Page:The food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa.djvu/168

Rh the fact stated over their doors, under penalty of £200 from the dealer having more than six pounds in his possession (who had to be licensed), and £100 from the customer encouraging the illicit trade. No less than £500 as fine and twelve months in the county gaol were inflicted for counterfeiting the stamp or selling chocolate without a stamp. To prevent evasion by selling the drink ready made, it was enacted under George I., whose physicians were extolling its medicinal virtues, that

Nothing is more eloquent of the growing favour in which cocoa is held in this country, as its real value becomes more generally appreciated, than the remarkable progressive increase of the quantities imported during recent years, as will be seen from the table appended. These