108 IMPROVEMENT OF 



we were able with drudgery on our part, and 

 more than drudgery on theirs, to effect a con- 

 siderable advance upon their wages, as already 

 noticed, to nearly the English level ; but then 

 the workman was never master of his work 

 his task was master of him, so to speak, and 

 the result was that he was daily over-exhausted. 



On the contrary, we have observed, that 

 where our labourers used a totally different 

 species of food from potatoes, subsisting on 

 what contained the largest quantities of the 

 constituent elements of muscle, they were in- 

 variably the most industrious and laborious 

 servants the hardest workers and the least 

 fatigued at the close of a day's work. 



The body requires daily a certain supply of 

 particular elements to balance the daily waste. 

 This waste is increased by laborious exercise, 

 and it will be found, on making the necessary 

 inquiry, that the quantity of potatoes consumed 

 by Irish labourers is quite deficient of the re- 

 quisite amount of those particular elements. 

 A labourer, it is true, may cram a sufficient 

 quantity into his stomach, but his stomach will 

 not digest them. It cannot appropriate from 

 them the necessary elements required for the 



