334 ONCE A WEEK. [October 22, 1859.
plain cooks of the women. This w ould be the best
method of economy; but it is also a question how
more material may be obtained. If we were all
as wise as we might be, there would be meat, and!
other prime articles of food, 'within reach of every
laborious man in the kingdom. It is painful to
write of the inferior parts of the ox as the food
of the labourer, while the sirloin and the rump-
steak are for the squire and the farmer. In the
primary articles of food it might seem that men of
all ranks should be on an equality. But what can
one do and say? The truth is, practically, that
the labourer rarely sees good meat, or any meat
but bacon, on his table. I believe and trust that
there will ere long be more meat produced; and
if, at the same time, a wise economy could be
introduced into all classes, by which no meat
would be wasted, and no one would eat too much
of it, and everyone could understand how to obtain
and use it, we might hope to see the leg of mutton,
and loin of pork, and goodly piece of boiling-beef,
on the ploughman’s and the mason’s table, as regu-
larly as in the houses of their employers.
Meantime, what can be done?
It is well known in certain rural districts that the labourer’s expenditure usually exceeds his avowed income: and that it is impossible to pre- serve the health and strength of cottage families on such means as they nominally have. Some- thing is due to chance earnings or gifts: but the main part of the mystery is solved when we look at the game-preserves. Half a century ago, when the labourers actually could not live, — when bread was not only dear, but intolerable in quality, the offence of sheep -stealing was prevalent beyond example. In the parishes where wages are 8s. per week, there is much poaching; and so there will be while men are required to live on such a pittance. Now, if the improvement in farming admitted of an advance of wages to 12#., or 14#. or 16#. a week (rates paid now where the farming is good), the man and the boys would be worth the increase, in mere strength and spirit; and, instead of stealing the squire’s wild birds, the family might and would keep fowls of their own. Instead of getting hares and rabbits on the sly, they would keep a pig, be sure of prime bacon, and exchange the rest for beef and mutton. Till we see this change taking place in the very poorest districts, how may the interval be best bridged over? How may the greatest number be preserved from that condition of imperfect feed- ing which prepares thousands of our neighbours for being victims of every assault of disease?
It is essential to good nourishment that there should be some variety in food. Not only must there be both the classes of elements above spoken of, which are found together in the main articles of food, but the articles themselves must be varied. Bread includes various good elements; and so does milk; and so do potatoes: yet nobody could long remain in health on a diet of bread alone, or of potatoes without milk or other animal product. Thus, it is wretched manage- ment to buy bread, and nothing but bread, and feed the whole family upon it, because bread is the best single article of food. The aim should be to have both animal and vegetable food at every dinner. It must be remembered that animal food does not mean meat only. It includes fish, cheese, butter, milk, and eggs. This point might be carried, if the labouring class understood the importance of it, and knew better how to manage their affairs.
They might be assisted in many ways, and from two points of view especially; and without insult- ing them by the offer of alms, or of any further aid than neighbours ought always to be glad to afford and accept. They might be helped first to the food itself; and next, to the due preparation of it.
It is not an unusual thing for ladies, in town and country, to buy calico, prints, and flannel, wholesale, in order to furnish schools and cottages with clothing, good and cheap. Why the same thing is not done with articles of food is strange. Ladies who have a little time to spare could do a prodigious amount of good in a rural parish (or in towns also), by procuring rice and coffee by the cwt., as imported; and barrels of Irish beef, and of Ohio pork; and quarter chests of tea; and carrots by the load, when the smaller roots would serve for the pig and the cows, while the best would come very cheap for the cottagers.
In Russian villages there is often a pair of scales under a shed for general use. It is intended pri- marily to weigh the wool and yarn of the spinners; but what a blessing it would be for many an English hamlet, where the people are at the mercy of the shop scales, and where they now buy mere pinches or handfuls of what they want! A pair of scales and a coffee-roaster for general use, with arrivals of rice at two pence farth- ing a pound, when it is fourpence or five- pence at the shop, and coffee at a shilling, reduced to ten-pence by a due mixture -with chicory, and prime pork at fourpence, and beef at fivepence, and Indian meal at some wonderfully low figure, — would change the aspect of many dinner-tables in the parish. The cheapest food, nutritious and really palatable, at present known, is believed to be one on which the operatives of a manufacturing town were mainly fed in abad winter by abenevolent employer, whose object was to embrace the greatest number within his means of relief. A mixture of In- dian meal and rice, boiled for many hours, with con- diments, made an excellent daily meal for hundreds of men, at (if I remember right), three -farthings a head. In ordinary times, the main object is not to discover the cheapest food, but the cheapest good food, in sufficient variety; and the difference between the lazy slice of bread, served out to the whole family, to be eaten anyhow and anywhere, and the hot meal, properly served at table, need not be insisted on here, or anywhere. Wholesale prices tend powerfully to the establishment of the dinner-table in cottage-life.
But what is to become of the village shopkeeper? some will ask. The village shopkeeper, or the city huckster, loses more by long credits and bad debts in an unthrifty neighbourhood than he can by three or four articles of his stock being otherwise supplied to his poorest customers. Where there is a general shop, the prosperity of the villagers is the best thing for the shopkeeper on the 'whole.
Finally, there is the preparation of the food. If