London. What a curious composition! What a mess of drugs! But, if the
brewers _openly avow_ this, what have we to expect from the _secret
practices_ of them, and the _retailers_ of the article! When we know, that
_beer-doctor_ and _brewers'-druggist_ are professions, practised as openly
as those of _bug-man_ and _rat-killer_, are we simple enough to suppose
that the above-named are the _only_ drugs that people swallow in those
potions, which they call _pots of beer_? Indeed, we know the contrary; for
scarcely a week passes without witnessing the detection of some greedy
wretch, who has used, in making or in _doctoring_ his beer, drugs,
forbidden by the law. And, it is not many weeks since one of these was
convicted, in the Court of Excise, for using potent and dangerous drugs,
by the means of which, and a suitable quantity of water, he made _two buts
of beer into three_. Upon this occasion, it appeared that no less than
_ninety_ of these worthies were in the habit of pursuing the same
practices. The drugs are not unpleasant to the taste; they sting the
palate: they give a present relish: they communicate a momentary
exhilaration: but, they give no force to the body, which, on the contrary,
they enfeeble, and, in many instances, with time, destroy; producing
diseases from which the drinker would otherwise have been free to the end
of his days.
73. But, look again at the receipt for making porter. Here are _eight_
bushels of malt to 180 gallons of beer; that is to say, twenty-fire
gallons from the bushel. Now the malt is eight shillings a bushel, and
eight pounds of the very _best hops_ will cost but a shilling a pound. The
malt and hops, then, for the 180 gallons, cost but _seventy-two
shillings_; that is to say, only a little more than _fourpence three
farthings a gallon_, for stuff which is now retailed for _sixteen pence a
gallon_! If this be not an abomination, I should be glad to know what is.
Even if the treacle, colour, and the drugs, be included, the cost is not
_fivepence a gallon_; and yet, not content with this enormous extortion,
there are wretches who resort to the use of other and pernicious drugs, in
order to increase their gains!
74. To provide against this dreadful evil there is, and there can be, no
_law_; for, it is _created by the law_. The _law_ it is that imposes the
enormous tax on the _malt_ and _hops_; the _law_ it is that imposes the
_license tax_, and places the power of granting the license at the
discretion of persons appointed by the government; the _law_ it is that
checks, in this way, the private brewing, and that prevents _free and fair
competition_ in the selling of beer, and as long as the _law_ does these,
it will in vain endeavour to prevent the people from being destroyed by
slow poison.
75. Innumerable are the benefits that would arise from a repeal of the
taxes on malt and on hops. Tippling-houses might then be shut up with
justice and propriety. The labourer, the artisan, the tradesman, the
landlord, all would instantly feel the benefit. But the _landlord_ more,
perhaps, in this case, than any other member of the community. The four or
five pounds a year which the day-labourer now drizzles away in tea-messes,
he would divide with the farmer, if he had untaxed beer. His wages would
_fall_, and fall to his _advantage_ too. The fall of wages would be not
less than 40_l._ upon a hundred acres. Thus 40_l._ would go, in the end, a
fourth, perhaps to the farmer, and three-fourths to the landlord. This is
the kind of work to _reduce poor-rates_, and to restore _husbandry to
prosperity_. Undertaken this work _must_ be, and _performed too_; but
whether we shall see this until the estates have passed away from the
_present race_ of landlords, is a question which must be referred to
_time_.
76. Surely we may hope, that, when the American farmers shall see this
little Essay, they will begin seriously to think of leaving off the use of
the liver-burning and palsy-producing _spirits_. Their _climate_, indeed,
is something: _extremely hot_ in one part of the year, and _extremely
cold_ in the other part of it. Nevertheless, they may have, and do have,
very good beer if they will. _Negligence_ is the greatest impediment in
their way. I like the Americans very much; and that, if there were no
other, would be a reason for my not hiding their faults.
No. III.
MAKING BREAD.
77. Little time need be spent in dwelling on the necessity of _this_
article to all families; though, on account of the modern custom of using
_potatoes_ to supply the place of _bread_, it seems necessary to say a few
words here on the subject, which, in another work I have so amply, and, I
think, so triumphantly discussed. I am the more disposed to revive the
subject for a moment, in this place, from having read, in the evidence
recently given before the Agricultural Committee, that many labourers,
especially in the West of England, use potatoes _instead_ of bread to a
very great extent. And I find, from the same evidence, that it is the
custom to allot to labourers "_a potatoe ground_" in part payment of their
wages! This has a tendency to bring English labourers down to the state of
the Irish, whose mode of living, as to food, is but one remove from that
of the pig, and of the ill-fed pig too.
78. I was, in reading the above-mentioned Evidence, glad to find, that
Mr. EDWARD WAKEFIELD, the best informed and most candid of all the
witnesses, gave it as his opinion, that the increase which had taken place
in the cultivation of potatoes was "_injurious to the country_;" an
opinion which must, I think, be adopted by every one who takes the trouble
to reflect a little upon the subject. For leaving out of the question the
slovenly and beastly habits engendered amongst the labouring classes by
constantly lifting their principal food at once out of the earth to their
mouths, by eating without the necessity of any implements other than the
hands and the teeth, and by dispensing with everything requiring skill in
the preparation of the food, and requiring cleanliness in its consumption
or preservation; leaving these out of the question, though they are all
matters of great moment, when we consider their effects in the rearing of
a family, we shall find, that, in mere quantity of food, that is to say of
_nourishment_, bread is the preferable diet.
79. An acre of land that will produce 300 bushels of potatoes, will
produce 32 bushels of wheat. I state this as an average fact, and am not
at all afraid of being contradicted by any one well acquainted with
husbandry. The potatoes are supposed to be of a _good sort_, as it is
called, and the wheat may be supposed to weigh 60 pounds a bushel. It is a
fact clearly established, that, after the _water_, the _stringy_
substance, and the _earth_, are taken from the potatoe, there remains only
one _tenth_ of the rough raw weight of nutritious matter, or matter which
is deemed equally nutritious with bread, and, as the raw potatoes weigh
56lb. a bushel, the acre will yield 1,830lb. of nutritious matter. Now
mind, a bushel of wheat, weighing 60lb. will make of _household bread_
(that is to say, taking out only the _bran_) 65lb. Thus, the acre yields
2,080lb. of bread. As to the _expenses_, the seed and act of planting are
about equal in the two cases. But, while the potatoes _must_ have
cultivation during their growth, the wheat needs none; and while the wheat
straw is worth from three to five pounds an acre, the haulm of the
potatoes is not worth one single truss of that straw. Then, as to the
expense of gathering, housing, and keeping the potatoe crop, it is
enormous, besides the risk of loss by frost, which may be safely taken, on
an average, at a tenth of the crop. Then comes the expense of _cooking_.
The thirty-two bushels of wheat, supposing a bushel to be baked at a time,
(which would be the case in a large family,) would demand _thirty-two
heatings of the oven_. Suppose a bushel of potatoes to be cooked every day
in order to supply the place of this bread, then we have _nine hundred
boilings of the pot_, unless _cold potatoes_ be eaten at some of the
meals; and, in that case, the diet must be _cheering_ indeed! Think of the
_labour_; think of the _time_; think of all the peelings and scrapings and
washings and messings attending these _nine hundred boilings of the pot_!
For it must be a considerable time before English people can be brought to
eat potatoes in the Irish style; that is to say, scratch them out of the
earth with their paws, toss them into a pot without washing, and when
boiled, turn them out upon a dirty board, and then sit round that board,
peel the skin and dirt from one at a time and eat the inside. Mr. Curwen
was delighted with "_Irish hospitality_," because the people there receive
no parish relief; upon which I can only say, that I wish him the exclusive
benefit of such hospitality.
80. I have here spoken of a large quantity of each of the sorts of food. I
will now come to a comparative view, more immediately applicable to a
labourer's family. When wheat is _ten_ shillings the bushel, potatoes,
bought at best hand, (I am speaking of the country generally,) are about
_two_ shillings (English) a bushel. Last spring the average price of wheat
might be _six and sixpence_, (English;) and the average price of potatoes
(in small quantities) was about _eighteen-pence_; though, by the
wagon-load, I saw potatoes bought at a _shilling_ (English) a bushel, to
give to sheep; then, observe, these were of the coarsest kind, and the
farmer had to fetch them at a considerable expense. I think, therefore,
that I give the advantage to the potatoes when I say that they sell, upon
an average, for full a _fifth_ part as much as the wheat sells for, per
bushel, while they contain four pounds less weight than the bushel of
wheat; while they yield only five pounds and a half of nutritious matter
equal to bread; and while the bushel of wheat will yield _sixty-five
pounds of bread_, besides the ten pounds of bran. Hence it is clear, that,
instead of that _saving_, which is everlastingly dinned in our ears, from
the use of potatoes, there is a _waste of more than one half_; seeing
that, when wheat is _ten shillings_ (English) the bushel, you can have
_sixty-five pounds of bread for the ten shillings_; and can have out of
potatoes only five pounds and a half of nutritious matter equal to bread
for _two shillings_! (English.) This being the case, I trust that we shall
soon hear no more of those _savings_ which the labourer makes by the use
of potatoes; I hope we shall, in the words of Dr. DRENNAN, "leave Ireland
to her _lazy_ root," if she choose still to adhere to it. It is the root,
also, of slovenliness, filth, misery, and slavery; its cultivation has
increased in England with the increase of the paupers: both, I thank God,
are upon the decline. Englishmen seem to be upon the return to beer and
bread, from water and potatoes: and, therefore, I shall now proceed to
offer some observations to the cottager, calculated to induce him to bake
his own bread.
81. As I have before stated, sixty pounds of wheat, that is to say, where
the Winchester bushel weighs sixty pounds, will make sixty-five pounds of
bread, besides the leaving of about ten pounds of bran. This is household
bread, made of flour from which the bran only is taken. If you make fine
flour, you take out pollard, as they call it, as well as bran, and then
you have a smaller quantity of bread and a greater quantity of offal; but,
even of this finer bread, bread equal in fineness to the baker's bread,
you get from _fifty-eight to fifty-nine_ pounds out of the bushel of
wheat. Now, then, let us see how many quartern loaves you get out of the
bushel of wheat, supposing it to be fine flour, in the first place. You
get thirteen quartern loaves and a half; these cost you, at the present
average price of wheat (seven and sixpence a bushel,) in the first place
7_s_. 6_d._;[5] then 3_d._ for yeast; then not more than 3_d._ for
grinding; because you have about thirteen pounds of offal, which is worth
more than a 1/2_d._ a pound, while the grinding is 9_d._ a bushel. Thus,
then, the bushel of bread of fifty-nine pounds costs you _eight
shillings_; and it yields you the weight of thirteen and a half quartern
loaves: these quartern loaves _now_ (Dec. 1821) sell at Kensington, at the
baker's shop, at 1_s._ 1/2_d._; that is to say, the thirteen quartern
loaves and a half cost 14_s._ 7-1/2_d._ I omitted to mention the salt,
which would cost you 4_d._ more. So that, here is 6_s._ 3-1/2_d._ saved
upon the baking of a bushel of bread. The baker's quartern loaf is indeed
cheaper in the country than at Kensington, by, probably, a penny in the
loaf; which would still, however, leave a saving of 5_s._ upon the bushel
of bread. But, besides this, pray think a little of the materials of which
the baker's loaf is composed. The _alum_, the _ground potatoes_, and other
materials; it being a notorious fact, that the bakers, in London at least,
have _mills_ wherein to grind their potatoes; so large is the scale upon
which they use that material. It is probable, that, out of a bushel of
wheat, they make between _sixty_ and _seventy_ pounds of bread, though
they have no more _flour_, and, of course, no more nutritious matter, than
you have in your fifty-nine pounds of bread. But, at the least, supposing
their bread to be as good as yours in quality, you have, allowing a
shilling for the heating of the oven, a clear 4_s._ saved upon every
bushel of bread. If you consume half a bushel a week, that is to say about
a quartern loaf a day, this is a saving of 5_l._ 4_s._ a year, or full a
sixth part, if not a fifth part, of the earnings of a labourer in
husbandry.
82. How wasteful, then, and, indeed, how shameful, for a labourer's wife
to go to the baker's shop; and how negligent, how criminally careless of
the welfare of his family, must the labourer be, who permits so scandalous
a use of the proceeds of his labour! But I have hitherto taken a view of
the matter the least possibly advantageous to the home-baked bread. For,
ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the fuel for heating the oven costs
very little. The hedgers, the copsers, the woodmen of all descriptions,
have fuel for little or nothing. At any rate, to heat the oven cannot,
upon an average, take the country through, cost the labourer more than
6_d._ a bushel. Then, again, fine flour need not ever be used, and ought
not to be used. This adds six pounds of bread to the bushel, or nearly
another quartern loaf and a half, making nearly fifteen quartern loaves
out of the bushel of wheat. The finest flour is by no means the most
wholesome; and, at any rate, there is more nutritious matter in a pound of
household bread than in a pound of baker's bread. Besides this, rye, and
even barley, especially when mixed with wheat, make very good bread. Few
people upon the face of the earth live better than the Long Islanders. Yet
nine families out of ten seldom eat wheaten-bread. Rye is the flour that
they principally make use of. Now, rye is seldom more than two-thirds the
price of wheat, and barley is seldom more than half the price of wheat.
Half rye and half wheat, taking out a little more of the offal, make very
good bread. Half wheat, a quarter rye and a quarter barley, nay, one-third
of each, make bread that I could be very well content to live upon all my
lifetime; and, even barley alone, if the barley be good, and none but the
finest flour taken out of it, has in it, measure for measure, ten times
the nutrition of potatoes. Indeed the fact is well known, that our
forefathers used barley bread to a very great extent. Its only fault, with
those who dislike it, is its sweetness, a fault which we certainly have
not to find with the baker's loaf, which has in it little more of the
_sweetness_ of grain than is to be found in the offal which comes from
the sawings of deal boards. The nutritious nature of barley is amply
proved by the effect, and very rapid effect, of its meal, in the fatting
of hogs and of poultry of all descriptions. They will fatten quicker upon
meal of barley than upon any other thing. The flesh, too, is sweeter than
that proceeding from any other food, with the exception of that which
proceeds from _buck wheat_, a grain little used in England. That
proceeding from Indian corn is, indeed, still sweeter and finer; but this
is wholly out of the question with us.
83. I am, by-and-by, to speak of the _cow_ to be kept by the labourer in
husbandry. Then there will be _milk_ to wet the bread with, an exceedingly
great improvement in its taste as well as in its quality! This, of all the
ways of using skim milk, is the most advantageous: and this great
advantage must be wholly thrown away, if the bread of the family be bought
at the shop. With milk, bread with very little wheat in it may be made far
better than baker's bread; and, leaving the milk out of the question,
taking a third of each sort of grain, you would get bread weighing as much
as fourteen quartern loaves, for about 5_s._ 9_d._ at present prices of
grain; that is to say, you would get it for about 5_d._ the quartern loaf,
all expenses included; thus you have nine pounds and ten ounces of bread a
day for about 5_s._ 9_d._ a week. Here is enough for a very large family.
Very few labourers' families can want so much as this, unless indeed there
be several persons in it capable of earning something by their daily
labour. Here is cut and come again. Here is bread always for the table.
Bread to carry a field; always a hunch of bread ready to put into the hand
of a hungry child. We hear a great deal about "_children crying for
bread_," and objects of compassion they and their parents are, when the
latter have not the means of obtaining a sufficiency of bread. But I
should be glad to be informed, how it is possible for a labouring man, who
earns, upon an average, 10_s._ a week, who has not more than four
children (and if he have more, some ought to be doing something;) who has
a garden of a quarter of an acre of land (for that makes part of my plan;)
who has a wife as industrious as she ought to be; who does not waste his
earnings at the ale-house or the tea shop: I should be glad to know how
such a man, while wheat shall be at the price of about 6_s._ a bushel,
_can possibly have children crying for bread_!
84. Cry, indeed, they must, if he will persist in giving 13_s._ for a
bushel of bread instead of 5_s._ 9_d._ Such a man is not to say that the
bread which I have described is _not good enough_. It was good enough for
his forefathers, who were too proud to be paupers, that is to say, abject
and willing slaves. "Hogs eat barley." And hogs will eat wheat, too, when
they can get at it. Convicts in condemned cells eat wheaten bread; but we
think it no degradation to eat wheaten bread, too. I am for depriving the
labourer of none of his rights; I would have him oppressed in no manner or
shape; I would have him bold and free; but to have him such, he must have
bread in his house, sufficient for all his family, and whether that bread
be fine or coarse must depend upon the different circumstances which
present themselves in the cases of different individuals.
85. The married man has no right to expect the same plenty of food and of
raiment that the single man has. The time before marriage is the time to
lay by, or, if the party choose, to indulge himself in the absence of
labour. To marry is a voluntary act, and it is attended in the result with
great pleasures and advantages. If, therefore, the laws be fair and equal;
if the state of things be such that a labouring man can, with the usual
ability of labourers, and with constant industry, care and sobriety; with
decency of deportment towards all his neighbours, cheerful obedience to
his employer, and a due subordination to the laws; if the state of things
be such, that such a man's earnings be sufficient to maintain himself and
family with food, raiment, and lodging needful for them; such a man has
no reason to complain; and no labouring man has reason to complain, if the
numerousness of his family should call upon him for extraordinary
exertion, or for frugality uncommonly rigid. The man with a large family
has, if it be not in a great measure his own fault, a greater number of
pleasures and of blessings than other men. If he be wise, and _just_ as
well as wise, he will see that it is reasonable for him to expect less
delicate fare than his neighbours, who have a less number of children, or
no children at all. He will see the justice as well as the necessity of
his resorting to the use of coarser bread, and thus endeavour to make up
that, or at least a part of that, which he loses in comparison with his
neighbours. The quality of the bread ought, in every case, to be
proportioned to the number of the family and the means of the head of that
family. Here is no injury to health proposed; but, on the contrary, the
best security for its preservation. Without bread, all is misery. The
Scripture truly calls it the staff of life; and it may be called, too, the
pledge of peace and happiness in the labourer's dwelling.
86. As to the act of making bread, it would be shocking indeed if that had
to be taught by the means of books. Every woman, high or low, ought to
know how to make bread. If she do not, she is unworthy of trust and
confidence; and, indeed, a mere burden upon the community. Yet, it is but
too true, that many women, even amongst those who have to get their living
by their labour, know nothing of the making of bread; and seem to
understand little more about it than the part which belongs to its
consumption. A Frenchman, a Mr. CUSAR, who had been born in the West
Indies, told me, that till he came to Long Island, he never knew _how the
flour came_: that he was surprised when he learnt that it was squeezed out
of little grains that grew at the tops of straw; for that he had always
had an idea that it was got out of some large substances, like the yams
that grow in tropical climates. He was a very sincere and good man, and I
am sure he told me truth. And this may be the more readily believed, when
we see so many women in England, who seem to know no more of the
constituent parts of a loaf than they know of those of the moon. Servant
women in abundance appear to think that loaves are made by the baker, as
knights are made by the king; things of their pure creation, a creation,
too, in which no one else can participate. Now, is not this an enormous
evil? And whence does it come? Servant women are the children of the
labouring classes; and they would all know how to make bread, and know
well how to make it too, if they had been fed on bread of their mother's
and their own making.
87. How serious a matter, then, is this, even in this point of view! A
servant that cannot make bread is not entitled to the same wages as one
that can. If she can neither bake nor brew; if she be ignorant of the
nature of flour, yeast, malt, and hops, what is she good for? If she
understand these matters well; if she be able to supply her employer with
bread and with beer, she is really _valuable_; she is entitled to good
wages, and to consideration and respect into the bargain; but if she be
wholly deficient in these particulars, and can merely dawdle about with a
bucket and a broom, she can be of very little consequence; to lose her, is
merely to lose a consumer of food, and she can expect very little indeed
in the way of desire to make her life easy and pleasant. Why should any
one have such desire? She is not a child of the family. She is not a
relation. Any one as well as she can take in a loaf from the baker, or a
barrel of beer from the brewer. She has nothing whereby to bind her
employer to her. To sweep a room any thing is capable of that has got two
hands. In short, she has no useful skill, no useful ability; she is an
ordinary drudge, and she is treated accordingly.