Many of the colliers are also availing themselves of the assistance offered by the company, by means of loans to enable them to build cottages for themselves, on plots of freehold land, sold to them by the company at a low rate.
Mr. Briggs adds, in a note addressed to me in May, 1868: "At the end of the last financial year (Jane 30, 1867), there was a net profit of 16 per cent. upon the 90,000l. capital, 13 per cent. of which was distributed amongst the shareholders, and 3 per cent., or 2700l., amongst the operatives, according to their earnings."
APPENDIX IV.
I extract from an admirable address of Mr. Clare Sewell Read, M.P., to some labourers of Norfolk, the following remarks: "I am one of those who know a kind Providence gives us food, but think, if the Evil One did not send cooks, he certainly has kept women singularly ignorant of one of the foremost of domestic duties. We hardly know how much of the happiness of a poor man depends on the preparation of his food. His capacity for labour, his health, and consequently his comfort and good temper, are mainly dependent upon it. Generally speaking, the economy of the farm-kitchen in cooking is much greater than that of the cottage. Therefore, all things being equal, if I were a young labourer, I should always make love, not to black eyes or blue, but to a good plain cook—though it might suit all the better if the plain cook were a nice-looking girl. I shall be told that there is plenty of materials in a farm-kitchen to make a good dinner; but it generally happens that the knowledge of how to make the most of an abundance will also furnish the best and readiest means to make the best use of a litte. Knowledge of even the first principles of cooking is often entirely absent in a cottage; and plain fare, that might be made palatable and digestible by good management, is too often rendered distasteful and indigestible, and consequently the hard-earned wages of the husband are well-nigh wasted. You will laugh at my offering yon a cooking receipt, but I happened many years since to give a few peas away in a severe winter for
