Tea Drinking and Its Dangers
The Dean of Bangor, England, speaking recently at a meeting held to further the establishment of courses of instruction in practical cookery in the elementary school, said that if he had his own way there would be much less tea-drinking among people of all classes. Oatmeal and milk produced strong, hearty, good-tempered men and women, whereas excessive tea-drinking created a generation of nervous, discontented people, who were forever complaining of the existing order of the universe, scolding their neighbors, and sighing after the impossible. In fact, he suspected that overmuch tea-drinking, by destroying the calmness of the nerves, was acting as a dangerous revolutionary force in England. Tea-drinking renewed three or four times a day made men and women feel weak, and the result was that the tea-kettle went before the gin bottle, and the physical and nervous weakness that had its origin in the bad cookery of an ignorant wife ended in ruin, intemperance, and disease.