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, but 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 aerated 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 bread-making, 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, which is certainly the pleasantest, whilst it is the most nutritive of all kinds of food made from the wheat grain. Some time since, the aërated bread was all made at the extensive steam bakery of Messrs. Peek, Frean and Co., at Dockhead, Bermondsey. The distance from the west-end consumers of the new bakery made the difficulty and cost of distribution so great, that it was necessary to come to some other arrangement. Consequently, Dr. Dauglish, instead of concentrating his manufacture in one place, determined to set up separate bakeries in different centres of the town. The first bakery of this description is now at work at Islington, and it will speedily be followed by other establishments in the different quarters of the metropolis, and thus the difficulty of distribution, which prevented many from procuring the bread who really preferred it to all other, will be superseded. The complaint of the journeymen bakers against the long hours of work, and the foul conditions under which they labour, will be wholly disposed of by the introduction of these bread-making machines, as the work which formerly employed the men, off and on, for eighteen or twenty hours, can now be performed under two hours, and in a perfectly well-ventilated apartment; thus affording another instance of the value of machinery, not only by saving humanity much most offensive drudgery, but by eliminating those sources of disease which so often sacrifice the life of the workman to the necessities of our civilisation.
BOOKS OF THE OPERA.
England has other boons to thank the Italians for, besides the allegorical “£ s. d.” which we place at the head of our accounts. Not only our monetary, but our musical system is theirs. If Italy has overrun us with organ-grinders, she has at least supplied us with singers, and those of the very best that could be obtained for love or money. The Italian opera is as much an English institution as the Bank, and the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is a kindly patron. The moneyed classes have a partiality for Italian opera, and think nothing of fifty or a hundred pounds for the farewell benefit of a Grisi. They are musical epicures, and take to Italian singing as the Romans of old took to nightingales’ tongues. Why is this? Is it because Englishmen understand Italian, and desire to improve in it? A better plea might be urged for the performance of operas in Latin. Is it because Italian is fashionable?
