THE BREAD WE EAT.

ANY one who travels along the bye-streets of London comes now and then across what is called a "cutting baker's shop." If he be a family man, and knows the current price of the four-pound loaf, he is surprised to find the "cottage" and "tin" that he sees marked up in the shop-window, sold at a penny or twopence lower than he is in the habit of paying at home. If he goes in and examines the staff of life, he is struck with its whiteness and apparent fineness. At first sight it would seem that the poor man got a better article for less money than the rich and well-to-do classes; but a little inquiry into the method by which these cutting bakers "make things pleasant" soon dissipates this seeming anomaly. The size of the loaf, for instance, is by no means commensurate with the amount of nutriment it contains, for the simple reason that it may be made with more or less water. The cheap baker, for the sake of pumping up his loaf to the biggest size, mixes his dough very thin, and, by only three-parts baking it, makes the steam swell it enormously. Consequently, the poor man who buys new bread pays, say sevenpence or sevenpence halfpenny a pound, for so much steam. These puffy loaves, again, are generally made with damaged flour, which will not by itself make a white loaf; to correct this, alum is added, which so whitens the bread that it looks even fairer than that made from the best wheat: indeed, great whiteness in the household loaf must always be looked upon with suspicion. This process of mixing the thin dough, and then imperfectly baking the loaf, not only takes in the poor man, but enables the baker to make more loaves out of a sack of flour. The conscientious baker makes, on an average, ninety loaves out

of a sack; the under-seller, however, manages to turn out ninety-four to ninety-six. If he makes ten sacks a week (a low average), he thus fraudulently obtains some fifty fourpound loaves over and above the respectable baker. This will account for the fair appearance of the bread in the windows of the "cutting baker," and also for the sensation announcements posted in their shops: "Down again," "Bread a penny cheaper," which in many cases may be read "more water in it." The process of adulteration by means of alum is not only a fraud upon the purchaser, but also positively injurious to all delicate adults and young children; indeed, it is the sole cause of nearly half the troubles of babies fed upon bread and milk, since the astringent nature of the alum entirely deranges the digestion of their delicate stomachs. Further, as a rule, the cheaper the bread, the more of this deleterious substance is to be found in it.

Yet now and then it is to be discovered in the bread of the most respectable bakers. When Dr. Hassall's analysis of bread appeared in the Lancet, some of the most respectable men in the trade were surprised to find that he had detected alum in their loaves. Knowing they were innocent of putting it in during the process of baking, it occurred to some of them to have the flour analyzed; and lo! the delinquent turned out to be the miller-a well-abused individual from the earliest ages.

But even these impurities are found to form only a small part of the charges laid at the door of the master baker. The journeyman has for years groaned under a system of extreme labour calculated to break down the strongest constitution. As a general rule he labours, with slight intermissions of sleep, from eighteen to twenty hours a day, but on Fridays he often works for a day and a night together. This slavery, combined with the unwholesome nature of the occupation, which renders the baker's trade one of the most unhealthy trades in existence, led some short time since to the men's grievances being laid before Parliament, and to the appointment of a Commission to inquire into the condition of journeymen bakers and bakehouses generally. The Report of the Commissioner, Mr. Tremenheere, was laid before Parliament, and then, in the form of a Blue-book, it gave us such a sickening as we never experienced in crossing the Channel in the roughest weather.

We do not, as an inspired writer says, "live by bread

alone;" and, according to the Reports, it is well that we don't. The corn comes out of the ground, and the bread comes out of the ground-or, at least, from a foetid basement, but the one is turned into nutriment by the aid of the refuse of the animal body; would that we could say the same of the other! There are some subjects so disgusting that there is no excuse for the bad taste that dwells upon them in the press; but we feel that the full force of public disgust is required to reform our present system of breadmaking. Paterfamilias, when he cuts the loaf for breakfast on the Gothic wooden platter, surrounded by some highly spiritual motto, is certainly not aware of the physical impurity he is manipulating. But it is well that he should know the whole truth at once, for the remedy lies in his own hands. It is scarcely necessary to say that the art of bread-making has not advanced in the least from the condition it was in

thousands of years ago. If the reader would verify this assertion, he has only to look at the process of bread-making as represented on the Assyrian marbles in the British Museum. We make the toys our children play with, the pins we use, the pens we write with the smallest items, in fact, that are called for by our civilization-by the most elaborate machinery; yet the bread we eat is made by the naked arm, the rough hairy arm of the not over-clean workman.

Everybody knows the whereabouts of a London bakehouse by the indescribable hot odour that comes up the gratings; but we are not all permitted to see the den whence issues the main food of the people. We must, therefore, depend upon the descriptions of Mr. Tremenheere. In all cases there is defective ventilation; in many cases the most polluted drains are to be found in the bakehouse itself; and as the ovens are generally placed in the cellar under the pavement, the inevitable result is that the foul air in its draught towards the fire is drawn over the dough while it is being manipulated. In many bakehouses the heat, often at 90°, causes the apartment to swarm with rats and mice, beetles, ants, and even worse vermin; and its action on the human skin during prolonged exertion may be imagined. Now, the first process of bread-making-the kneading process, "or making the dough," as it is called,is a very laborious piece of business. The kneading process is carried on in a trough, the dough having to be turned

over and over and thoroughly mixed with the bare arms. Imagine, good reader, a person making a bed at the bottom of a bath, the bed being very weighty, and the operation being carried on for half an hour in a temperature of 90°, the person leaning over the process the whole time. The result must be a copious perspiration which flows from the face and arms, and drops into the dough. This sickening process is inseparable from the handicraft; and we may say, without fear of contradiction, that no loaf we eat, or that any one eats, from the Queen to the beggar, is free from some admixture of this vile animal impurity.

But these exudations of the human body are by no means all the impurities the dough contracts whilst in the process of being made into bread. After speaking of the heavy festoons of cobwebs which hang from the roofs of many bakehouses, and which become detached by a heavy blow on the floor above, and fall into the mixing trough, the Commissioner goes on to say, "Animals, such as beetles, ants, and cockroaches, in considerable numbers, crawled in and out of and upon the troughs where the bread was made, and upon the adjoining walls. . . . The smells from the drains were very offensive, the draught of the oven continually drawing the effluvia through the bakehouse."

On this point Dr. Ure says, "If we reflect that bread, like all porous substances, readily absorbs the air that surrounds it, and that even under the best conditions it should never, on that account, be kept in confined places, what must be the state of bread manufactured in the manner common in London?"

What indeed! This paragraph was written by Dr. Ure many years ago, but still we have gone on eating our "peck of dirt" with a most praiseworthy perseverance, and in all probability should continue to do so but for this Report, and the fact that, almost simultaneously with its appearance, mechanical science has stepped in to remedy the evils it makes us acquainted with. It is a fact that in most public charities and establishments, such as workhouses, blind asylums, and orphan schools in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, the inmates are supplied with machine-made bread, quite free from the disgusting impurities with the details of which we fear we have sickened our reader, while at the same time the most delicate and fastidious members of the community are still depending upon the bakers' bare arms

for the bread they daily eat. Mr. Stevens has now had for some time a very effective machine for the making of bread, by which the whole operation is performed without the aid of the hand at all. This is a very useful apparatus, and is made to suit the requirements of both large and small bakers, and even private persons who love home-made bread. This machine, however, is calculated to make fermented bread only-food which strong stomachs can manage well enough, but which those suffering from dyspepsia cannot so conveniently digest.

The public are now pretty familiar with the aërated bread, the invention of Dr. Dauglish. This bread is also made by machine, it is not raised by the ferment of yeast, but by the introduction of carbonic acid gas into the dough whilst being mixed in an exhausted receiver. The carbonic acid gas in this manner becomes thoroughly incorporated with the elements of the bread, and as it issues from the machine the gas gives it that highly vesicular appearance on which its extreme lightness depends. Flour, salt, and water are thus the only ingredients to be found in the aërated bread. But the purity of the loaf made by this process is not its only recommendation to weak stomachs. The flour from which it is made is prepared by an American process, which removes the outer coat of the grain-a silicious matter wholly indigestible-without injuring or removing the internal coat, which is the most nutritious part of the grain. By the ordinary method of grinding, this coat disappears with the bran, and thus at least twenty per cent. of the value of the wheat grain is lost. The flour, thus rich in what is termed "cerealine," by the ordinary process of breadmaking, however, turns out a rather brownish loaf, to which the public, as a rule, object, as it is supposed to exert certain laxative qualities, after the manner of the well-known brown bread. Now, although this is an error (the peculiar properties of the brown bread depending upon the silicious coat which is retained in it, whilst it is rejected from this new preparation), yet the public cannot be convinced, and the invaluable process of unbranning wheat would have been rejected but for the simultaneous invention of the aërating machine which Dr. Dauglish has brought before the public. The aërated loaf made from this exceedingly rich flour having no fermenting process to go through, turns out a beautifully white bread,