Joined Nov 2007
7,628 Posts | 9+
Alba
I'm currently reading a biography of Duncan Forbes of Culloden, who was Lord President of the Court of Session (highest Law Officer in the Scottish legal system at the time – US equivalent would presumably be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) between the years of 1737 and his death in 1747. I'm not going to take the usual route of connecting him to the Jacobite Risings. I'm going to address a subject which seems to have dear to his (Forbes) heart.
That subject, (shock, horror and utter disbelief) is the supply, consumption and tax evasion associated with a certain well-known Chinese drug. What was this drug you ask? No, it wasn't opium. It was tea.
The following extract is from page 161:-
“Forbes blamed the decline in excise (tax revenue) upon the universal prevalence of smuggling which affected not merely wines and spirits but also tea. And against the latter mild and Asiatic beverage he declared an unrelenting war. By a modern and deplorable custom women and even men were abandoning the beer of their fathers and substituting early morning tea.”
From page 162:-
“To meet this situation Forbes proposed (first) to tighten up the excise and so put down smuggling; (second) to impose a duty of four shillings on every pound of tea inported; and )third) to prohibit its use altogether by people whose yearly income fell below a stated figure.
Forbes reckoned (and this is a direct quotation from his writings, should it be “thought that a person who has of yearly income, whether from land, trade or art or or any profession, £50, £100 or any other sum to be fixed in the Bill, ought to be permitted to make use of tea, then all who cannot show that they have such yearly income may be prohibited. And the making use of tea in their family by themselves, their wives, their children, their servants, or any other persons may be made penal.”
Now, I can understand a government man wanting to screw the populace, but I fail to understand why he so anathematised tea – even though I don't touch the stuff.
Thoughts? Theories? Howls of utter disbelief?
That subject, (shock, horror and utter disbelief) is the supply, consumption and tax evasion associated with a certain well-known Chinese drug. What was this drug you ask? No, it wasn't opium. It was tea.
The following extract is from page 161:-
“Forbes blamed the decline in excise (tax revenue) upon the universal prevalence of smuggling which affected not merely wines and spirits but also tea. And against the latter mild and Asiatic beverage he declared an unrelenting war. By a modern and deplorable custom women and even men were abandoning the beer of their fathers and substituting early morning tea.”
From page 162:-
“To meet this situation Forbes proposed (first) to tighten up the excise and so put down smuggling; (second) to impose a duty of four shillings on every pound of tea inported; and )third) to prohibit its use altogether by people whose yearly income fell below a stated figure.
Forbes reckoned (and this is a direct quotation from his writings, should it be “thought that a person who has of yearly income, whether from land, trade or art or or any profession, £50, £100 or any other sum to be fixed in the Bill, ought to be permitted to make use of tea, then all who cannot show that they have such yearly income may be prohibited. And the making use of tea in their family by themselves, their wives, their children, their servants, or any other persons may be made penal.”
Now, I can understand a government man wanting to screw the populace, but I fail to understand why he so anathematised tea – even though I don't touch the stuff.
Thoughts? Theories? Howls of utter disbelief?
