state in the house of a _husband_? The lover is blind; but the husband has
eyes to see with. He soon discovers that there is something wanted
besides dimples and cherry cheeks; and I would have fathers seriously
reflect, and to be well assured, that the way to make their daughters to
be long admired, beloved and respected by their husbands, is to make them
skilful, able and active in the most necessary concerns of a family.
Eating and drinking come three times every day; the preparations for
these, and all the ministry necessary to them, belong to the wife; and I
hold it to be impossible, that at the end of two years, a really ignorant,
sluttish wife should possess any thing worthy of the name of love from her
husband. This, therefore, is a matter of far greater moment to the father
of a family, than, whether the Parson of the parish, or the Methodist
Priest, be the most "_Evangelical_" of the two; for it is here a question
of the daughter's happiness or misery for life. And I have no hesitation
to say, that if I were a labouring man, I should prefer teaching my
daughters to bake, brew, milk, make butter and cheese, to teaching them to
read the Bible till they had got every word of it by heart; and I should
think, too, nay I should know, that I was in the former case doing my duty
towards God as well as towards my children.
89. When we see a family of dirty, ragged little creatures, let us inquire
into the cause; and ninety-nine times out of every hundred we shall find
that the parents themselves have been brought up in the same way. But a
consideration which ought of itself to be sufficient, is the contempt in
which a husband will naturally hold a wife that is ignorant of the matters
necessary to the conducting of a family. A woman who understands all the
things above mentioned, is really a skilful person; a person worthy of
respect, and that will be treated with respect too, by all but brutish
employers or brutish husbands; and such, though sometimes, are not very
frequently found. Besides, if natural justice and our own interest had not
the weight which they have, such valuable persons will be treated with
respect. They know their own worth; and, accordingly, they are more
careful of their character, more careful not to lessen by misconduct the
value which they possess from their skill and ability.
90. Thus, then, the interest of the labourer; his health; the health of
his family; the peace and happiness of his home; the prospects of his
children through life; their skill, their ability, their habits of
cleanliness, and even their moral deportment; all combine to press upon
him the adoption and the constant practice of this branch of domestic
economy. "Can she _bake_?" is the question that I always put. If she can,
she is _worth a pound or two a year more_. Is that nothing? Is it nothing
for a labouring man to make his four or five daughters worth eight or ten
pounds a year more; and that too while he is by the same means providing
the more plentifully for himself and the rest of his family? The reasons
on the side of the thing that I contend for are endless; but if this one
motive be not sufficient, I am sure, all that I have said, and all that I
could say, must be wholly unavailing.
91. Before, however, I dismiss this subject, let me say a word or two to
those persons who do not come under the denomination of labourers. In
London, or in any very large town where the space is so confined, and
where the proper fuel is not handily to be come at and stored for use, to
bake your own bread may be attended with too much difficulty; but in all
other situations there appears to me to be hardly any excuse for not
baking bread at home. If the family consist of twelve or fourteen persons,
the money actually saved in this way (even at present prices) would be
little short of from twenty to thirty pounds a year. At the utmost here is
only the time of one woman occupied one day in the week. Now mind, here
are twenty-five pounds to be employed in some way different from that of
giving it to the baker. If you add five of these pounds to a woman's
wages, is not that full as well employed as giving it in wages to the
baker's men? Is it not better employed for you? and is it not better
employed for the community? It is very certain, that if the practice were
as prevalent as I could wish, there would be a large deduction from the
regular baking population; but would there be any harm if less alum were
imported into England, and if some of those youths were left at the
plough, who are now bound in apprenticeships to learn the art and mystery
of doing that which every girl in the kingdom ought to be taught to do by
her mother? It ought to be a maxim with every master and every mistress,
never to employ another to do that which can be done as well by their own
servants. The more of their money that is retained in the hands of their
own people, the better it is for them altogether. Besides, a man of a
right mind must be pleased with the reflection, that there is a great mass
of skill and ability under his own roof. He feels stronger and more
independent on this account, all pecuniary advantage out of the question.
It is impossible to conceive any thing more contemptible than a crowd of
men and women living together in a house, and constantly looking out of it
for people to bring them food and drink, and to fetch their garments to
and fro. Such a crowd resemble a nest of unfledged birds, absolutely
dependent for their very existence on the activity and success of the old
ones.
92. Yet, on men go, from year to year, in this state of wretched
dependence, even when they have all the means of living within themselves,
which is certainly the happiest state of life that any one can enjoy. It
may be asked, Where is the mill to be found? where is the wheat to be got?
The answer is, Where is there not a mill? where is there not a market?
They are every where, and the difficulty is to discover what can be the
particular attractions contained in that long and luminous manuscript, a
baker's half-yearly bill.
93. With regard to the mill, in speaking of families of any considerable
number of persons, the mill has, with me, been more than once a subject of
observation in print. I for a good while experienced the great
inconvenience and expense of sending my wheat and other grain to be ground
at a mill. This expense, in case of a considerable family, living at only
a mile from a mill, is something; but the inconveniency and uncertainty
are great. In my "Year's Residence in America," from Paragraphs 1031 and
onwards, I give an account of a horse-mill which I had in my farm yard;
and I showed, I think very clearly, that corn could be ground cheaper in
this way than by wind or water, and that it would answer well to grind for
sale in this way as well as for home use. Since my return to England I
have seen a mill, erected in consequence of what the owner had read in my
book. This mill belongs to a small farmer, who, when he cannot work on his
land with his horses, or in the season when he has little for them to do,
grinds wheat, sells the flour; and he takes in grists to grind, as other
millers do. This mill goes with three small horses; but what I would
recommend to gentlemen with considerable families, or to farmers, is a
mill such as I myself have at present.
94. With this mill, turned by a man and a stout boy, I can grind six
bushels of wheat in a day and dress the flour. The grinding of six bushels
of wheat at ninepence a bushel comes to four and sixpence, which pays the
man and the boy, supposing them (which is not and seldom can be the case)
to be hired for the express purpose out of the street. With the same mill
you grind meat for your pigs; and of this you will get eight or ten
bushels ground in a day. You have no trouble about sending to the mill;
you are sure to have your _own wheat_; for strange as it may seem, I used
sometimes to find that I sent white Essex wheat to the mill, and that it
brought me flour from very coarse red wheat. There is no accounting for
this, except by supposing that wind and water power has something in it to
change the very nature of the grain; as, when I came to grind by horses,
such as the wheat went into the hopper, so the flour came out into the
bin.
95. But mine now is only on the petty scale of providing for a dozen of
persons and a small lot of pigs. For a farm-house, or a gentleman's house
in the country, where there would be _room_ to have a walk for a horse,
you might take the labour from the men, clap any little horse, pony, or
even ass to the wheel; and he would grind you off eight or ten bushels of
wheat in a day, and both he and you would have the thanks of your men into
the bargain.
96. The cost of this mill is twenty pounds. The dresser is four more; the
horse-path and wheel might, possibly, be four or five more; and, I am very
certain, that to any farmer living at a mile from a mill, (and that is
less than the average distance perhaps;) having twelve persons in family,
having forty pigs to feed, and twenty hogs to fatten, the savings of such
a mill would pay the whole expenses of it the very first year. Such a
farmer cannot send less than _fifty times_ a year to the mill. Think of
that, in the first place! The elements are not always propitious:
sometimes the water fails, and sometimes the wind. Many a farmer's wife
has been tempted to vent her spleen on both. At best, there must be horse
and man, or boy, and, perhaps, cart, to go to the mill; and that, too,
observe, in all weathers, and in the harvest as well as at other times of
the year. The case is one of imperious necessity: neither floods nor
droughts, nor storms nor calms, will allay the cravings of the kitchen,
nor quiet the clamorous uproar of the stye. Go, somebody must, to some
place or other, and back they must come with flour and with meal. One
summer many persons came down the country more than fifty miles to a mill
that I knew in Pennsylvania; and I have known farmers in England carry
their grists more than fifteen miles to be ground. It is surprising, that,
under these circumstances, hand-mills and horse-mills should not, long
ago, have become of more general use; especially when one considers that
the labour, in this case, would cost the farmer next to nothing. To grind
would be the work of a wet day. There is no farmer who does not at least
fifty days in every year exclaim, when he gets up in the morning, "What
shall I set _them_ at to-day?" If he had a mill, he would make them pull
off their shoes, sweep all out clean, winnow up some corn, if he had it
not already done, and grind and dress, and have every thing in order. No
scolding within doors about the grist; no squeaking in the stye; no boy
sent off in the rain to the mill.
97. But there is one advantage which I have not yet mentioned; and which
is the greatest of all; namely, that you would have the power of supplying
your married labourers; your blacksmith's men sometimes; your
wheelwright's men at other times; and, indeed, the greater part of the
persons that you employed, with good flour, instead of their going to
purchase their flour, after it had passed through the hands of a Corn
Merchant, a Miller, a Flour Merchant, and a Huckster, every one of whom
does and must have a profit out of the flour, arising from wheat grown
upon, and sent away from, your very farm! I used to let all my people have
flour at the same price that they would otherwise have been compelled to
give for worse flour. _Every Farmer_ will understand me when I say, that
he ought to pay for nothing in _money_, which he can pay for in any thing
but money. His maxim is to keep the money that he takes as long as he can.
Now here is a most effectual way of putting that maxim in practice to a
very great extent. Farmers know well that it is the Saturday night which
empties their pockets; and here is the means of cutting off a good half of
the Saturday night. The men have better flour for the same money, and
still the farmer keeps at home those profits which would go to the
maintaining of the dealers in wheat and in flour.
98. The maker of my little mill is Mr. HILL, of Oxford-street. The expense
is what I have stated it to be. I, with my small establishment, find the
thing convenient and advantageous; what then must it be to a gentleman in
the country who has room and horses, and a considerable family to provide
for? The dresser is so contrived as to give you at once, meal, of four
degrees of fineness; so that, for certain purposes, you may take the very
finest; and, indeed, you may have your flour, and your bread of course, of
what degree of fineness you please. But there is also a _steel mill_, much
less _expensive_, requiring _less labour_, and yet quite sufficient for a
_family_. Mills of this sort, very good, and at a reasonable price, are to
be had of Mr. PARKES, in _Fenchurch-street_, London. These are very
complete things of their kind. Mr. PARKES has, also, excellent Malt-Mills.
99. In concluding this part of my Treatise, I cannot help expressing my
hope of being instrumental in inducing a part of the labourers, at any
rate, to bake their own bread; and, above all things, to abandon the use
of "Ireland's _lazy_ root." Nevertheless, so extensive is the erroneous
opinion relative to this villanous root, that I really began to despair of
checking its cultivation and use, till I saw the declaration which Mr.
WAKEFIELD had the good sense and the spirit to make before the
"AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEE." Be it observed, too, that Mr. WAKEFIELD had
himself made a survey of the state of Ireland. What he saw there did not
encourage him, doubtless, to be an advocate for the growing of this root
of wretchedness. It is an undeniable fact, that, in the proportion that
this root is in use, as a _substitute for bread_, the people are wretched;
the reasons for which I have explained and enforced a hundred times over.
Mr. WILLIAM HANNING told the Committee that the labourers in his part of
Somersetshire were "almost wholly supplied with potatoes, _breakfast_ and
_dinner_, brought them _in the fields_, and nothing but potatoes; and that
they used, in better times, to get a certain portion of bacon and cheese,
which, on account of their "poverty, they do not eat now." It is
impossible that men can be _contented_ in such a state of things: it is
unjust to desire them to be contented: it is a state of misery and
degradation to which no part of any community can have any show of right
to reduce another part: men so degraded have no protection; and it is a
disgrace to form part of a community to which they belong. This
degradation has been occasioned by a silent change in the value of the
money of the country. This has purloined the wages of the labourer; it has
reduced him by degrees to housel with the spider and the bat, and to feed
with the pig. It has changed the habits, and, in a great measure, the
character of the people. The sins of this system are enormous and
undescribable; but, thank God! they seem to be approaching to their end!
Money is resuming its value, labour is recovering its price: let us hope
that the wretched potatoe is disappearing, and that we shall, once more,
see the knife in the labourer's hand and the loaf upon his board.
[This was written in 1821. _Now_ (1823) we have had the experience of
1822, when, for the first time, the world saw a considerable part of a
people, plunged into all the horrors of _famine_, at a moment when the
government of that nation declared _food to be abundant_! Yes, the year
1822 saw Ireland in this state; saw the people of whole parishes receiving
the _extreme unction_ preparatory to yielding up their breath for want of
food; and this while large exports of meat and flour were taking place in
that country! But horrible as this was, disgraceful as it was to the name
of Ireland, it was attended with this good effect: it brought out, from
many members of Parliament (in their places,) and from the public in
general, the acknowledgment, that the _misery_ and _degradation_ of the
Irish were chiefly owing to the _use of the potatoe as the almost sole
food of the people_.]
100. In my next number I shall treat of the _keeping of cows_. I have said
that I will teach the cottager how to keep a cow all the year round upon
the produce of a quarter of an acre, or, in other words, _forty rods_, of
land; and, in my next, I will make good my promise.
No. IV
MAKING BREAD--(CONTINUED.)
101. In the last number, at Paragraph 86, I observed that I hoped it was
unnecessary for me to give any directions as to the mere _act_ of making
bread. But several correspondents inform me that, without these
directions, a conviction of the utility of baking bread at home is of _no
use to them_. Therefore, I shall here give those directions, receiving my
instructions here from one, who, I thank God, does know how to perform
this act.
102. Suppose the quantity be a bushel of flour. Put this flour into a
_trough_ that people have for the purpose, or it may be in a clean smooth
tub of any shape, if not too deep, and if sufficiently large. Make a
pretty deep hole in the middle of this heap of flour. Take (for a bushel)
a pint of good fresh yeast, mix it and stir it well up in a pint of _soft_
water milk-warm. Pour this into the hole in the heap of flour. Then take a
spoon and work it round the outside of this body of moisture so as to
bring into that body, by degrees, flour enough to make it form a _thin
batter_, which you must stir about well for a minute or two. Then take a
handful of flour and scatter it thinly over the head of this batter, so as
to _hide_ it. Then cover the whole over with a cloth to keep it _warm_;
and this covering, as well as the situation of the trough, as to distance
from the fire, must depend on the nature of the place and state of the
weather as to heat and cold. When you perceive that the batter has risen
enough to make _cracks_ in the flour that you covered it over with, you
begin to form the whole mass into _dough_, thus: you begin round the hole
containing the batter, working the flour into the batter, and pouring in,
as it is wanted to make the flour mix with the batter, soft water
milk-warm, or milk, as hereafter to be mentioned. Before you begin this,
you scatter the _salt_ over the heap at the rate of _half a pound_ to a
bushel of flour. When you have got the whole _sufficiently moist_, you
_knead it well_. This is a grand part of the business; for, unless the
dough be _well worked_, there will be _little round lumps of flour in the
loaves_; and, besides, the original batter, which is to give fermentation
to the whole, will not be duly mixed. The dough must, therefore, be well
worked. The _fists_ must go heartily into it. It must be rolled over;
pressed out; folded up and pressed out again, until it be completely
mixed, and formed into a _stiff_ and _tough dough_. This is _labour_,
mind. I have never quite liked baker's bread since I saw a great heavy
fellow, in a bakehouse in France, kneading bread with his _naked feet_!
His feet looked very _white_, to be sure: whether they were of that colour
_before he got into the trough_ I could not tell. God forbid, that I
should suspect that this is ever done _in England_! It is _labour_; but,
what is _exercise_ other than labour? Let a young woman bake a bushel once
a week, and she will do very well without phials and gallipots.
103. Thus, then, the dough is made. And, when made, it is to be formed
into a lump in the middle of the trough, and, with a little dry flour
thinly scattered over it, covered over again to be kept warm and to
ferment; and in this state, if all be done rightly, it will not have to
remain more than about 15 or 20 minutes.
104. In the mean while _the oven is to be heated_; and this is much more
than half the art of the operation. When an oven is properly heated, can
be known only by _actual observation_. Women who understand the matter,
know when the heat is right the moment they put their faces within a yard
of the oven-mouth; and once or twice observing is enough for any person of
common capacity. But this much may be said in the way of _rule_: that the
fuel (I am supposing a brick oven) should be _dry_ (not _rotten_) wood,
and not mere _brush-wood_, but rather _fagot-sticks_. If larger wood, it
ought to be split up into sticks not more than two, or two and a half
inches through. Bush-wood that is _strong_, not green and not too old, if
it be hard in its nature and has some _sticks_ in it, may do. The _woody_
parts of furze, or ling, will heat an oven very well. But the thing is, to
have a _lively_ and yet _somewhat strong_ fire; so that the oven may be
heated in about 15 minutes, and retain its heat sufficiently long.
105. The oven should be hot by the time that the dough, as mentioned in
Paragraph 103, has remained in the lump about 20 minutes. When both are
ready, take out the fire, and wipe the oven out clean, and, at nearly
about the same moment, take the dough out upon the lid of the baking
trough, or some proper place, cut it up into pieces, and make it up into
loaves, kneading it again into these separate parcels; and, as you go on,
shaking a little flour over your board, to prevent the dough from adhering
to it. The loaves should be put into the oven as _quickly_ as possible
after they are formed; when in, the oven-lid, or door, should be fastened
up _very closely_; and, if all be properly managed, loaves of about the
size of quartern loaves will be sufficiently baked in about _two hours_.
But they usually take down the _lid_, and _look_ at the bread, in order to
see how it is going on.
106. And what is there worthy of the name of _plague_, or _trouble_, in
all this? Here is no dirt, no filth, no rubbish, no _litter_, no _slop_.
And, pray, what can be pleasanter to _behold_? Talk, indeed, of your
pantomimes and gaudy shows; your processions and installations and
coronations! Give me, for a beautiful sight, a neat and smart woman,
heating her oven and setting in her bread! And, if the bustle does make
the sign of labour glisten on her brow, where is the man that would not
kiss that off, rather than lick the plaster from the cheek of a duchess.
107. And what is the _result_? Why, good, wholesome food, sufficient for a
considerable family for a week, prepared in three or four hours. To get
this quantity of food, fit to be _eaten_, in the shape of potatoes, _how
many fires_! what a washing, what a boiling, what a peeling, what a
slopping, and what a messing! The cottage everlastingly in a litter; the
woman's hands everlastingly wet and dirty; the children grimed up to the
eyes with dust fixed on by potato-starch; and ragged as colts, the poor
mother's time all being devoted to the everlasting boilings of the pot!
Can any man, who knows any thing of the labourer's life, deny this? And
will, then, any body, except the old shuffle-breeches band of the
Quarterly Review, who have all their lives been moving from garret to
garret, who have seldom seen the sun, and never the dew except in print;
will any body except these men say, that the people ought to be taught to
use potatoes as a _substitute for bread_?
BREWING BEER.
108. This matter has been fully treated of in the two last numbers. But
several correspondents wishing to fall upon some means of rendering the
practice beneficial to those who are _unable to purchase_ brewing
utensils, have recommended the _lending_ of them, or letting out, round a
neighbourhood. Another correspondent has, therefore, pointed out to me _an
Act of Parliament_ which touches upon this subject; and, indeed, what of
Excise Laws and Custom Laws and Combination Laws and Libel Laws, a human
being in this country scarcely knows what he dares do or what he dares
say. What father, for instance, would have imagined, that, having brewing
utensils, which two men carry from house to house as easily as they can a
basket, _he dared not lend them to his son, living in the next street, or
at the next door_? Yet such really is the law; for, according to the Act
5th of the 22 and 23 of that honest and sincere gentleman Charles II.,
there is a penalty of 50_l._ for lending or letting brewing utensils.
However, it has this limit; that the penalty is confined to _Cities_,
_Corporate Towns_, and _Market Towns_, WHERE THERE IS A PUBLIC BREWHOUSE.
So that, in the first place, you may let, or lend, in _any_ place where
there is _no public brewhouse_; and in all towns not _corporate or
market_, and in all villages, hamlets, and scattered places.