consumption indicated by its price, being sixty shillings a pound, has
proportionately increased in national use, until, in 1854, the United
States imported and retained for home consumption twenty-five million
pounds, and England fifty-eight million pounds.

Two centuries have witnessed this almost incredible advance. The
consumption of coffee alone has increased, in the past twenty-five
years, at the rate of four _per cent. per annum_, throughout the world.

We pay annually for coffee fifteen millions of dollars, and for tea
seven millions. Twenty-two millions of dollars for articles which are
popularly accounted neither fuel, nor clothing, nor food!

"What a waste!" cries the reformer; "nearly a dollar apiece, from every
man, woman, and child throughout the country, spent on two useless
luxuries!"

Is it a waste? Is it possible that we throw all this away, year after
year, in idle stimulation or sedation?

It is but too true, that the instinct, leading to the use of some form
of stimulant, appears to be universal in the human race. We call it an
instinct, since all men naturally search for stimulants, separately,
independently, and unceasingly,--because use renders their demands as
imperious as are those for food.

Next to alcohol and tobacco, coffee and tea have supplied more of the
needed excitement to mankind than any other stimulants; and, taking the
female sex into the account, they stand far above the two former
substances in the ratio of the numbers who use them.