A HARD-WORKING DIET. 41 
This calamity, which in many of its lessons was so 
important an event in the commercial history of the 
country, and which so aroused kindly feeling for those 
in temporary need, was the cause of the first offcial 
inquiry into the diet of any portion of the artizans of 
England. Workhouse dietaries had before been an 
object of investigation ; but workhouses contain 
people who have drifted there from different causes 
and from different occupations, and after varying 
periods of struggles for existence in health and 
weakness. The returns sent in are in a form that 
suggest that economy in management was the prin- 
cipal point. There may possibly have been some 
philanthropic motive in the background, but it is 
not apparent. Those inquiries went but little to 
show what was the necessary diet for any particular 
class of artizan in work as could be learnt from their 
usual habits. 
The theory that an Englishman’s home is_ his 
castle was so far disregarded that Dr. Edward 
Smith, who had already distinguished himself by 
inquiries into the kind of foods that furnish muscular 
power, was sent down in accordance with instructions 
of the Privy Council to make inquiries into the lives 
of people in their little castles. Dr. G. Buchanan had 
been already sent down to be in the suffering districts, 
at the request of the Lords of the Privy Council, that 
they might “satisfy themselves that due local precau- 
tions were being taken to prevent the destitution 
which breeds diseases” (p. 18, Report). The object in 
sending down Dr. E. Smith is recorded thus— 
“Their Lordships found it expedient also to provide 
themselves with more exact scientific information than 
was at the moment available with regard to the 
F 2 
