Of Food. 409 



Another measure still more important, and which 

 might, I am persuaded, be easily carried into execution, 

 is the establishment of public kitchens in all towns 

 and large villages throughout the kingdom, whence 

 not only the poor might be fed gratis, but also all 

 the industrious inhabitants of the neighbourhood might 

 be furnished with food at so cheap a rate as to be a 

 very great relief to them at all times ; and in times 

 of general scarcity this arrangement would alone be 

 sufficient to prevent those public and private calam- 

 ities which never fail to accompany that most dreadful 

 of all visitations, a famine. 



The saving of food that would result from feeding 

 a large proportion of the inhabitants of any country 

 from public kitchens would be immense, and that 

 saving would tend, immediately and most powerfully, 

 to render provisions more plentiful and cheap, dim- 

 inish the general alarm on account of the danger of 

 a scarcity, and prevent the hoarding up of provisions 

 by individuals, which is often alone sufficient with- 

 out any thing else to bring on a famine, even where 

 there is no real scarcity ; for it is not merely the fears 

 of individuals which operate in these cases, and in- 

 duce them to lay in a larger store of provisions than 

 they otherwise would do, and which naturally increases 

 the scarcity of provisions in the market, and raises 

 their prices, but there are persons who are so lost 

 to all the feelings of humanity as often to speculate 

 upon the distress of the public, and all their opera- 

 tions effectually tend to increase the scarcity in the 

 markets, and augment the general alarm. 



But without enlarging farther in this place upon 

 these public kitchens, and the numerous and impor- 



