Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1880 — Anti-Tea. [ARTICLE]

Anti-Tea.

* In 1743 there was quite an anti-tea agitation in Scotland, where it was pronounced by the famous Duncan Forbes to lie “in many respects an improper diet, expensive, wasteful of time, and calculated to render the population weakly and effeminate.” During that time there was a vigorous movement all over Scotland for abolishing the use of tea. Resolutions were passed by Town Councils and the inhabitants of villages •condemning it, and advocating beer. Sir William Fullerton’s tenants in Ayrshire entered into the following bond: “ We, being farmers by profession, think it needless to restrain ourselves formally from indulging in that foreign and consumptive luxury called tea; for, when we consider the slender constitutions of many of higher rank among whom it is used, we conclude that it would be but an improper diet to qualify us for the more robust and manly part of our business; and therefore we shall only give our testimony against it, «nd leave the enjoyment of it altogether to those who can afford to h? weak, indolent, and useless. ”