We wonder the ladies never agitated for the reduction of the duty off
tea. They should have formed an "Anti-Tea League." If they had only laid
their tongues together, the death-rattle of the duty would have sounded
for ever. The noise would have made ministers tremble, and the great
wall of China would have shaken like a row of plates on a kitchen
dresser with the tremendous reverberation. Imagine 12,000,000 tongues
calling out "Repeal the duty off tea!" and then conceive, if you can,
what the intensity of that clamour would be when every one of those
12,000,000 tongues was a female tongue! We pronounce this omission a
terrible _lapsus linguæ_ on the part of the Wives and Daughters and
Grandmothers of England. Where, we ask, is Mrs. Ellis? that formidable
female champion of Great Britain.
Let us suppose that this Utopia has arrived. Tea is free! Bohea has
burst its fiscal fetters, and the "best black" is emancipated from its
custom-house bonds. Now, it has been proved by every political economist
that the cheapening of an article always increases its consumption. What
oceans of tea then will be drank when the luxury can be procured at six
farthings a cup cheaper! "A dish of tea" will be magnified into a
soup-tureen; urns will swell into the size of beer-barrels; and a
tea-caddy will assume the dimensions of nothing smaller than a corn-bin.
The carts of "No. One, St. Paul's," will vie in grandeur with Barclay
and Perkins' drays; and John will be told to go down into the cellar "to
bring up another hogshead of the Best Sixpenny Mixed." Scandal, which,
next to the sloe, forms the principal ingredient in every brewing of
tea, will increase also in proportion to the consumption. No one's
reputation will be safe. It will be quite frightful to calculate the
dear innocents who will die the death of kittens in the "social cup,"
and the innumerable characters that will be put into scalding water, and
scraped as clean as bitter-almonds, at every "_Thé Réunion!_"
Washer-women too—the greatest _trait_ in whose amphibious characters is
proverbially the tea-tray—will be in a state of celestial _scan. mag._
all day, and will fine-draw their customers' respectability at the same
time that they mangle their linen. Female society, in short, will grow
into a species of Inhumane Society; and inquests will be held amongst
gentlemen after dinner on the lost reputation of their friends, and the
verdict will be "Felo-de-se at Mrs. Candour's Tea-party," or "Found
Drowned in a Teetotaller's slop-basin." Husbands of England! beware of
Cheap Tea, or else the sugar-tongs may be turned against you in the same
way that St. Dunstan treated a certain French gentleman by the nose.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
A GOOD CUP OF TEA. (_WHEN THE DUTY IS TAKEN OFF_)
]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LAYS OF MODERN BABYLON.
BY YOUNG WHAT D' Y' CALLY.
(AGED NINE YEARS AND A DAY.)
OLD MOTHER HUBBARD AND HER DOG.
The ancient dame of Hubbard,
More ancient there are none,
Has hied her to her cupboard,
To fetch her dog a bone;
From shelf to shelf her eyeballs
Quickly and madly glare,
The cupboard of Dame Hubbard
Is desolate and bare.
Again, with eagle's vision,
She scans the wretched void;
She seeks a bone; but there is none,
And none that dog enjoyed.
Now for a pleasant substitute
She racks her puzzled head,
And to the baker's darts she forth
To buy the dog some bread.
But presently returning
With all that she required,
The bread falls from her palsied hand—
Ha! ha! the dog's expired.
The mournful rights of sepulture
She hastens to fulfil;
And at an undertaker's
Incurs a heavy bill.
A coffin she has purchased,
And madly rushes in;
Jupiter Gammon! there's the dog
Upon the broad, broad grin!
Bewilderment and pleasure
For mastery contend:
Dame Hubbard's startled by the dog
But glad to see the friend.
She fain would entertain him
With something to his wish;
To fetch some tripe, she gives a wipe
To a half dusty dish.
Then, fleet of foot and gay of heart,
Returning with the tripe,
She dimly sees, through clouds of smoke,
Her dog behind a pipe.
But when did woman's patience
Fall overcome and dead?
Never while Mother Hubbard
Had heart, and heels, and head!
Off to the tavern straight she flew
For wine, drawn from the wood;
She brought it—and upon his head
The dog inverted stood.
Untiring and undaunted,
A fruiterer she sought;
The fair and fragrant gooseberry,
The currants, too, she bought;
The strawberry, whose noble leaves
Of dukedom are the type;
The raspberry, which, like the mind,
Is long in getting ripe:
She bought them all, both great and small;
But entering with the fruit,
The sound of melody she heard—
The dog did play the flute.
The dame was not insensible,
The music touched her heart;
He should have man's attire, said she,
Who plays a mortal part.
And acting on the impulse,
A tailor's shop she gained,
Where a paletot, lately register'd,
Was speedily obtained.
She had not reach'd her cottage door
(She carried still the coat)
When she beheld upon the green
Her dog, who rode a goat.
Another mission, and the last,
Dame Hubbard doth perform;
A wig, she reason'd to herself,
Would keep the dog's head warm.
Then with the wig upon her arm
She towards her dog advanced,
And found him strangely occupied—
A jig he wildly danced.
Gay hose from the hosier she obtained,
A glass he stood before,
Wrapt in self-admiration
For his gay clothes he wore.
When old men on the winter's night
Shall mix their pleasant grog,
And youth attempts its first cigar,
Think of Dame Hubbard's dog.
When the maiden of the household
For sweet repose prepares,
Taking the rushlight and the plate,
One in each hand, upstairs—
Think of the good Dame Hubbard,
And hope through life to jog
With a friend that's half as faithful
As her old eccentric dog.