consequences, if, after a notice of two months, they
shall continue to sell coffee mixed with any
other ingredient contrary to law."

On the 4th of August, 1840, a report from
the Board of Excise was again read at the
Treasury, touching the prosecution of certain
grocers for mixing chicory with their coffee.
The Lords of the Treasury then considered
"that the law was altered with the view of
admitting the admixture of chicory with
coffee." This alteration they believed to
have been made by implication in an act 6 and
7 William IV., cap. 60, which imposed a
Customs duty in these terms:—

"Chicory, or any other vegetable matter applicable
to the uses of chicory or cofiee,
Raw, or kiln-dried,                      per cwt.          20s.
Roasted or ground,                    per cwt           56s."

This seems to have been the alteration of
the law to which the Treasury alluded, and
the minute goes on to say, " My lords, therefore,
do not consider that any measure should
be enforced to prevent the sale of coffee mixed
with chicory, and are of opinion that the
prosecutions in question should be dropped.

"My lords do not consider such admixture
will be a fraud on the revenue, so long as the
chicory pays the proper duty; and as between
the seller and the consumer, my lords desire
that government should interfere as little as
possible."

This is the minute which remained
untouched until the 3rd of August, 1852, when
it was rescinded to make room for the new
regulation before-mentioned, to be put in
force three months after that date.

It seems to us that if any interference of
the law be required to prevent the sale of
chicory in coffee, it should tend only to
prevent its dishonest admixture. If it be
thought fit, let the grocer be compelled to call
his mixed coffee chicory-coffee, or to distinguish
it by some other name, and make him
liable to penalty for chicory sold as pure
coffee—in the present state of knowledge it
is very easy to detect any concealed adulteration.
It is, however, a rule that will bear
harshly on the comforts of the poor if coffee
is to be sold only in its pure state, and
chicory cannot be obtained in any less quantity
than a two-ounce packet. Two ounces
of chicory would go in mixture to about a
pound of coffee, and there are thousands who
buy coffee itself by ounces. Moreover the
chicory coffee sold by the grocer is made
with coffee of a higher price and better quality
than the poor man would dare to give for
coffee bought pure, when he has to make
another outlay upon chicory for mixing. The
necessity of two purchases would suggest the
idea of greater cost, lead to a desire for more
economy; so in the buying the poor man
would be a loser. Certainly also he would
lose by having to make at home, in his own
clumsy way, the mixture which it had been
before the interest of the grocer so to proportion
that he might bring custom to his shop by
issuing an article as good and palatable as
any that could be contrived by his competing
neighbours.

In the edict against chicory there is no
doubt some element of protection to coffee-
growers, which a political chemist would
detect. That, however, is an adulteration
against which it is not worth while to protest.
We content ourselves with expressing a desire
that justice shall be done to chicory, that its
good services shall be acknowledged, and
that after having really added innocently to
the comfort of a large number of people, it
shall not be forbidden to go loose and hedged
about with labels and the names of the
responsible sellers, so that its name may
become a household terror—like Mad Dog or
Poison.

CHIPS.

AN ORIENTAL FIRMAN.

THE readers of Eastern tales are aware
that next to the supernatural power of the
genii—next to a supernatural carpet, a wonderful
lamp, or a magic ring—there is nothing
so potent as the " firman " of the Shah or the
Sultan. Many may, therefore, wish to see, in
plain translated prose, the contents of an
instrument which enters so frequently into
the poetical machinery of the Eastern story-
teller. The firman, issued by His Majesty
the Shah of Persia, conferring upon Captain
Ford, commander of a British steam-vessel,
the order of the Lion and Sun of the first class
of Lieutenant-Colonels, has been kindly lent
to us for publication:—

"Whereas Captain Ford, the exalted in
station, the endowed with sagacity and
understanding, the companion of wisdom and
superiority, the chosen amongst the elect of the
Christians, the cream of the wise among
the followers of Christ, the superintendent of
the steamers belonging to the great English
nation at Constantinople,—having, on all
occasions treated with due mark of respect and
consideration the merchants of the sublime
kingdom of Persia: and whereas the nature of
these services have been acceptable in the sight
of the ministers of this victorious government:
His Majesty the Shah, out of consideration
and favour for the above-named high in rank,
and for the sake of the friendship and unity
subsisting between the two great and powerful
kingdoms of Persia and Great Britain, has, in
this auspicious year of the Lamb, measured
the height of his ability, and ornamented and
adorned his person by bestowing upon him
the decoration of Lieutenant-Colonel of the
first class, that he may make this order,
brilliant as the rays of the sun, the boast and
glory of his own exalted breast.

"Be it known to him that the excellencies of
his services have found favour in the sight of