M.L.B.

* * * * *

PRICE OF TEA.

(To the Editor.)

As I have been a subscriber to The Mirror from its commencement, and very frequently refer to its pages with much pleasure and profit, I hope I may be allowed to correct a statement made in No. 541, p. 222, under the article Tea.  It is said that the profit of one pound to sell at 7_s_. is 2_s_. 2_d_.

s. d.
Thus, cost price 2 5
Duty 2 5
Profit 2 2
____
7 0

In all retail houses of any respectability in the Tea trade, I am sure that Tea costing 2_s_. 5_d_. at the sale is never sold above 6_s_. per lb. and in five out of six shops of the above description 5_s_. 4_d_. and 5_s_. 6_d_. is the utmost price demanded for such Tea.  I and my family have been in the trade, in one house, considerably more than half a century, and I can assure you, that from 6_d_. to 8_d_. per lb. is the present retail profit upon Tea sold at the East India Company’s sales, under 3_s_. per lb.

S.

In reply to this note, the authenticity of which we do not question, we can only refer the writer to our distinct quotation from “the evidence of Mr. Mills, a Tea Broker, before the House of Lords.’  In our 15th volume, No. 414, p. 104, the proportion of profit is differently stated from an article in the Quarterly Review.  A pound of 11_s_.

Hyson

s. d.
Costs at the Company’s Sale 4 4
King’s Duty 4 4
____
8 8
Retailer’s profit, brokerage, &c. 2 4
_____
11 0

We have often received from one of the most extensively dealing retail Tea-dealers in the metropolis, an assurance, similar to that of our correspondent, S. so that we do not require the substantiation he proffers.—­Ed. M.

* * * * *

The Naturalist.

GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY.

Observers of Nature seem to be just now appreciating the observation of the benevolent Gilbert White, of Selborne, who lived and died in the last century:  “that if stationary men would pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete county histories.”  Accordingly, a little system of rural philosophy has been founded upon the best of all bases, home-observation, and such books as have resulted from these labours, promise to make the study of Nature more popular than will all the Zoological, Botanical, and Geological Societies of Europe.  Among these works we include the cheap reprint of the Natural History of Selborne; Mr. Rennie’s delightful observations which are scattered through the Zoological volumes of the Library