THE ASSIZE OF BREAD 451 



Assize of Bread. In some districts, justices prohibited the sale of any kind 

 of bread except the standard wheaten. In others, they set the table of prices 

 so low that bakers refused to bake. The Assize was either disregarded, or 

 public subscriptions were raised to induce bakers to continue their trade. 

 The regulations naturally failed to lower prices, though some effect may have 

 been produced in compelling bakers to follow their variations. Among 

 other devices to reduce the price of wheat was the authority given to bakers 

 in 1795 (36 Geo. III. c. 22) to make and sell bread, stamped with M, which 

 was mixed with other ingredients than corn. But the people, for whose 

 relief the mixed bread was designed, resolutely refused to touch it. They 

 rejected even standard wheaten and household bread, and demanded the 

 finest and whitest bread. It was in vain that members of Parliament, Privy 

 Councillors, magistrates, aldermen, and vestrymen endeavoured to set the 

 fashion by eating the coarser qualities themselves. The people clung to 

 their improved standard of living, and bakers could only satisfy the tastes 

 and pockets of their customers by the production of white bread which was 

 artificially whitened by wholesale adulteration. 



Efforts were made to improve the system of setting the Assize. In con- 

 sequence of the Report of a Select Parliamentary Committee, an amending 

 Act was passed in 1813 (63 Geo. III. c. 116). But the feeling was becoming 

 more and more general that regulations affecting prices of food were mis- 

 chievous, that legislation was powerless, and that, where laws failed, free 

 competition might succeed. Another Select Committee was appointed to 

 consider the " Laws relating to the Manufacture Sale and Assize of Bread." 

 On their Report in 1816, an Act was passed (56 Geo. III. c. 49), which applied 

 only to London and a metropolitan area of ten miles round. Bakers were 

 permitted to sell loaves of specified weight at any price they chose. In 

 provincial towns the Assize still lingered. In 1821 a Report in favour of 

 complete freedom of trade was presented to the House of Commons by a 

 Committee appointed to consider the " Regulations relative to the Making 

 and the Sale of Bread." The immediate result of their Report was the Bread 

 Act of 1822 (3 Geo. IV. c. 106), which finally abolished all regulations of 

 weight or price in London. Its remoter effect was the application of a similar 

 Act to the provinces. In 1836 (6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 37) the Assize of Bread 

 was at last, after an existence of nearly six centuries, finally abolished. 



