rolled out, that are now fitted on to our iron-clad menof-war, knows very well he could not endure the great heat at his work, if he were to drink even beer; so, if you were to go into any of those works at Sheffield, you would see the men, pouring out melted steel, with very little clothing on, their breasts all exposed, and running with perspiration; but they never drink beer at their work, only any quantity of cold tea.

The

But, why is it that tea is better for men so employed than beer? They must lose a great deal in the form of perspiration, when they work in such a hot place. We generally think that excessive perspiration weakens people; but we do not really get weaker in the hottest part of summer than we do in the coldest part of winter; we are really weaker, more liable to illness, colds and fevers, in winter than in summer. weakening, then, of our bodies from perspiration depends upon the composition of the sweat (as it is commonly called) which comes through the pores of the skin. If it is only water, we only lose water; if it contains decayed matter from the body, mixed with the water, we lose that amount of the substance of our frames together with the water. When perspiration is caused only by external heat, we lose scarcely anything but water. Now, let us see what is the composition of tea. It contains a substance which it draws up from the soil, in which the plant is grown, on the hills of China under a very hot sun. If you take a little tea, powder it very fine, then put it into a small plate in the oven, and cover it entirely over with a piece of paper, twisted into the form of a sugar-loaf, as soon as the powder has become very hot, a vapour will rise from it and settle on the inside of the paper. Now, take the paper off and hold it to the light. You will see it is covered over with a very fine powder, shining in the light like powdered white sugar. This is the substance of the tea to which I referred. You will find 3 grains in every half ounce of pure tea, or 1 lb. in 50 lbs.

This white substance is found to have a very wonderful power of sustaining man's strength, and of making food, eaten with it, go one-fourth further in keeping up

his strength than if the same food were eaten alone, so that 3 or 4 grains of it are enough for one day. It has been found, by experiments, that if a man eats half a pound less bread a day, but adds half an ounce of tea instead, he does not miss the loss of the bread. So those iron-smelters, by drinking tea, retain this white substance, which keeps up their strength, and stops the waste of the flesh of their bodies, and they only part with the water, in which it is dissolved.

This same

But tea has another valuable quality. white powder is nerve-making substance; it is better adapted than any article of food to strengthen the nerves and brain of man in active work; so those who study much, as well as those who live by the sweat of their brow, find tea the best refreshment of the waste of brain and nerve in following their studies, or sustaining hard bodily labour.

This same substance is to be found in cocoa and coffee; yet these two plants grow in a very different part of the world from that where tea is found. The coffee tree and cocoa plant will not flourish in China; but the former is cultivated abundantly in Arabia, Ceylon, and the West Indies, and the latter in Mexico and Peru. Nature thus stores up in various climates the nourishment man requires in all the avocations of life, to restore his wasted energies, and enable him to “go forth to his work and to his labour until the evening." It is not without some purpose for our good, that so large a tract of China is covered with tea-bushes,— an extent of country almost as large as Wales, three millions and a half of acres! And it is only because it does supply a natural want of mankind, that we can account for the rapid spread of the use of tea, which only 200 years ago was unknown in England, but is now regarded as a necessary article of consumption by more than half the inhabitants of our globe, who consume no less than 3,000,000,000 lbs. every year!

But may not the same be said of beer? It is made from barley which is a natural product given to us for our daily food, and it contains a large amount of nutri

tive substance, just as does the wheat, from which bread is made. Well, perhaps, if we made tea out of barley just as we brew it out of tea-leaves, it might be as good as porridge; but in making beer, we decompose the barley, as may be seen by the fermentation (or working as it is called) of the liquor. First, the barley is roasted in a kiln to turn it into malt. That takes a great deal of the nutritive strength out of it, and it has a sweet taste, which shews that the starch is partially converted into sugar. Next, it is boiled in water which completes the change, (just as when masticated in the mouth and moistened with warm saliva, the main part of the conversion of bread into sugar takes place). But, the boiling is continued, until decomposition sets in, and it is then allowed to cool down to the necessary temperature to perfect this. It begins to work, heave up, froth, and ferment. All this is a sign of decomposition; gases escape from it, as from putrid matter. It is now in the ripe condition for intoxicating those who drink it, and it is closely fastened down in barrels before too much bad gas has escaped, and most of the putrid matter is kept in, mixed with the liquid. This essence of decomposition, which I have called gas, is alcohol, and is the product of sugar and water. All the nutritive element in the grain has left the beer, and only the water and alcohol remain. After this fermentation, it is no longer nourishing like porridge or milk, but it is poisonous. What do we nean when we say it is intoxicating? That word means poisoning. And it is poisoning, for it does what many poisons do: it spoils the blood, it weakens the brain and nerves, and it stops digestion.

But let us go to facts. Dr. Lyon Playfair has analyzed a specimen of "highly nourishing beer and stout," and reports that of blood-forming matter it contains exactly one part in 1,666 parts. Baron Liebig, in his Chemical Letters, states that the whole purpose of brewing is to get rid of the blood-forming elements of the grain, and to change the useful sugar into alcohol. We can prove," he says, "with mathematical certainty,

that as much flour as can be laid on the point of a table knife is more nutritious than eight quarts of the best beer; that a person who is able daily to consume that quantity of beer, obtains from it, in a whole year, in the most favourable case, exactly the amount of nutritive matter which is contained in a five pound loaf or in three pounds of flesh.”

If this is the case, as it certainly is, with pure beer, it is much worse with by far the greatest quantity that is sold at public houses under that name; for those who are in the habit of going there want something that will quickly make them feel its power, and the man who sells it wishes his customers to ask for more; and, therefore, a great many things are put into it to make it more intoxicating, and to burn up the tissues that line the throat and stomach, creating more thirst the more a man drinks. So any one may drink till his throat and mouth are quite dry, and hot, and parched, and his tongue is inflamed, dry, and swollen, till he cannot speak plainly. The next day he has a dreadful headache, because his brain is inflamed with the poisonous alcohol he has poured into his blood. But drinking ought to cool the blood, moisten the tissues, and quench thirst. It is very clear that drink containing alcohol does just the opposite, and increases thirst.

But some people think there is nourishment in it, because people get fat upon it. If you notice, you will find that some people get fatter as they grow older, and some get thinner. The fact is that both fat and leanness are signs of the decay of our bodies. In some constitutions decay takes the form of fat, and in others of waste. So one man who drinks becomes very fat, while another becomes very thin: both shew that the poison is doing its work, and its victim is hastening too soon to his grave.-Rev. J. Ridgway.

ON STIMULANTS IN SICKNESS.

HOWEVER bad alcohol may be in times of health, when people do not want it, yet very many think it is a very

good medicine in illness. Now, our bodies are very much the same as those of other animals. Man is the only cold-blooded animal that ever drinks anything else to quench his thirst but water. And in sickness we do not run for the brandy bottle to give a dose to our horses, cows, pigs, and sheep, as we too often do to ourselves. When we do, it is only in extreme cases, such as poisoning, when we want to quicken the circulation and get rid of the poison from the blood. In all other cases we know the animal will stand a better chance with other treatment.

But with ourselves, if any one is faint, we give them spirits; if they are burning with fever, we pour more fire into them to increase it; if they are sinking with consumption, we offer port wine to burn up the small particles of fat that still remain in their wasted frames. It seems to give them a little new life, because it quickens the circulation, dries up the moisture in the lungs, and stops the cough, but only to make them sink lower, as soon as the effect is gone off. No animal life can possibly be supported, though it may for a time be prevented from extinction, by stimulants, since they only make it run on, as it were, at express speed over a dangerous chasm; but this can only be done at the expense of a most violent strain upon the whole machinery, which will leave behind it a lasting injury for life.

A very eminent physician of Guy's Hospital, in London, writes in the following forcible language on this use of alcohol in cases of illness:

"It causes me daily surprise to observe how the effects of stimulation are overlooked. Often have I been called to see a patient apparently dying, sometimes of a nervous disorder, at another time of a liver complaint, and at another of heart disease. He is lying in bed, where he has been for some time, and kept alive by brandy; the breath is abominably fetid; the heart's action is so rapid that it is impossible to say whether the organ is diseased or not; the patient refuses food, or if this be taken, it is rejected, and so he is plied with brandy to keep him alive; the body is, in fact, saturated