484 BREAD 



Bait and inorganic matter, the rest, 16677-5 grains, being starch and gluten. Now a 

 quartern loaf measuring about 9 x 6-5 x 5 inches gives a total of 292 cubic inches. 

 Assuming with Dr. Dauglish, nine-tenths of that to be aeriform matter, wo have 262-8 

 inches of aeriform cubic contents of a quarten loaf, but as the gases expanded in the 

 dough to double their volume during its being baked into a loaf, we must divide by 

 2 the 262'8 inches above alluded to, which gives 131 -4 as the number of cubic inches 

 of aeriform matter contained in the dough before it went into the oven. Again, 

 assuming with Dr. Dauglish that these 131-4 cubic inches consist altogether of 

 carbonic acid resulting from the fermentation of the flour, they would represent in 

 weight only 62 grains of that gas, and as 1 equivalent = 198 of sugar produces 

 4 equivalents = 88 of carbonic acid, it follows that, at most, about 140 grains of sugar 

 or solid matter out of the 15677*5 of flour in the quartern loaf would have disappeared, 

 which loss is less than 1 per cent., from which, however, it is necessary -to make a 

 considerable reduction, since a large quantity of air is mixed with that carbonic acid, 

 and expanded with it in the oven. Unless, therefore, it can be satisfactorily proved 

 that the unfermented bread manufactured by Dr. Dauglish's process is more nutritious, 

 weight for weight, or more digestible, or possesses qualities which unfermented bread 

 has not, or is sold at a reduced price proportionate to the quantity of water thus 

 locked up and passed off for bread, the benefits and advantages will be all on the 

 manufacturer's side, but the purchasers of the unfermented bread will make but a 

 poor bargain of it. 



Of all the operations connected with the manufacture of bread, the most laborious, 

 and that which calls most loudly for reform, is that of kneading. The process is usu- 

 ally carried on in some dark corner of a cellar, where the temperature is seldom less 

 than 60 P., and frequently more, by a man, stripped naked down to the waist, and 

 painfully engaged in extricating his fingers from a gluey mass into which he furiously 

 plunges alternately his clenched fists, heavily breathing as he, struggling, repeatedly 

 lifts up the bulky and tenacious mass in his powerful arms, and with effort flings it 

 down again with a groan fetched from the innermost recesses of his chest, and which 

 almost sounds like an imprecation. 



We know, on very good and unexceptionable authority, that a certain large bakery 

 on the borders of a canal actually pumped the water necessary for making the dough 

 directly and at once from the canal, and this from a point exactly contiguous to the 

 dischargings of the cesspool of that bakery ! And let us not imagine that this is 

 a solitary instance of horrible filth. The following memoranda recorded by Dr. Win. 

 A. Guy, in his admirable lecture on ' The Evils of Night-work and Long Hours of 

 Labour,' delivered on Thursday, July 6, 1848, at the Mechanics' Institution, South- 

 ampton Buildings, will serve to illustrate the condition of the bakehouses : 



1. Underground, two ovens, no daylight, no ventilation, very hot and sulphurous. 



2. Underground, no daylight, two ovens, very hot and sulphurous, low ceiling, no 



ventilation but what comes from the doors. Very large business. 



3. Underground, no daylight, often flooded, very bad smells, overrun with rats, no 



ventilation. 



After mentioning several other establishments in the same, or even in a worse, con- 

 dition than those just enumerated, Dr. Guy adds : 



' The statements comprised in the foregoing memoranda are in conformity with my 

 own observations. Many of the basements in which the business of baking are carried 

 on are certainly in a state to require the assistance of the Commissioners of Sewers, 

 and to invite the attention of the promoters of sanitary reform.' 



If we reflect that bread, like all porous substances, readily absorbs the air that 

 surrounds it, and that, even under the best conditions, it should never, on that 

 account, be kept in confined places, what must be the state of the bread manufactured 

 in such a villanous manner, and with a slovenliness greater than it is possible for our 

 imagination to conceive ? What can prove better the necessity of Government 

 supervision than such a fact ? The heart sickens at the revolting thought, but after 

 all there is really but little difference between the particular case of the bakery on the 

 border of a canal above alluded to, and the mode of kneading generally pursued, and 

 to which we daily submit. . 



In the sitting of the Institute of France, on the 23rd of January, 1850, the late 

 M. Arago presented and recommended to the Acad6mie the kneading and baking appa- 

 ratus of M. Holland, then a humble baker of the 12th Arrondissement, which, it would 

 appear, fulfils all the conditions of perfect kneading and baking. 



' The kneading machine (petrin tnkcanique) of M. Holland,' says Arago, ' is extremely 

 simple, and can be easily worked, when under a full charge, by a young man from 15 to 

 20 years old : the necessity for horse-labour or steam-power may thus be obviated. The 

 machine (figs. 217 to 220) consists of a horizontal axis traversing a trough, containing all 



