of production are inexhaustible; we have but to _organize them_, and
justly to distribute the produce.--_Charles Bray_.

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COFFEE AND THE SAVANS.--In a letter from Paris it is said: "Some of
our eminent scientific men are again squabbling on the vexed question
as to whether coffee does or does not afford nourishment. One of them
has laid down what seems a paradox, viz., that coffee contains fewer
nutritive properties than the ordinary food of man, and yet that the
man who makes it his principal food is stronger than one who feeds
on meat and wine. In support of this paradox, our _savant_ calls the
example of the miners of the coal-pits of Charleroi, who never eat
meat except a very small quantity on Sundays, and whose daily meals
consist exclusively of bread and butter and coffee. These men, he
says, are strong, muscular, and able to do, and actually perform, more
hard work than the miners of the coal-pits of Onzin, in France, who
feed largely on the more nutritive articles, meat and vegetables, and
drink wine or beer. Another _savant_, taking nearly the same views,
insists that the Arabs are able to live moderately, and to make long
abstinences, as they do, entirely on account of their extensive use
of coffee. But this last assertion is demolished, by the declaration
of M. d'Abbadie, who has just returned from Abyssinia, that certain
tribes of Arabs and Abyssinians who do _not_ use coffee can
support greater fatigue than those who do. In presence of such very
contradictory facts, who shall say which of the learned doctors is in
the right?"

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