Statistics . 
283 
ries, and of the export to Ireland ; and as it appears from expe- 
riment, that a hundred weight of sugar is equal, in point of nutri- 
ment, to a quarter of barley, or T 8 T of a quarter of wheat, it seems 
to follow that the coarser kinds of grain, formerly in general use 
for the manufacture of bread, are daily giving way to more palata- 
ble articles of nutriment. 
w With regard to animal food, the abundance of which has been 
at all times the peculiar boast of the British islands,* we know, by 
the direct evidence of the markets in the metropolis, that the 
quantity consumed is regularly increasing. This, indeed, as we 
* The above is an extract from the Quarterly Review for October 1813* 
page 173. I do not comprehend how the authors or editors of that work can 
reconcile this passage with the following taken from page 266 of the same 
Review, for the July preceding (July 1813.) 
“ Food of every description has risen to an extravagant and unprecedent- 
ed price. Butcher's meat , once in ordinary use, is now nearly beyond the 
reach of the great mass of the people : the labouring poor can scarcely hope 
to taste it : and as to fish, whether in the metropolis or in the great inland 
towns, that may be considered as a prohibited article even to the middling 
ranks oflifeJ’ 
Nor can I see how the extract in the text is to be forced into coalition 
with the following passage from the Edingburgh Review for the very same 
month. 
Ed. Rev. October 1813. Guarinos on Pqor Laws, The Reviewers say, 
page 197, “ The precious metals have been depreciated throughout Europe, 
in consequence of the productiveness of the American mines during the last 
forty years : and in our own country (Great Britain), the rise of prices which 
this necessarily produced, has been aggravated by a depreciation of our cur- 
rency, occasioned by the issue of paper not convertible into specie. What 
have been the consequences ? The price of labour has not risen in proportion 
to the price of commodities. But the labourer has the difference made up 
to him in the shape of poor’s rate. An unmarried man can still support him- 
self by his nominal wages. Bat a married man who has two children to 
maintain, receives as a matter of course , assistance from his parish. A calcu- 
lation is made of the price of wages and of the price of bread. So much 
bread is allowed him according to the number of his family. What his 
wages will not furnish, the parish provides. This beneficent system, as it has 
been called, turns out to be an engine in the hands of masters, to keep wages 
as low as will suffice for the maintenance of the labourer and his wife, with a 
provision in the shape of charity, for the support of his children. 5 ’ The rest 
of the passage is well worth citing, but it is too long. 
If these passages be correct, what becomes of the great and increasing 
abundance and consumption of animal food, the peculiar boast of the British 
islands ? One fourth of the population of that country cannot afford animal 
food above once a week, perhaps not once a month. 
