III.] MAKING BREAD. 49 



for them ; such a man has no reason to complain j 

 and no labouring man has reason to complain, if the 

 numerousness of his family should call upon him for 

 extraordinary exertion, or for frugality uncommonly 

 rigid. The man with a large family has, if it be not 

 in a great measure his own fault, a greater number of 

 pleasures and of blessings than other men. If he be 

 wise, and just as well as wise, he will see that it is 

 reasonable for him to expect less delicate fare than 

 his neighbours, who have a less number of children, 

 or no children at all. He will see the justice as well 

 as the necessity of his resorting to the use of coarser 

 bread, and thus endeavour to make up that, or at least 

 a part of that, which he loses in comparison with his 

 neighbours. The quality of the bread ought, in every 

 case, to be proportioned to the number of the family 

 and the means of the head of that family. Here is 

 no injury to health proposed ; but, on the contrary, 

 the best security for its preservation. Without bread, 

 all is misery. The Scripture truly calls it the staff 

 of life ; and it may be called, too, the pledge of peace 

 and happiness in the labourer's dwelling. 



86. As to the act of making bread, it would be 

 shocking indeed if that had to be taught by the means 

 of books. Every woman, high or low, ought to know 

 how to make bread. If she do not, she is unworthy 

 of trust and confidence; and, indeed, a mere burden 

 upon the community. Yet, it is but too true, that 

 many women, even amongst those who have to get 

 their living by their labour, know nothing of the 

 making of bread ; and seem to understand little more 

 about it than the part which belongs to its consump- 

 tion. A Frenchman, a Mr. CUSAR, who had been 

 born in the West Indies, told me, that till he came 

 to Long Island, he never knew how the flour came: 

 that he was surprised when he learnt that it was 

 squeezed out of little grains that grew at the tops of 

 straw ; for that he had always had an idea that it was 

 got out of some large substances, like the yams that 

 grow in tropical climates. He was a very sincere 

 and good man, and I am sure he told me truth. And 

 5 



