SEWAGE OF LONDON AND OTHER LARGE TOWNS. 155 
the waste of sewage. If the excrements of an animal are 
not returned to the soil the food of that animal cannot be 
reproduced. Hence the amount of barrenness communi- 
cated to the soil by the system now endeavoured to be 
enforced in our towns may, considering no food or manure 
to be imported from other countries, be directly estimated 
by the food consumed by the inhabitants. Dalton, in the 
fifth volume of the Manchester Memoirs, 2nd series, has 
given the aggregate of the articles of food consumed by 
himself in fourteen days, his habits, daily occupations, and 
manner of living being exceedingly regular. They are — 
Bread’ 71..22..0080 163 oz. Milk... 43853 oz. 
Oatcake..,......... 79 ,, Beer... 230 ,, 
Oatmeal, «acs ievsk whe sd Depts, Gur 5 
Butcher’s meat... 543 ,, 
Potatoes’ ......2. 130 ,, 
Pastnyern ses sees Bow 
Clicesal?.28.2392 32 4, 
otal: 2... 5251 ,, solids. 741% ,, fluids, 
Much more than the above quantities are consumed by 
the luxurious, much less by the aged and invalid. I think 
on the whole, and for our present purpose, that we may 
take them as the food of every man, woman and child in 
the metropolis. Hence we may infer that the 2,600,000 
inhabitants of London consume every day provisions equi- 
valent to — 
1,316 tons of bread. . 505,000 gallons of milk. 
282 tons of butcher’s meat. 267,000 gallons of beer, 
674 tous of potatoes. 88,000 gallons of tea. 
285 tons of pastry. 
= 166 tons of cheese. 
Total,..2,723 tons of solid, and 860,000 gallons of liquid food. 
This is therefore the daily rate at which the productive 
power of the country suffers by the waste of one large 
town, and this is done in the face of a rapidly increasing 
VOL. XV. % 
