48 APPENDIX TO MR. OLIVEr's ADDRESS. 



Herefordshire and Worcestershire, the allowance of cider given 

 to labourers, in addition to wages, is " one to ten gallons a 

 day." He observes that, of course, men cannot work without 

 some drinks, 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 labourers 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 al- 

 lowance of labourers. 



" The usual allowance given in Herefordshire by masters, 

 is three quarts a day ; and in harvest-time many labourers 

 drink in a day, ten or twelve quarts of a liquor that in a 

 stranger's mouth Avould be mistaken for vinegar." — Johnson 

 and Errington on the Ap'ple. 



It would be unjust not to add, that in a large part of Eng- 

 land the laborers are much more comfortable than these state- 

 ments might indicate. I am also convinced that the condition 

 of the labourer generally is improving^ and that he is now in 

 a much less famishing condition than ten years ago. The 

 main stay of the laborer's stomach is fine, white, wheaten 

 bread, of the best possible quality, such as it would be a 

 luxury to get any where else in the world, and, such as 

 many a New-England farmer never tasted, and even if his 

 wife were able to make it, would think an extravagance to be 

 ordinarily upon his table. No doubt a coarser bread would be 

 more wholesome, but it is one of the strongest prejudices of 

 the English peasant, that brown bread is not fit for human 

 beings. In Scotland and Ireland, and in some hilly districts 

 of England, only, wheat bread is displaced by more whole- 

 some and economical preparations from oatmeal. 



With regard to fresh meat, a farmer once said to me, 

 " They will hardly taste it all their lives, except, it may be, 

 once a year, at a fair, when they'll go to the cook-shops and 

 stuff themselves with all they'll hold of it ; and if you could 

 see them, you'd say they did not know what it was or what 

 was to be done with it, — cutting it into great mouthfuls, and 

 gobbling it down without any chewing, like as a fowl does 

 barleycorns, till it chokes him." 



