The finer bread is used in the poorer parts of the town, such as Spiralfields, &c. On the borders of Es sex, the magistrates enforced the use of the standard wheaten bread; but the poor did not like it, and thought it did not go so far, and the magistrates now suffer the finer wheaten to be made. He agrees with the poor in opinion, that standard wheaten bread does not go so far as the fine wheaten bread. If an inferior sort of bread is to be made, it should be universal; but, if this bread was made wholly of English wheat, without any mixture of foreign, which is generally bad, it might be wholesome.

Another stated the quantities of wheat sold in the London market for the month of September, and first three weeks of October, in the last four years, as follows: 1792

1793

Weeks Qrs Weeks Qrs Sept. 5 21,204 4 12,987 Oct. 3 15,223 3 13,827 1794 1795

Weeks Qrs Weeks QIS Sept. 4 10,171 4 7,031 Oct. 3 8,887 3 9,989 and that the price would be enormously bigh through the year, unless some substitute could be found for wheat, of which there is not enough to make bread till next harvest. Thinks bread of other grain would be liked, as it was by the poor at Rickmansworth last year, when given to them.

All the respectable mealmen and corn-factors concurred in opinion as to the crops, price, and supply.

The crops in America 1793 and 1794 not good, and the price high on account of the quantities exported to France and the West Indies, particularly the Havannah, and

the advantageous speculation it af fords in Europe. The French mia nister purchased it in the two last and present years, and paid for it in gold coin, or by bullion, or by wine and brandy; the present contract is by certificates issued by the American government for part of the debts owing to France from the United States, which certificates amount to 800,000 dollars; but, as some of them do not bear so high an interest as 6 per cent. American stock, there will probably be a loss on them of 20 per cent. The whole of the sum paid by France in this mode may amount, including all deductions, to 160,0001. Most of the ships carrying wheat and flour to France cleared outprincipally for Falmouth, and a market sometimes to Hamburg and sometimes to Spain and Portugal. The French government have sustained great losses in this trade by captures of corn and mo. ney, amounting to near 200,000l.; and the American merchants made immense profits by the high price required for their flour exported on their own risk. Even in the con tracts now carried on the losses are supposed, by well-informed persons in America, to be about 601. per cent. A number of merchants in America, who considered the American debt owing to France as a col. lateral security, finding the debt is applied in the manner here stated, are discouraged from shipping provisions on their own account; and the payments will not be so extensive this year as the last; and some merchants at New York, who had made an agreement with M. Fau chet, the French minister, to send flour to France, and, in consequence, had drawn bills to a large amount in England, on a supposition that

the money would be paid in France, and brought to England in time to satisfy these bills,which has not been the case, are on this account in the greatest distress. The quantity of wheat for exportation in the United States is estimated at about a million of bushels of flour, 1,100,000 barrels.

The divisions and their weight were stated, also the price of flour made of wheat and barley in several proportions, and their produce per bushel.

Mr. Wm. Malcolm, who drew up the reports of the counties of Surrey and Bucks, is the only person who suggests a combination of opulent farmers, who play with and feed the markets at their own prices; which demand the interference of parliament, to keep open the ports, offer bounties, prevent smuggling, compel the pitching of grain in the markets, enforce laws against engrossing, forestalling, and regrating, and prevent combinations to raise the price of labour. He ascribes the high price of grain to the great increase of population, the emigrants, the very great proportion of land converted from arable to pasture,increase of buildings and people in manufacturing towns, villages lessened, and great towns, particularly London,increased nearly 1-8th. The great quantity of potatoes grown this season has lessened the quantity of grain. He recommends numbering the people by the assessors of the taxes, to ascertain the average produce sufficient for them compared with the number of acres.

Mr. Malcolm suggests the follow ing hints:-"The immense quantity of meal used in the kitchens of large families, to supply a pint

or two of soup for the table, must contribute to the great consumption of wheat; and the vast number of small pigs, weighing from 7 to 10lb. per quarter,called delicates, and sold from 7d. to 8d. the lb. which would, if kept a few weeks longer, weigh from 15 to 20lb. the quarter, is another cause of the dearness of meat. In these times economy should be set on foot in all families. The vast number of horses kept for pleasure and useless parade, must, by consumption of oats and hay, prevent the growth of human food on the same ground. House-lambs are another delicate that might be done without; and, if suffered to live a few months longer, would weigh more, and be of more use. We seem now to set in for a wet autumn, and of course a wet seedtime for wheat, which will be a cause of raising the price by men who speculate in it. The difference in the price between the brown and white loaf is not sufficient to tempt the poor to eat it. The brown should be made of the whole produce of the wheat, with only a reduction of one-ninth of the weight for bran, &c.; and a bushel of wheat, weighing 431b. should send home to the owner 361b. of meal, 6lb. of bran, and 1lb. loss or waste."

Nov. 2, a bill was ordered to be prepared, to prevent obstructions to the free passage of grain and other provisions throughout the kingdom.

Recommended to the lord-mayor and aldermen, to take measures for preparing correcter assize-tables, to extend to bread made of white or household wheaten flour, with onethird, one-fourth, or one-fifth of rye, barley, oats, and Indian-corn flour, that the baker might have such a

profit

profit as might encourage his making it for sale at such a reduced price as should encourage the purchaser to

take it.

Nov. 5. Mr. William Cramp, keeper of the house of correction at Lewes, Sussex, gave an account of the mode of making starch from horse-chesnuts. He put the chesnuts first in water to swell them till they burst, then took off the skin, and grated the kernel into fresh cold water. When that was done, he strained it through a coarse strainer or cheese-cloth, rinsing the pulp well with fresh water, and then strained it again through a very fine strainer to take off the internal skin, or little thin red film next to the kernel. The strainer cannot be too fine for this second straining; for starch will get through where water does. It was then left to settle five or six hours till the starch was effectually settled at bottom. The water in which it was settled was poured off, and fresh water put on it, and all stirred up again, and left to settle a second time, serving it in that manner two or three times, till the starch was bleached quite white; and, after it had again effectually settled, the last water was poured off, and it was put upon boards to dry. The whole process in summer, when the weather is fine to dry it out of doors, may be finished in four days, and the starch will be fit to box up. It is better to dry it in the open air than on a stove, as the stove would probably dry it too fast, and affect the colour, which was also the case unless the chesnut was very clean of the inside skin. The whole expence is in grating and breaking the kernels; and that of making 5lb. of starch would not

exceed 1s. 6d. One gallon of ches nuts was enough for experiment. Mr. C. imagines that acorns would answer the same purpose, and might be ground along with the chesnuts, but he had not tried. The process of making starch from chesnuts and potatoes is exactly the same; and a bushel of the latter, at 561b. the bushel, will make about 6lb. 4 oz. of starch.

The first report from the select committee, appointed to take into consideration the present high price of corn, printed Nov. 19, 1795, states the first and most obvious mode of supplying the deficiency to be by the importation of grain from foreign ports, by the restoration of the trade on corn to its natural channel, with the additional encouragement of a bounty of 20s. per quarter on wheat, and a proportionate bounty per barrel of flour from Europe south of Cape Finistere, or the ports in the Mediterranean or Africa, till the quantity of wheat and flour together shall equal 3,000,000 quarters, a bounty of 15s. per quarter on a certain quantity of wheat, and 10s. per quarter on all exceeding it from the other ports of Europe, and from America; and of 5s. per quarter, and in proportion on flour of Indian corn. A proclamation prohibiting the exportation and encouraging the importation from Feb. 13, 1795, until the expiration of six weeks from the commencement of the next session of parliament. The report on the

assize of bread, Nov. 9, 1795, was that the old standard bread, made of flour the whole produce of the wheat, and weighing three quarters of the weight of wheat, would tend to prevent many incon

veniences

veniencies which have arisen in the assize and making of bread for sale; and that the columns in the repealed act of 8 Anne would be the proper assize for the said standard wheat bread, a twelve penny loaf of which would, on a medium, contain 2lb. of bread in 8 more than the twelvepenny loaf of wheat made under 31 G. II.

The report from the committee of the House of Commons 1774, to consider the method practised in making flour from wheat, the prices thereof, and how far it may be expedient to put the same upon the regulations of an assize was reprinted 9 Nov. 1795.

Evil of using Potatoes for Bread; from the Annals of Agriculture.

O ascertain the value of pota

was made of five pounds of good flour, and another of three pounds

four ounces of the same flour mixed with one pound twelve ounces of potatoes; when boiled and mashed, equal quantities of yeast, salt, and water, were put to each loaf; but, in making up, it was found that the loaf of flour required more water, which was accordingly added, and that the mixed loaf had already too much; three ounces of flour were added to remedy the defect. On weighing them when cold, after baking the same time in the same oven, it was found that the flour loaf weighed eight pounds six ounces, and the mixed one only five pounds fifteen ounces.

Now, as five pounds of flour produced eight pounds six ounces of bread; in the same proportion, the three pounds seven ounces of flour would have made five pounds twelve ounces of bread: hence the one pound twelve ounces of potatoes

to

three ounces of bread,

ANTIQUITIES.

Account of the Government of England from the Year 1400 to 1485; from Andrews's History of Great, Britain, Vol. 1, Part 2.

THE power of each department of legislature became now more accurately defined, although no considerable alterations had been made in either.

The king's authority was most assuredly not in general despotic, since he could neither repeal nor change any law which had been made by consent of his parliament. Yet that dispnesing power which each monarch assumed, when it suited his purpose, threw far too great a weight into the scale of royalty. The sovereign besides retained the cruel right of giving in marriage the wards of the crown, although that prerogative (as well as that of pur. veyance) was exercised in a much more moderate degree than it had been of old.*

He could likewise press for his service not only soldiers and sailors, but also musicians, goldsmiths, embroiderers and various sorts of artificers.t

The peers attended their duty in parliament at their own expence. The representatives of the commons were always paid from the commencement of representation. To

wards the close of the 14th century it was fixed at 4s. per diem for knights of shires, and half that sum for each burgess.

The sheriff's influence in return.

ing members was extensive and trequently abused. Sometimes they made no proper elections of knights, &c. sometimes no return at all, and sometimes they returned such as had never been elected':

For these and such like misdemeanors he might be sued by action at the assizes and was liable to fine and imprisonment.

The qualification requisite for knights of the shires was 401, per annum. It appears too that strength of body and constitution was demanded, for the parliamentary writs about this period directed the electors to chuse not only the wisest but the stoutest men (potentiores ad laborandum), that they might be able to endure the fatigue of the journey and of close attendance.§

Besides their pay, the members of the House of Commons had the privilege, for themseves and their servants, of freedom from all are rests. A necessary exemption, that they might be enabled to perform their duty. But this privilege (as well as their pay) attended on the members only during their actual services, and quitted them at the

+ Ibid § Prynne.

end