230 on the best mode of carrying burdins. Oct. 16: 
The porters in Edinburgh, and I suppose through- 
out Scotland, when carrying a burden on the back, 
stoop forward, and pafs the belt to which the weight 
is appended, over the top of the head; by which means, 
if the burden is nearly of as great a wéght as the 
body would be able to bear, the head must be much 
hurt, and health of course impaired. Practice how- 
ever renders them insensible of the inconvenience ; 
and as men usually do, they follow implicitly the - 
custom handed down to them from their parents, 
without ever thifking of the advantage or even pof- 
_ sibility of any other method of carrying their bur- 
dens. 
On the same principle, another equally absurd and 
still more pernicious practice is continued by the ba- 
kers in Scotland. Their apprentices, usually at first 
young boys, carry the bread to their customers o- 
ver the whole town, on a board resting solely upon 
the head, withaut any thing that can in the smallest 
degree alleviate the prefsure on that tender part of 
the body, still more tender inthose growing youths 
than in up-grown men. Hence it is evident that ei- 
ther their constitutions must be impaired, or lefs 
work can be done than there would, if a better man- 
ner of doing it were adopted. A person that never 
saw or heard of any other mode of procedure, is not 
much struck with these absurdities, as they are ren- 
dered familiar by habit, and an improvement on them 
does not readily suggest itself. This istalso the case 
in regard to many other articles of domestic economy; 
for a person travelling through the country sees in an 
infinite number of particulars a different practice pres 
