FOOD AND DRINK. 279 



believe this party to be the weaker one in England. I believe 

 that the love of justice, freedom, and consistency, is stronger with 

 Englishmen than the bonds of custom, self-conceit, and blind 

 idolatry of human arrangement, under however sacred names it 

 has come to them. 



But our British friends will ask, Would it be practicable to 

 give these poor toiling semi-brutes any the smallest exercise 

 of that governmental power, which, so far as they be not wholly 

 brutes is their right ? Yes, we American farmers would judge : 

 yes, there are offices to be performed for the commonwealth of 

 each parish or neighborhood, of the requirements of which they 

 are, or soon would make themselves, fit judges. If there are not, 

 then make such offices. Who is a kind, firm, and closely-scruti- 

 nizing master ; who is a judicious and successful farmer ; who is 

 an honest dealer with them ; who is a skillful plowman, a good 

 thatcher, a good hedge-trimmer, in the mile or two about them, 

 they always have formed a judgment. 



With regard to the habits of drinking, and the customary diet 

 of those by whose labor England is mainly supplied with food, I 

 fear my statements may be incredible to Americans ; I therefore 

 quote from authority that should be better informed. 



A correspondent of the Agricultural Gazette mentions that, in 

 Herefordshire and Worcestershire, the allowance of cider given 

 to laborers, in addition to wages, is " one to ten gallons a-day." 

 He observes that, of course, men can not work without some 

 drink, but that they often drink more than is probably of any 

 advantage to them, and suggests that an allowance of money be 

 given instead of cider, and the laborers be made to buy their 

 drink. In this way, he thinks, they would not be likely to drink 

 more than they needed, and it would be an economical operation 

 for both parties. In Normandy, the cider district of France, 

 three gallons a-day is the usual allowance of laborers. 



