INDIAN TEA.

North Otago Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4082, 12 October 1885, Page 4

INDIAN TEA.

Perhaps the most astonishingly rapid development of a trade in modern times has been that of Indian tea. Quarter of o century aj;o tea from there was only kuown as a curiosity ; in fnct, attention was first drawn to it by Ddrj'c'ing tea securing thefirbt place in the Exhibition of 1801, and since then it has grad ually been driving Chinese tea out of the English markets. Last year upwards of sixty one million pounds were delivered in London, or an incresseof'twelve per cent over the imports o! Chinese tea were ten million pounds less than the previous year. In Australia, though only introduced to those markets some five years already one fourth of the tea drunk is of Indian production. It has the advantage of being machine made. On this subject of Indian tea, M. Jules Joubert gives the growers a word of advice. He writes to a Calcutta paper : "May I, through your widely circulated journal, once more venture to advise your tea planters or tea syndicates to open in the great centres of population in these Colonies retail depots of the genuine article ] Let v trial be made in Sydney and Melbourne first ; the expense would not be very great. Indeed, I know many trustworthy people iv either city who would gladly undertake the ' buaines' and make all necessary advances, provided an agreement be entered into by some re sponsible firm or syndicate to keep them supplied with regular shipments. As it is tne majority of the tea shipped is used for mixing with rubbish. The consequence is that ' Indian teas' are not in the demand ' they would be if they were sold in their unadulterated state, when I feel confident they would very soon take the lead of all others."

An|air|balloon railway isabout to be constructed on the Gabberg near Salzburg, a mountain of no great height, but offering a magnificent view o( the beautiful environs ol the town. The balloon, which will have grooved wheels on out 1 side of its car, will have a perpendicular line of rails, constructed on the principal of the wire rope railway, invented years ago /or the Rigbi, but never realised. The police force of the British Empire, metropolitian, municipal, and rural, includes 210,000 men. Of these 57,000 are in the United Kingdom, and 147,000 in in India. If the village police in India be included, the number rises to 050,000, which makes for the whole empire an average of one policeman to every 571 people, and to every tixteen square miles. General Winfleld S. Ilancock, having completed the duties imposed upon him in councctiou with the burial of General Grant, has issued a bulletin thanking in detail the organisations and commanders, military, uaval, veteran, civic, municipal, etc, that assisted. Ilis obligations to the members of his staff are acknowledged by name, and the presence of General Gordon, of Georgia, and General Lee of Virginia, is spoken of as especially gratifying,