304 THE REASON WHY 



** I clotlied theo also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, 

 and I girded thce about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk." 



EZEKIEL XVI. 



Herault says that, during the siege of Paris by Henry the Fourth, a famine 

 raged, and bread sold at a crown a pound. When this was consumed, the dried 

 bones from the charnel house of the Holy Innocents were exhumed, and a kind 

 of bread made therefrom. Bread-street, in London, was once a bread market. 

 From the year 1265, it had been customary to regulate by law the price of brea-.l 

 in proportion to the price of wheat or flour at the time. This was called tlio 

 assize of bread ; but, in 1815, it was abolished. In the year 272 there was a 

 famine in Britain so severe that people ate the bark of trees ; forty thou .arid 

 persons perished by famine in England in 310 ! In the year 450 there was a 

 famine in Italy so dreadful that people eat their own children. A famine, com- 

 mencing in England, Wales, and Scotland, in 954, lasted four years. A famine in 

 England and France, in 1193, led to a pestilential fever, which lasted until 1195- 

 In 1315 there was again a dreadful famine in England, during which people 

 devoured the flesh of horses, dogs, cats, and vermin ! In the year 1775, 16,000 

 people died of famine in the Cape de Verds. These are only a few of the remark- 

 able famines that have occurred in the course of history. Let us thank God 

 that we live in times of abundance, when improved cultivation, the pursuit of 

 industry, and the settlement of the laws, render such a calamity as a famine 

 almost an impossibility. 



1199. What is cotton? 



Cotton is a species of vegetable wool, produced by the cotton 

 shrub, called, botanically, G-ossypium herbaceum, of which there are 

 numerous varieties It grows naturally in Asia, Africa, and 

 America, and is cultivated largely for purposes of commerce. 



The precise time when the cotton manufacture was introduced into England is 

 unknown ; but probably it was not before the 17th century. Since then, what 

 wonderful advances have been made ! The cotton trade and manufacture have 

 become a vast source of British industry, and of commerce between nations. It 

 was some years ago calculated that the cotton manufacture yielded to Great 

 Britain one thousand millions sterling. The names of Hargreaves, Arkwright, 

 Crompton, Cartwright, and others, have become immortalised by their inventions 

 for the improvement of the manufacture of cotton fabrics. Little more than 

 half a century has passed since the British cotton manufactory was in its infancy 

 now it engages many millions of capital keeps millions of work people 

 employed; freights thousands of ships that are ever crossing and re-crossing 

 the seas ; and binds nations together in ties of mutual interest. The present 

 yearly value of cotton manufactures in Great Britain is estimated at 34,000,000. 

 About 6,014,000 of the above sum is distributed yearly among working people 

 as wages. 



1200. What is silk? 



Silk, though not directly a vegetable product, is, nevertheless, 



indirectly derived from the vegetable creation, since it is a thread 



spun by the silk -worm from matter which the worm derives from 



the mulberry leaf. 



Silk is uppMed by various parts of the world, including China, the East 



