Blades upon Books - Traditionals

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5K Qs said:
Will, I've noticed this page as the background in a couple of your recent posts. Who is the author and what is the book proclaiming the debilitating effects of tea consumption for man, woman, society, and civilization?? :eek:;)
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Hello GT sorry for the late response. It's taken from Cottage Economy (1821) by the English essayist & agitator William Cobbett 1762-1835. It's an amusing kind of prototype of a self-help (abuse;)) book that Cobbett wrote to extol old fashioned notions and to promote 'traditional' behaviours. Namely, it gives instructions for self sufficiency, brewing beer at home, making bread, rearing beasts, planting vegetables, bee-keeping, straw hat making and building ice-houses a notion he got from America. Cobbett was and is a controversial essayist and was forced to flee to America on two occasions living there for many years due to political and economic persecution. In Cottage Economy, Cobbett vents about some particular hatreds of his, namely tea-drinking and potato eating the two things he believes has corrupted and weakened his nation in the past 40 years.. Odd you might say, an Englishman railing against tea-drinking? Worth bearing in mind that tea-drinking only came to the fore in the very early c19th, before that it was very expensive. Cobbett hates it as he views it as a kind of drug that weakens the mind. Labourers traditionally drank near bear brewed at home, low alcohol but safer than the polluted water, Ale was for special times or meals as was stronger. He makes an interesting connexion: beer gets taxed suddenly with taxes on malt, making it difficult for home brewing at the same time the wealthy Empire builders received subsidies to grow tea in India etc to make it popular in Britain. The tax-eaters making slaves at home and abroad Cobbett thunders, much truth in that. Potatoes were also hated as poisoners of the land and weakeners of the body;) Bread, Cobbett argued, was the proper staff of life- his recipe for bread, third wheat, third rye, third barley sounds good to me. The ideal Cobbett breakfast comprised several slices of bread with butter and thick bacon cuts (home killed) and a quart/ 2 pints, 1.3 litres of beer :D

As I said, he greatly admired America - but he managed to fall out with people there too and he was not very struck by religious fervour or public piety- very English in that way :D but here I end with a quote from his notes on American Manhood

" This America, this scene of happiness under a free government, is the beam in the eye, the thorn in the side, the worm in the vitals, of every despot upon the face of the earth"

Is it because they avoid tea? ;)

John Lloyd English Jack

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Will Power said:
Hello GT sorry for the late response. It's taken from Cottage Economy (1821) by the English essayist & agitator William Cobbett 1762-1835. It's an amusing kind of prototype of a self-help (abuse;)) book that Cobbett wrote to extol old fashioned notions and to promote 'traditional' behaviours. Namely, it gives instructions for self sufficiency, brewing beer at home, making bread, rearing beasts, planting vegetables, bee-keeping, straw hat making and building ice-houses a notion he got from America. Cobbett was and is a controversial essayist and was forced to flee to America on two occasions living there for many years due to political and economic persecution. In Cottage Economy, Cobbett vents about some particular hatreds of his, namely tea-drinking and potato eating the two things he believes has corrupted and weakened his nation in the past 40 years.. Odd you might say, an Englishman railing against tea-drinking? Worth bearing in mind that tea-drinking only came to the fore in the very early c19th, before that it was very expensive. Cobbett hates it as he views it as a kind of drug that weakens the mind. Labourers traditionally drank near bear brewed at home, low alcohol but safer than the polluted water, Ale was for special times or meals as was stronger. He makes an interesting connexion: beer gets taxed suddenly with taxes on malt, making it difficult for home brewing at the same time the wealthy Empire builders received subsidies to grow tea in India etc to make it popular in Britain. The tax-eaters making slaves at home and abroad Cobbett thunders, much truth in that. Potatoes were also hated as poisoners of the land and weakeners of the body;) Bread, Cobbett argued, was the proper staff of life- his recipe for bread, third wheat, third rye, third barley sounds good to me. The ideal Cobbett breakfast comprised several slices of bread with butter and thick bacon cuts (home killed) and a quart/ 2 pints, 1.3 litres of beer :D

As I said, he greatly admired America - but he managed to fall out with people there too and he was not very struck by religious fervour or public piety- very English in that way :D but here I end with a quote from his notes on American Manhood

" This America, this scene of happiness under a free government, is the beam in the eye, the thorn in the side, the worm in the vitals, of every despot upon the face of the earth"

Is it because they avoid tea? ;)

John Lloyd English Jack

yX0C0G7.jpg
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Thanks for the very informative reply, Will. :):thumbsup::cool:
I'd not heard of Cobbett before. He sounds like quite an opinionated rabble-rouser!

Your Lloyd stag English Jack is a corker!! :thumbsup::cool::cool::thumbsup:

- GT
 
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