port, "Our propositions for awards having been approved by the jury, we look confidently to their being sanctioned by Her Majesty's Commissioners. They have all been made in favor of private exhibitors. We find the teas of the Government of India from Dehra, Dhoon, Gurhwal, Kumaon, and Kangra, with the exception of the Kumaon hysons, deficient in strength, and generally of indifferent flavor. We have good authority for considering them not to be well suited to the London market, in which strength and depth of color in the infusion mainly regulate value. consider the Assam teas as standing highest in point of strength and depth of color, in infusion next to them, we rark the Darjeeling teas. They are also of fine flavor, but require still more strength and depth of color to meet the London market."

We

The

There were also on exhibition several samples of tea from Australia, where the culture has been introduced, and nineteen from Brazils. Committee report that these samples give evidence of skill in the manufacture; but that they are bitter and unsavory. They state that neither A number of substitutes for of them can compete with the British teas. tea are exhibited. The well-known Paraguay tea, or "Maté," from Brazil, and nine varieties from the French colonies, viz.: La Réunion, three; Guadaloupe, three; Miquelon, three. The "Mate" is packed in raw hide, with the hair outwards, which is considered the best mode of preserving it for transport. These facts are interesting as indicating the great breadth given to the teaculture, following the success which attended the first attempts in Assam to wrest the monopoly from the Chinese.

the

The French Government some few years since, sent D. LINNTAUD to the Brazils to inquire into the culture there, with the view to promote culture in France, at which place it was introduced about the and it still makes progress there.

year 1840,

The soil and climate of the United States have been reputed by those conversant with the culture of tea in Asia, as well adapted to the plant. This is also not a matter of opinion, since the experiment was successfully made by JUNIUS SMITH of ocean steam navigation fame. In 1850 that gentleman procured from China a box of tea plants, which arrived. in good preservation, and these were set out in his plantation at Greenville, South Carolina, in the month of June; a majority of them took root and made a flourishing growth during the first summer; some of them grew nine inches in three months. At the same time, was planted a quantity of tea nuts, all of which germinated and reached a fair growth during the summer. The whole fully answered the expectations of the enterprising owner, who, unfortunately, did not live to push his enterprise beyond the third year, when he had made some of the finest green tea. This experiment proved that domestication of the plant presents no difficulties, and that its future culture will add greatly to the resources of the country. The California country seems to present the amplest facilities for its extended culture, and with the aid of the Celestials, now so numerous there, it might be rapidly developed. The system required is not to cure the leaves on the plantation, but to gather them for sale to the manufacturers, who perfect them for market in the manner of the Chinese. This manufacture of tea is pushed to great extent in Canton, and in Brazils, by the aid of machinery, the process of curing bas been much simplified and cheapened.

The culture and delivery of the tea present no difficulties whatever.

The plant will flourish with little labor, and the leaves are easily picked; at this point manufacture begins. That process requires to be developed when labor is cheap, but it is easy to do so in large cities, where labor can always be commanded. That is the system in Canton. At the time of harvests, the merchants of Canton send their agents through the tea districts to buy up the green leaves, in the same manner that manufacturers in New England send agents to buy up wool, or the hay packers to buy hay. The leaves are gathered in, dried, and packed in boxes of 96 pounds each. When about 600 boxes are collected, or enough to load a chap. they are sent to the Canton pack-houses for preparation. Some 30,000 people are there employed in making what are called "Canton made teas," for exportation. This system is well adapted to the circumstances of this country, where the application of mechanical ingenuity would soon cheapen and perfect the manufacture. One of the great sources of complaint in Northern cities, is the inadequate employment for females. There can be no more healthful or suitable employment for numbers than that of making tea, while the means of steam communication are such as bring the whole resources of the country under contribution for a supply of teas. A great advantage to be derived from such a supply, is that the teas sold would be genuine, and not adulterated and be-rubbished, as is now the case, and to which proceedings may be ascribed all the evils to health, which have been alledged against the use of the shrub as a beverage.

The importance of the culture may be estimated, when we reflect that hitherto China has been the sole source of supply for an article which has so rapidly become a necessity of life among all the civilized nations of Western Europe; that its use is daily spreading into new regions, and the quantity per head in old markets increases. The quantity of tea consumed in Great Britain and the United States has been as follows:

Thus, the consumption in the two countries has increased 75,000,000 pounds in the course of the present century. In the last twenty years important changes have overtaken the tea trade. The chief of these were caused by the modification of the East India Company's charter, and the reduction and re noval of duties in England and the United States. In 1833, by the expiration of the East India Conpany's charter, the monop oly so long held was broken, and the trade was thrown open, an event which it was justly anticipated would cause a fall in price; the ad va lorem duty was changed for a fixed duty, which it was supposed would yield nearly the same revenue, and 2s. 1d. per pound was charged. At about the same time that the China trade became free, that is in 1833, the duties which in the United States had been onerous upon tea were

altogether removed, as well as those upon coffee. The effect seemed to be to double the consumption.

The great difficulty in the tea trade has been to furnish goods in payment of the teas. Inasmuch as China produces all goods in abundance, the tea was required formerly to be paid for in coin. This is done

now, however, generally in the proportion of $1,000,000 specie shipped to Canton, and $4,000,000 worth of bills drawn on London, which, passing into the hands of the East India Company, form a remittance to London. The trade between England and China is sustained by the large sales of opium to China from India, which more than pays for English tea, and gives a balance paid in silver to England. On the other hand, England usually owes the United States. From this state of the trade between England and the United States and China, it is apparent that, including $1,000,000 worth of opium, China has usually bought more than she paid for in the products of her own labor, and that therefore a uniform drain of specie was kept up in favor of British India. This was disastrous to general trade, because it prevented the Chinese from buying goods. As long as their specie was all taken to pay for Indian opium, a scarcity of money necessarily prevailed among them, and therefore an inability to buy American goods. From the United States trade, therefore, they demanded cash or bills. This difficulty was somewhat enhanced by the fact, that all the trade being confined to Canton, at a great distance from the provinces that consumed most of the goods, caused the merchandise to be subjected to great expense in internal transportation and onerous transit duties; and in fact the revenue thus derived was, too, by the Chinese Government, a reason for locating the trade at that remote corner of the Empire. When, therefore, the English compelled the Chinese to submit to terms, the new treaty was made to embrace the privilege of trading at other ports nearer to the places of consumption; the monopoly of the Hong was abolished, and the trade made comparatively free. The great and surprising success of Mr. CUSHING, Minister to China, in promptly effecting a treaty more favorable to commerce than that of England, further excited the hopes of dealers, and the United States trade thither has much improved. Nevertheless, the internal war in China at times threatens the production of tea and checks the consumption of goods, while the demand for tea as well here as in England and Europe, promises to double every twenty years. This large future demand calls as urgently for some new sources of supply, as does that of cotton. Not only the mere quantity of tea requires to be looked after, but the quality, since a large portion of the increased quantities that China has apparently sent forth, have been due rather to adulteration than to improved growth. When a chop of tea bearing certain marks becomes a general favorite from its good qualities, these marks are as closely imitated and applied to other and inferior chops.

It was formerly the case under the monopoly of the East India Company, that experienced inspectors were employed, who from long practice acquired a readiness in the detection of the slightest shades of qualities not generally attainable. These officers frequently detected adulterations with spurious leaves, both in the green and black teas. The company, however, by offering premiums for the best lots, managed to keep up the quality of both descriptions. About the year 1833-34, however, the cessation of the East India Company's charter threw the trade open to com

petition in England, and the removal of the duties in this country caused a great improvement in the demand, without the continuance of the necessary surveillance in regard to quality, and manifest depreciation has since taken place. It has always been the custom to color even genuine green teas more or less. The great demand which has of late years sprung up for green teas on American account, has given rise to the most extensive frauds in that article. A quantity of damaged black teas will be taken and dried in baskets over pans of charcoal. The dried leaves, in quantities of a few pounds each, are then placed in heated cast iron pans. A workman stirs the leaves rapidly with the hand, mixing in a small quantity of tumeric, which imparts an orange tinge to the leaves. A powder prepared from Prussian blue, (Prussiate of iron, a poison,) and gypsum, is then added to the leaves, which are stirred over the fire until they assume the fine bloom color of hyson, with much the same scent. The leaves are then sifted. The first sifting is called hyson skin, and the last young hyson. This fraud is perpetrated on a most extensive scale, and has doubtless given rise to the belief in the injurious nature of green tea. On the importation of the teas into this country, further deceptions are practised in re-packing and re-marking the boxes, by which means inferior teas are made to appear as if in the original China packed boxes. Hyson skin, of good quality, very frequently resembles old hyson, but it is a cheaper tea by fifteen or twenty cents per pound. Fraudulent jobbers erase the printed faces from the hyson skin boxes and reface them "Fine Old Hyson," and in this way sell hyson skin for more than it is worth. The same fraud is practiced in black teas. Souchong is frequently refaced "Fine Oolong," which enables dishonest dealers to sell such tea for from twelve to twenty cents more than its value.

Tea in the United States was subjected to a heavy duty until 1833, when it being recognized as one of the necessaries of life, the tax was removed altogether. The consumption immediately rose per head, as seen in the above table, from one-half pound per head to nearly one pound per head, but is far behind the rate of consumption in England, where it has always paid a high duty. It remained free of duty until the present war, when twenty cents per pound duty was charged, and this charge, with the rise in exchange and the premium on the gold required to pay duties, have greatly enhanced the price to the consumer, while the portion formerly used at the South has been stopped by the embargo. Hence the consumption for the moment may be supposed to be very much reduced. The future of the trade is however to be judged of from its great increase in years past. If, therefore, at the close of century the population of this country numbers 100,000,000 of tea drinkers, they must find their sources of supply at home, or submit to continued and inconvenient drains of gold and silver to pay for it, since it is not at all likely that the demand for American goods will increase in China in a ratio ad equate to meet the necessary payments.

HEALTH.

NEW YORK versus LONDON.

A LITTLE more than three centuries ago a celebrated Hollander, ERASMUS, admonished the municipality of London that the Sweating Sickness which so pertinaciously clung to that city for more than half a century was due to the absence of all provision for cleansing the streets. This ERASMUS is said to have been learned in all knowledge, while he was also an acute original thinker. In a letter to Cardinal WOLSEY's physician, Dr. FRANCIS, he discourses on household arrangements, which, though at that time peculiar to the English metropolis, seems to have so much significance to us, even now, that we cannot forbear to quote it:

"I often wonder," he wrote, "and that not without concern, whence it comes to pass that England for so many years hath been continually afflicted with pestilence, and above all with the Sweating Sickness, which seems in a manner peculiar to that country. We read of a city which was delivered from a plague of long continuance by altering the buildings according to the advice of a certain philosopher.

"I am much mistaken if England, by the same method, might not find a cure. First of all they are totally regardless concerning the aspect of their doors and windows to the east, north, &c.; then they build their churches so that they admit not a thorough air, which yet, in GALEN's opinion is very necessary. They glaze a great part of the sides with small panes, designed to admit the light and exclude the wind; but these windows are full of chinks, through which enters a porcelated air, which, stagnating in the room, is more noxious than the wind. As to the floors they are usually made of clay, covered with rushes that grew in fens, which are so lightly moved now and then that the lower part remains sometimes for twenty years together, and in it a collection of spittle, vomit, urine of dogs and men, beer, scraps of fish, and other filthiness not to be named. Hence, upon change of weather a vapor is exhaled very pernicious, in my opinion, to the human body. Add to this that England is not only surrounded by the sea, but in many parts is fenny and intersected with streams of a brackish water; and that salt fish is the common and favorite food of the poor. I am persuaded that the island would be far more healthy if the use of these rushes were quite laid aside, and the chambers so built as to let in the air on two or three sides, with such glass windows as might either be thrown quite open, or kept quite shut, without small crevices to let in the wind. For as it is useful sometimes to admit a free air, so it is to exclude it. The common people laugh at a man who complains that he is affected by changeable and cloudy weather, but for my part, for these thirty years past, if I ever entered into a room which had been uninhabited for some months, immediately I grew feverish. It would also be of great benefit if the lower people could be persuaded to eat less of salt fish, and if public officers were appointed to see that the streets were kept free from mud and and that not only in the city but in the suburbs. You will smile perhaps, and think that my time lies upon my hands, since I employ it in such speculations; but I have a great affection for a county which received me