ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 77, 25 April 1843, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

The Price of Bread. —Government has taken steps to collect information in all the corn-return-towns respecting the relative prices of bread and wheat. A correspondent of the Times hopes that it will lead to a kind of assize —a maximum price of bread, to slide up and down rateably with the price of wheat. It is to be hoped that Government will not do any thing so very obsolete and silly, so very obnoxious to be evaded by mischievous adulterations and quibbling pretences, and so very sure, if it were effectual, to check competition. The simple collection and diffusion of the statistical information, on official authority, would answer every purpose, by enabling the people to tell what they were paying in comparison with their neighbours. A fact will show how useful it might be. A person living near High Holborn, who was paying 7d. a loaf for his bread, like all his neighbours, heard that in Clerkenwell bread was selling at 6d. He went to his baker, and intimated his intention to send to Clerkenwell for the cheap bread : his baker saved him the trouble, by cutting a penny oft’ his own charge. If all the inhabitants of one place knew that in another the bakers all sold bread a penny or a halfpenny cheaper, they would not submit to the overcharge. Besides, a pushing baker in the cheap district, hearing of the high price, would send his cart of cheap loaves to pick up a new round of customers, and must soon either take the custom or beat down the price of the dear bakers. Thus, the mere knowledge of the statistics would be a safeguard against extortion, and a stimulus rather than a check to competition. The following is the bill of fare of Lord Mayor’s dinner, 9th November last:— 250 tureens of real turtle, containing five pints each; 200 bottles of Sherbet, 5 dishes of fish, 30 entrees, 4 boiled turkeys and oysters, 60 roast pullets, 60 dishes of fowls, 46 ditto of capons, 50 French pies, 60 pigeon pies, 53 hams ornamented, 43 tongues, 2 quarters of house lamb, 2 barons of beef, 3 rounds of beef, 2 stewed rumps of beefs, 13 sirloins, rumps, and ribs of beef, 6 dishes of asparagus, 60 do. of mashed and other potatoes, 44 ditto of shell fish, 4 ditto of prawns, 140 jellies, 50 blancmanges, 40 dishes of tarts creamed, 30 ditto of orange and other tourtes, 40 ditto of almond pastry, 20 Chantilly baskets, 60 dishes of mince pies, 56 salads. The Removes .- —BO roast turkeys, 6 leverets, 80 pheasants, 24 geese, 40 dishes of partridges, 15 ditto of wild fowl, 2 pea fowls. Dessert. —loo pine apples, from 21b. to 31b. each, 200 dishes of hot house grapes, 250 ice creams, 50 dishes of apples, 100 ditto of pears, 60 ornamented Savoy cakes, 75 plates of walnuts, 80 ditto of dried fruit and preserves, 50 ditto of preserved ginger, 60 ditto of rout cakes and ships, 46 ditto of brandy cherries,

Talking. —The man who talks two slowly,’ mumbles us to sleep; the man who talks tod fast, wearies us ; he who speaks as if he were bred in a mill, breaks the drum of our ear, he who is for ever losing the thread of his discourse, and exclaims every minute. “ Where was I ?” first amuses and then puts us in a rage ; rage : he who is always choosing his words, grates our nerves. Speaking is an art in which many clever men are deficient, while many a fool possesses it by instinct; a circumstance which leads us to pronounde judgments of character which are totally reversed on appeal.