I estimated, in a little treatise on coffee and its adulterations, which I published in 1850, that not less than 18,000,000 lbs. of vegetable matter of various kinds were sold annually under the deceptive name of coffee.  Three-fourths of these 18,000,000 lbs. of pretended coffee were composed of chicory, and the remaining fourth of other ingredients prejudicial to health, as well as a fraud upon the revenue.  The various substances used in adulterating both chicory and coffee, when sold in the powdered state, have been specifically pointed out and set forth from time to time in memorials from the trade and the coffee-growers.  Mr. M’Culloch and other competent judges set down the actual consumption of chicory in the United Kingdom at 12,500 tons per annum.  When we consider the vast difference of price between chicory and coffee, as purchased by the wholesale dealer, the temptation to its fraudulent use was obviously great, and there was no penal restriction against it.

It will be interesting and useful to trace the history of the trade in chicory from its first introduction.

The substitution of chicory for coffee occasioned a loss to the revenue of three hundred thousand pounds sterling a-year, besides its mischievous effect in adulterating and debasing a popular beverage when used in such large and undue proportions for admixture, and sold at the price of coffee.

Since the prohibition of the admixture of chicory with coffee, when sold to the public, and the compulsory sale by Treasury minute of the two articles in separate packages, a large and rapid increase in the consumption of coffee has taken place, and the trade is now placed in a healthy position.  Whilst the increase in the consumption of coffee from the 1st of January, to 5th September, 1852, was but 142,267 lbs. as compared with the same period of 1851; the increase in the remaining four months of the year was to the amazing extent of 2,350,368 lbs.  This increased consumption is likely to continue, and our colonial possessions are furnishing us with larger proportionate supplies, as may be seen by the following figures:—­

TOTAL IMPORTS OF COFFEE IN
1848 1849 1850 1851 1852
Produce of lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. 
British
Possessions
35,970,507 40,339,245 36,814,036 35,972,163 42,519,297
Ditto foreign
countries 21,082,943 22,976,542 13,989,116 17,138,497 11,857,957
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Total 57,053,450 63,315,787 50,803,152 53,110,660 54,377,254

In the year 1832 chicory was first imported into England, subject to a duty equivalent to that levied upon colonial coffee, and permitted to be sold by grocers separately as chicory; but notices were at the same time issued, that the legal penalties would be rigidly enforced, if discovered mixed with coffee.