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only shinier. We used to stir it in a copper of water till the copper-stick would stand upright in it, then it was ready for use. It's all nonsense. What interest has the baker got in poisoning people? All that he wants to do is to eke out his flour and make as much out of it as he can, or, if his flour is rather dicky, to make it pass. Nothing's better than alum; it certainly do work wonders with flour that isn't up to the mark. Sometimes too much is used, I dare say; but that isn't always the baker's fault.

"What do I mean by that? Why, that the baker is misled. The flour is very often doctored before he gets it. I won't say it of town millers, but I'll make bold to say of country millers that it is quite a common practice with them to alum the flour. Country millers, who have a lot of commission shops, go ahead with the alum worse than any of 'em. It's pretty much between some of the millers and some of the bakers as it is between the big brewers and the public-houses. There are hundreds of shops in London with the baker's name over the door, but it's no more his business than it's yours. That's where the mischief is. A baker gets into difficulties, and can't pay up; and especially if it is in a good cutting neighbourhood, in comes the miller, and takes the business over his head, allowing, say, five shillings a sack for making, and the bit of extra profit he may be able to make on rolls, and them sort of small things. The baker doesn't have a chance. They're wide-awake, them country millers. They know to a grain almost how much alum their flour will stand, and if the baker ventures on a little bit more, so as to make an extra few shillings on his own hook, as the saying is, why, you see, he very often makes a mess of it.

"Alum makes the flour strong-strong to bear water, as well as whitening it. It 'binds;' and, when you use a lot of rice and 'taters, you wants a binder for 'em." "How much rice is used, say, to a sack of flour?" "It depends on the neighbourhood-if it's a 'cutting' or a 'fair price.' You might take a pound of rice as commonly used to a sack of flour. No, it don't seem much; but think of the lot of water a pound of biled rice sucks up if it's properly managed. Eight quarts it will suck up; and there's sixteen pounds' weight to begin with. There isn't any secret about bread-making-it's all a question of getting the article to stand as much water as possible. That's where the baker's profit is. He is a good baker who can get ninety-eight four-pound loaves out of a sack of flour with the other grievances -he meant "ingredients," but he called them grievances most distinctly. "I'm speaking of country flour.

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"A sack of town flour will make a hundred-and-two four-pound loaves. Country flour is always two and three shillings a sack cheaper than town. In knocking up a cheap loaf the management of the oven has a lot to do with it. Good bread will bake in a brisk oven in an hour and a quarter, but the other sort wants nursing. If your oven was too fierce, it would draw all the profit out-the water, I mean, that you've been trying to get into it. It must be baked slow for two hours in a slack oven, and then you are able to 'draw it with the gravy in it,' as we say. We have to make a good allowance with this kind of bread for steaming off-an ounce to the pound. It will lose quite that, and perhaps a little more. It wouldn't do in poor neighbourhoods to make the bread full weight. They buy their bread out of the scale, and they would think they were cheated if they didn't get the bit over. People that deal at 'cutting

shops' will have a tall loaf and a white loaf, and it is impossible to accommodate them at the price unless they will stand to the alum and the rest of the grievances.

"The quantity of salt isn't always the same. Generally it's three pounds in six bushels; but new flour takes more. I can't speak exactly as to alum. Bakers have got their own ideas, and a set of customers that get used to the flavour of their bread. I should use about ten ounces to the sack if I had queer flour given me to make a showy loaf of; but I have used as much as a pound, and nobody has grumbled. Do I think it would be better if people made their own bread? I do; if they could depend on the flour they bought. If they bought it at a commission shop that was served by one of them country millers I was speaking of, they would be no more free from alum than if the baker made them bread. There's a awful lot of fiddling in the flour that the bakers sell. When they scale it into the bags there's an ounce weight always put in to pay for the paper bags, and then lots of 'em will work in a lot of rice-flour and bean meal."

The six loaves that were to be tested were obtained from the localities here mentioned-Clerkenwell, Lambeth, Whitechapel, Islington, Westminster, and Bethnal Green. The shops selected were none of them noted for selling cheap bread, but were just the ordinary brisk trade-doing establishments, such as may be found in all populous districts. Each loaf was lettered and delivered to Mr Broad, of Hornsey Rise, and the following is his report :

Sir,-All the samples of bread you sent to me on the 17th instant contain alum. "R," "O," "T," " A," and "P" have clearly been made by adding one ounce of

alum to one bushel of flour, equivalent to 28 grains of alum in a 4lb loaf, for in every 1000 grains of bread there is an amount of pure alumina (the characteristic constituent of alum) corresponding to three-quarters of a grain of alum. The specimen marked "S" contains just double this quantity of alum.

The analysis has been confirmed by Professor Attfield. JOHN BROAD.

Thus it appears, as regards the adulteration of bread, that the testimony of the journeyman baker of forty years' experience remains unimpeached. Only the "regular alum" is used; and though it has elsewhere been shown that sulphate of copper has been detected in the bread which we eat, and on which we mainly feed our children, it does not possess qualities that justify its universal use in preference to the milder poison. There can be no doubt as to the "regular use" of alum, no doubt that it is a terribly pernicious substance to take into the stomach. "A few grains taken now and then might not do any harm," says Mr Broad; "but there can be no question that its constant use is extremely hurtful, especially in the case of young and delicate children." Its effects on the digestive organs are pretty much the same as its effects on dough. It "binds," and consequently induces very mischievous symptoms. Of its reckless use we have ample proof in the fact that one worthy tradesman of the selected six did not scruple to double what appears to be the quantity commonly regarded as sufficient; nor is his iniquity palliated by the strong probability that he was driven to the excessive use of alumina to cover a quality of flour so vile that it would not pass muster without this amount of doctoring.

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This is the ugliest feature of the case. facture of wholesome bread there is not the slightest reason why an atom of alum should be used. It is not found in what is known as full-priced bread; it is banished from the premises of the wholesome bread factor. It is only patronised by such bakers as constantly buy and use inferior or damaged flour; and those men, so long as they can conjure into existence something bearing the semblance of good wheaten bread, and therefore able to be sold as such, are troubled with no qualms of conscience about the mode of accomplishing that feat of legerdemain. Unfortunately, as events have proved, this class of baker forms the large majority of those whose daily business it is to feed the three millions of our great city.

It is impossible to conceive a more important matter than this mild poisoning of the staff of our existence. There is no avoiding the evil while it is suffered to exist. Aware that tea is covered with poison, either mineral or vegetable, we may avoid tea, and resign ourselves to the simple swindle of chicory and coffee, or we may fall back on the pump, and defy the whole race of cheats who cater for our beverages. We may take alarm at the tricks of the butter trade, and banish the suspected substance from the breakfast table. But we are helpless in the matter of bread. It is the "regular thing" to use alum; and to avoid Mr Smith's shop and transfer your patronage to Mr Jones on the other side of the street, is only to embark in a blind speculation of alum more or less. To eat "household bread," as it is commonly called, is to be condemned to take into the system at every mouthful a certain quantity of an article which is antagonistic to the health of the strongest, and which, in the case of the young

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