20 MARCH 1982, Page 11

One hundred years ago

Midnight Tea is not tea taken on the very stroke of twelve — it is tea taken in the dead waste and middle of the night, that is to say, our modern night; somewhere early in the small-hours. And we speak of an institution, not of a solitary instance, much less of a rival to five-o'clock tea. An inquiring mind may ask, 'Why should I drink tea at the hour when hot-blood suggested itself to Hamlet?', and it is a reasonable ques- tion. Of course, the scholar might do it to keep himself awake over his books, but the student is usually thinking of shutting up when the small-hours have dropped down the chimney once or twice, and the toper is seldom far behind.

Spectator, 18 March 1882