III.] MAKING BREAD. 57 



The dresser is so contrived as to give you at once, 

 meal, of four degrees of fineness ; . so that, for cer- 

 tain purposes, you may take the very finest ; and, in- 

 deed, you may have your flour, and your bread of 

 course, of what degree of fineness you please. But 

 there is also a steel mill, much, less expensive, re- 

 quiring less labour, and yet quite sufficient for a 

 family. Mills of this sort, very good, and at a rea- 

 sonable price, are to be had of Mr. PARKES, in Fen- 

 church-street, London. These are very complete 

 things of their kind. Mr. PARKES has, also, excellent 

 Malt-Mills. 



99. In concluding this part of my Treatise, I can- 

 not help expressing my hope of being instrumental 

 in inducing a part of the labourers, at any rate, to 

 bake their own bread ; and, above all things, to aban- 

 don the use of " Ireland's lazy root." Nevertheless, 

 so extensive is the erroneous opinion relative to this 

 yillanous root, that I really began to despair of check- 

 ing its cultivation and use, till I saw the declaration 

 which Mr. WAKEFIELD had the good sense and the spirit 

 to make before the " AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEE." Be 

 it observed, too, that Mr. WAKEFIELD had himself made 

 a survey of the state of Ireland. What he saw there 

 did not encourage him, doubtless, to be an advocate for 

 the growing of this root of wretchedness. It is an 

 undeniable fact, that, in the proportion that this root 

 is in use, as a substitute for bread, the people are 

 wretched ; the reasons for which I have explained 

 and enforced a hundred times over. Mr. WILLIAM 

 HANNING tuld the Committee that the labourers in 

 his part of Somersetshire were " almost wholly sup- 

 plied with potatoes, breakfast and dinner, brought 

 them in the fields, and nothing but potatoes ; and that 

 they used, in better timesj to get a certain portion of 

 bacon and cheese, which, on account of their " pover- 

 ty, they do not eat now." It is impossible that men 

 can be contented in such a state of things : it is un- 

 just to desire them to be contented : it is a state of 

 misery and degradation to which no part of any com- 

 munity can have any show of right to reduce another 



