THINGS MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORSE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 96, 16 January 1918, Page 5

THINGS MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORSE

HARDER TIMES 70 YEARS AGO %

THE "HUNGRY FORTIES"

Many things which do not now seem even possible will hare to happen before the people of these islands aro reduced to the sore, straits through which the vast majority of the population passed m ''the Hungry Forties," says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian." So far tho shoring© of supplies has been most n'arked in tho cases of moat, flour, potatoes, sugar, and butter. The stocks of tea are diminishing rapidly, but there are etill great reserves of coffee. So fnr as bread n concerned, the ingredients in the (lour have beon altered, but the war bread of to-day is infinitely hotter than the peace bread on which the vast majority of the population were forced so largely to subsist seventy odd years ago. Not nnrs tho days, surely when a Duke of Norfolk could bring the whole peerage into ridicule by discovering that an excellent thing to make n, labourer warm and comfortable in a time of hunger was ";i pinch of curry ponder in ,i quantity of hot wa.ter." Seventy-five years ago n starving population, if Urn .supply of bread '-an .short or the-potato crop failed, had fnv substitutes to turn to, nnd little monoy to buy even those that were obtainable. Ten millions of the British peoplo could not afford to indulge in the. luxury of wheaten broad, a largo portion'of the Irish lived solely on potatoes, and the inhabitants of Scotland lived chiefly on oatmeal. In England great numbers of the working classes were limited to a supply of "food not exceeding fourteen ounces a day, and there were many who had not half that quantity. Wages were terribly low, and, abject though the misery was and widespread the destitution', they tended ratkr to become lower than higher. Indeed, throughout the country generally tl» deficiency in the wages of the workers had to be mad 6 good out of the ratsa, which at one lime stood at 16s. 6ci> iu the pound. Between 1841 and 1847 the standard rsto of rages for joiners, painters, carpenters, bricklayers, masons, plasterers, phrabers, coopers, blacksmiths, cabinetmakers, etc., was 18s. fora weeJc of 64 hours. For the labourers on tho land the rate varied between 7s. 6d. and 10s. a week, and married mwi were paid Is. 6d. a week more thsti the single. Flour ranged in prico from 3s. to 4s. or even more a stone. Tea cost 6s. a pound, and shopkeepers frequently charged their poor customers 6d. for an ounce. Butter was beyond tho reach of the masses, the usual "substitute for it being lard, or "must," as it was called. The rural workers in Devonshire and their families seldom saw meat in their homes or tasted milk. Their principal food was a mixture of ground barley and potatoes. In an adjoining county tho weekly budget of a labourer's household was—four shillings for half a bushel of wheat, sixpence for grinding, baking, and barm, sixpence for firing, and cighteenpence for rent, leaving sixpence, out of which the family had to bo provided with clothing, potatoes, and the absolute necessaries of life. "Crammings,"'made of what was left after the flour and bran had been abstracted, mixed with a little bread flour, were largely used for the making of bread. " 'Taiers and slipcover" was a familiar dish. It was composed by tho simple process of shaking a little salt over the boiled potatoes.

Barley and rye were mainly need for tho making of bread. A bad harvest not only meant dear bread, but bad bread. Sometimes tho barley flour would not make bread at all. When an attempt was made to bako it in the oven only the outside crust became firm, the" interior being a soft and "P a PPy" n,ass which would if thrown at a wall, bespatter it and stick like mud. So the flour was made into "peel" or griddle cakes —cakes made without yeast and baked on a sort of gridiron over the fire. Bye bread was at times so doughy that tho knife with which it was cut had to be cleaned between the cutting of the slices. Meat was cheap, but so little money was left after the bread and potatoes had been bought that thero were thousands of cottages into which a piece of meat never entered from year end to year end. Occasionally on high feasts and festivals a bit of bacon or a small piece of salt pork would make its appearance. Mint tea was a common drink iu the summertime, and toast and water in the winter. Jam was, eo far as the vast majority were concerned, an utterly unobtainable dainty, and even rice was regarded as a luxury. "Charlie," a field weed, or nettle'tops, were boiled in the crock and eaten to savour the barley cake. And yet, in spite of all these things, there were to be found men in the House of Commons who could speak of the "fat, rosy, beef-fed, and beer-drinking citizen." The truer picture was drawn by Macaulay when he said: "So visible was the misery of the manufacturing towns that a man of sensibility could hardly bear to pass througli them.' Everywhere he found filth and nakedness and plaiutive voices and wasted forms and haggard faces.

. . . First the mills were put on short time, hen thoy ceased to work at all. Then went to pledge the scanty property of tho artisan; first his little luxuries, then his comforts, then his necessaries. Alone amidst the general misery l the shop with the three golden balls prospered, and was crammed from cellar to garret with the clocks and the tables and the kettles and tho blankets and the Bibles of the poor. I remember well the effect which was produced in London by the unwonted sight of the huge pieces of onniion which were goinc northward to overawe the starving jppulation of Lancashire." Truly we have a long way to travel before we reach the depths of destitution here described, even if the workers would tolerate such conditions nnwadnys—which 's very much more than doubtful.—W.R.S.