—

"My child, my child! " the alderman
exclaimed.

I went on hysterically, " black lead " — my
mother laid her cup down- " China clay or
kaolin, soapstone or French chalk, catechu or
Japan earth, gum, sulphate of iron. And,
oh! the commonest of all adulterations are
with catechu, a dangerous astringent, to give
a roughness that is like strength to the taste,
and with sulphate of iron, green vitriol—
poisonous stuff that acts upon a solution of
tea chemically, blackens it, and gives a
semblance of strength to the eye. It's catechu
they put in tea-improvers that poor women
buy, and a great deal of the tea is so
doctored in China that an attempt has been
made to import some of it as manufactured
goods, and though the tea-dealers in this
country are pretty honest—oh! please how
are we to know, when we haven't got a
laboratory and a microscope, whether we
drink tea or black lead and catechu for
breakfast?"

"Make me some coffee, Polly; make it this
minute!"

"Oh, pa! " I said, " you mean chicory,
which is a sort of dandelions. You know,
papa, you sent away the coffee-mill, because
it ground your sleep out of you every
morning, and there's no faith in ground
coffee; no, there is none, indeed, in spite of
orders of the government. Just turn to Dr.
Hassall's book, look here, papa. Sample of
' finest Turkey coffee ' — ' much chicory and
some roasted corn, very little coffee.' Would
you, as an alderman, condescend to breakfast
upon corn and dandelions? Look at the
' delicious family coffee '—' one-fourth coffee,
three-fourths chicory.' Look at the 'coffee
as in France ' — ' principally chicory.' Since
the government order which relates to the
adulteration with chicory, coffee has been
tested by the ' Lancet ' commissioners,
purchased as coffee in forty-two shops, and found
to be partly chicory, sometimes nearly all
chicory, with, now and then, corn or mangold
wurzel, in no less than thirty-one instances.
As for canister coffees, out of twenty-nine
samples purchased indiscriminately, twenty-
eight were adulterated, chicory forming, in
many instances, the chief part of the article.
There is no faith in man. Let me read this
to you, papa, which is said of a sample
purchased at a shop in one of the great
thoroughfares of London; I could show you more of
the sort. The following is a copy of a written
placart, of gigantic proportions, placed near
the shop door:—

GENUINE COFFEE.
NO ADULTERATION.
We conceive that it is our duty to caution our
friends and the public against the present unjust and
iniquitous system pursued by many grocers in
adulterating their coffee with

Roasted beans,
Dog-biscuit,
Chicory, and tan.

Our advice to purchasers of coffee is, to buy it in the
berry, and grind it yourselves; if you cannot do this,
purchase it of respectable men only; pay a fair and
honourable price for it; you may then depend upon a
GOOD and GENUINE article.

"Now see what is the comment of the
analyst upon this article — ' Adulterated:
with a very large quantity of chicory."

"That man's fair and honourable price was
sixteen pence for a mixture of less value than
that which another tea-dealer can afford to
label, Mixture of Chicory and Coffee, and to
sell for eightpence."

"But," said the alderman, "chicory is
harmless stuff."

"Ah, no, papa. I used to think so; but
Dr. Hassall says certainly not. He says that
he has made experiments, and finds a breakfast
of pure chicory infusion to produce
drowsiness and weight at the stomach;
commonly headache, sometimes diarrhoea. When
mixed with coffee to the extent common in
shops, it frequently produces diarrhœa. He
attributes to the increased use of it the
increased frequency of a distressing internal
disorder, and he says that Professor Beer, of
Vienna, on account of its effect upon the
nervous system, includes chicory among the
causes of amaurotic blindness. Furthermore,
chicory was in eleven cases out of two-and-
twenty not to be had pure. They adulterate
even that with carrot, mangold wurzel,
roasted wheat, and sawdust."

"I tell you what it is, Mary," said mamma
—" we will in future have cocoa for breakfast."

"My dear mamma, out of fifty-six samples
of cocoa bought indiscriminately in various
parts of London, only eight were genuine."

My papa's countenance had by this time
begun to assume an expression of despondency.
"After all," he said at last, " one cannot die
of thirst while there is water in the cistern."

" But, if you please, papa, just look at
these pictures. That's a drop of New River
water as seen under the microscope, full of
nasty long sticks, lobsters, and shaving-
brushes: that's a drop of the Lambeth
Company's water, with an immense maggot in
the middle: that's the Southwark and Vauxhall,
full of animals all spikes, like suns
revolving round each other, a fat shrimp
with a prickly tail, leeches, caterpillars,
shaving-brushes, and cigars: that's the Grand
Junction, full of things like bell-ropes, and a
five legs, and a horrible long snake: that's
the Hampstead Company's water, full of the