The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

268
THE BOY TKAVELLERS.
in the tiring-rooin, and go there day after day besides. Many of tlieni
were women, and some of tlieni had little childi'en strapped to their baeks,
and there was a wliole lot of children in a little room at one side of the
shed, where a couple of women \vei'e looking after them. JJow I did pity
the poor things ! Yred
and I just
emptied our pockets of all the
small change we could find in them
for the benefit of the babies, and
I wish we could have given them
more. Eut there was liardly a ciy
from any of them, and they seemed
as happy and contented as though
their mothers were queens, instead
of toiling over the tiring -pan in
that hot room for ten or fifteen
cents a day.
" The}' put a pound and a half
of tea into each pan, and with it
they put a teaspoonful of some col-
oring substance tliat they keep a
secret. People say that this color-
ing matter is Prussian blue, and
others say it is indigo, and that a
little gypsum is put with it, so as
to give the tea a bright appearance.
The clei-k told us it was indigo
and gypsum that liis house used,
and declared that it was all false
THE TEA-i-LANT. that any poisonous material w;:s
ever put in. He said they only
used a teaspoonful of their mixture to a charge of tea, and the most of
that little quantity M-as left in the pan in the shape of dust. When I
asked him why they put anything in, lie said it was to inake the tea sell
better in the American market. It looked so much better when it had
been 'doctored' that their customers in New York and other cities would
pay more for it, tlnjugh they knew perfectly well what had been done.
Then he showed nie some of the tea that had been fired and put side by
side with some that had not. I must say that the fired tea had a polished
ap]U'arance that the otlier had not, and I could readily understand why it
sells better.