

FOOD IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



Maccaroni, made of flour into small cylindrical rolls, is also much 

 eaten by a large class. 



In Spain the people live chiefly on the grains, though there is not 

 a sufficiency raised for the wants of the people. Salted meat and fish 

 are likewise much eaten. The people of Portugal subsist mostly on 

 vegetable soups, salt fish and maize bread. The mass of the people 

 indeed, on the Continent, subsist principally on vegetable food, con- 

 sisting chiefly of the inferior cereal grains, pulse, the dairy, and small 

 portions of meat or fish and wine. 



In England the flesh eaten is said to be in the proportion of 107 Ibs. 

 to each person annually, but the great mass of the operatives are de- 

 prived of meat and of a sufficiency of vegetable food of any kinds. In 

 the chief manufacturing towns they do not taste meat oftener than 

 once a week, and are unable to obtain a supply even of the simplest 

 nutritive vegetable food. They subsist chiefly on potatoes, the coars- 

 est bread, oat meal and water. These, it is said, and their equiva- 

 lent in London think to find temporary relief from the knawings of 

 hunger and the lassitude consequent upon excessive toil and close 

 shops, in potations of the worst of intoxicating drinks " 



In Scotland the food is of the simplest kind, chiefly oat meal, fish 

 and products of the dairy. 280,000 acres of the land are said to be 

 devoted to raising barley, principally for distillation, (which is much 

 more than we have estimated heretofore,) and only 140,000 acres for 

 wheat ; so that the soil there wasted, it may be said, in raising barley 

 for intoxicating drinks would raise annually 8,400,000 bushels of 

 wheat, or 504 million Ibs. of flour, equal to the consumption of 1,800,- 

 000 persons. Of 1,800,000 acres cultivated 1,260,000 are applied to 

 the raising of oats. 300,000 barrels of herrings are caught on the 

 coast, 100,000 of which are retained for consumption, and of 65,000 

 cwt. of dried cod 40,000 cwt. are retained. The quantity of intoxicat- 

 ing liquor made there in 1833 was about six million gallons. 



In Ireland the chief food, it is well known, is potatoes, while in 

 most other countries they are auxiliary food. Oats constitute the next 

 invquantity of vegetable diet, and fish is the chief of the animal food; 

 but in part as a substitute for meat, at particular seasons, on account 

 of superstitions opinions. Of 181,654 barrels of herrings exported 

 from G. Britain in 1830, 89,680 were consumed in Ireland. Fish are 

 also abundant in the streams and estuaries. The swine and much of 

 the grains are exported. The shipments to G. Britain of wheat in 

 1830, were 4,508,944 bushels ; of oats and oat meal, 12,508,744 bush- 

 els ; and in 1832, 69,624 cows ; 150,000 pigs ; 74,260 sheep, and 24,- 

 000 lambs. The whole amount of aliment in value annually shipped 

 from thence to Great Britain is estimated at $44,400,000. 



In the United States, as we have elsewhere said, the amount of ve- 

 getable and all other alimentary products are more abundant than in 



