Against Coffee Houses

[The coffee-house is] only a Pimp to the Tavern, a relishing soup preparative to a fresh debauch: For when people have swill'd themselves with a morning draught of more Ale than Brewers horse can carry hither they come for a pennyworth of Settle-brain [coffee], where they are sure to meet enow lazy pragmatical Companions, that resort here to prattle of News, that they neither understand, nor are concerned in; and after an hours impertinent Chat, begin to consider a Bottle of Claret would do excellent well before Dinner; whereupon to the Bush they all march together, till every one of them is as Drunk as a Drum, and then back again to the Coffee-house to drink themselves sober; where three of four dishes a piece, and smoaking, makes their throats as dry as Mount Aetna enflam'd with Brimstone; so that they must away to the next Red Lettice to quench them with a dozen or two of ale, which at last growing nauseous, one of them begins to extol the blood of the Grapeâ??so once more to the Sack-shop till they are drunker than before; and then by a retrograde motion, stagger back to Soberize themselves with Coffee: Thus like Tennis Balls between two Rackets, the Fopps our Husbands are bandied to and fro all day between the Coffee-house & Tavernâ??and when at last they come to bed smoakt like a Westphalia Hogs-head we have no more comfort of them, than from a Shotten Herring or a dryed Bulrushâ?? (from "The Women's Petition against Coffee" late seventeenth century pamphlet)