g minds
that were quite willing to prostitute their finest talents to aid him in
attacking an honorable business.

[Illustration: ADVERTISING-CARD COPY, 1873]

In one year $1,765,000 was spent in traducing the national beverage. The
burden of the cereal-faker's song was that coffee was the cause of all
the ills that flesh is heir to, and that by stopping its use for ten
days and substituting his panacea, these ills would vanish.

Of course, there were many people (but they were the minority) who knew
that the caffein content of coffee was a pure, safe stimulant that did
not destroy the nerve cells like such false stimulants as alcohol,
morphine, etc.; and that while too much could be ingested from abuse of
any beverage containing it, nature always effected a cure when the abuse
was stopped.

However, there was undoubtedly created in the public mind a suspicion,
that threatened to develop into a prejudice, and that affected otherwise
sane and normal people, that perhaps coffee was not good for them.

Then came the winter of the coffee men's discontent. Floundering about
in a veritable slough of cereal slush, without secure foothold or a true
sense of direction, coffee advertising went miserably astray when its
writers began to assure the public that _their_ brands were guiltless of
the crimes charged in the cereal men's indictment. In this, of course,
they unwittingly aided and abetted the cereal fakers. For example, one
roaster-packer advertised, "The harmful ingredient in coffee is the
tannin-bearing chaff, which our roasting and grinding process completely
removes." Scientific research has since proved the fallacy of this idea.

[Illustration: HANDBILL COPY OF THE SEVENTIES]

[Illustration: BOX-END STICKER, 1833]

Another roaster said, "if coffee works havoc with your nerves and
digestion, it is because you are not using a fresh roasted, thoroughly
cleaned, correctly cured coffee. Our method of preparing gives you the
strength and aroma without its nerve-destroying qualities." A well known
coffee packer advertised, "Our coffee is free from the dust and bitter
tannin--the only injurious property in coffee." Still another packer
informed the consumer that "by a very special steel cutting process" he
sliced the coffee beans "so that the little cells containing the
volatile oil (the food product) are not broken."

A prominent Chicago packer put out a new brand of coffee which he
claimed was "non-intoxicating," "