BUSINESS LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14250, 22 December 1909, Page 10

BUSINESS LIFE.

! BRITISH-GROWN TEA. ! A VAST INDUSTRY. It is a curious ' fact that, although 30 years ago China sent six -times as much tea to England as was received from India and Ceylon together, yet-tea was originally introduced into China from India. If an old Chinese logend is to be beho/ed, Djarma, a native of India, was responsible for the introduction of tea into China somewhere about the year 500 a.d. Tea first became known to Europeans towards the end of the sixteenth - centry, ind small quantities were brought' to England early in the seventeenth century, but it was nob until about the year 1657 that it was first used as a beverage there. In that year the ''first .London teahouse was .opened in Exchange Alley, and the price varied from £5 to £10 a pound. In 1660 Pepys wrote, " I- did send for. a cup of tea (a China 1 drink) of which I had never drank before."" And two years later he wrote, " Heme, and there, find my wife making of tea, a- drink 'which- Mr. Pelling, the Pothicary, tells her is .good for her cold."

The story is told- that one of the earliest consignments of tea to reach England was brought by a sailor' as a present to ; his mother. She, never before having heard of it, carefully boiled the tea.' leaves and served them on a dish, throwing down the sink the "nasty dirty brown water" in which the leaves had been boiled ! The surprise and disappointment of the sailor son can be imagined when he saw what he was expected to eat! f The growth of tea in India seems to have been allowed to die out at some time after its introduction into China, for about the year 1834 the East India Company sent a commission to China to make inquiries as to the nature, and habits of the plant, with a view to its cultivation in India. About the same time, however, the tea plant was discovered growing wild in Upper Assam on the higher part of the Brahmapootra River. A very short time after this the first tea garden in Assam was opened, and a small quantity of tea sent -to England, where it fetched from 2s 6d to 3s per lb. To-day the quantity of tea received from India and Ceylon is considerably over 300,000,0001b..' find there are, in those two places, some 900,000 acres under tea, cultivation, producing 430,000,0001b of tea per annum, arid employing well ' over 1,000,000 people (all British subjects) every day in its production alone. * This" vast industry brings into the coffers of the State a revenue of nearly' 7£ millions sterling in import duties.—Sunday Strand. *

SHOP-GIRL FINERY. American shop-girls are usually dressed with as much taste as their Parisian sisters, and they generally wear more costly material. This is particularly the case at the present time, when an era of prosperity has dawned after a prolonged slump, so much so, indeed, that many proprietors of establishments at New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago are complaining that their girls are dressing a trifle too well and putting many of their customers to shame. / This is the reason why an order has lately gone forth in many establishments to the effect that, while shop girls 'should dress well and appear, neat, they are forbidden to wear tight-fitting dresses that show the figure, or to wear thin peekaboo blouses which show either lingerie' or bare flesh, neither must they wear bright colours nor jewellery. "Rats," or puffs for the hair are also tabooed, and cheeks must not be rouged, nor the nose powdered. It is part of the proprietors' campaign also to discourage gum-chewing amongst girls, and this will prove the greatest difficulty of all, because with many American girls gum-chewing is just as prevalent a habit as smoking with men. A woman who controls 300 girls in one of the largest department stores in New York states that any girl 1 caught chewing gum was instantly dismissed, but the habit seemed almost unconquerable. Personally, she said, she did not object to the girlsi wearing tight-clinging gowns, provided they also wore aprons, but the latter were not particularly favoured by the girls. In some establishments, she continued, the girls resent the new regulations to such an extent that they threaten a strike, but this, alternative is not feared by the managers, who declare that there is an ample supply of workers drawn from the . class of girls who formerly entered domestic service. Aversion to 'domestic service is inbred in the American girl, and this despite the fact that the average servant there secures £5 or £6 per month wth board and lodging, while the average shop-girl gets £6 10s {>er. month and finds her own board and bdging. "Living in" is not the custom in America. "When it is considered that many of our girls board and lodge themselves," said the informant, "it is difficult to understand how they can dress so elaborately."