vent the dough from adhering
to it. The loaves should be put into the oven as _quickly_ as possible
after they are formed; when in, the oven-lid, or door, should be fastened
up _very closely_; and, if all be properly managed, loaves of about the
size of quartern loaves will be sufficiently baked in about _two hours_.
But they usually take down the _lid_, and _look_ at the bread, in order to
see how it is going on.

106. And what is there worthy of the name of _plague_, or _trouble_, in
all this? Here is no dirt, no filth, no rubbish, no _litter_, no _slop_.
And, pray, what can be pleasanter to _behold_? Talk, indeed, of your
pantomimes and gaudy shows; your processions and installations and
coronations! Give me, for a beautiful sight, a neat and smart woman,
heating her oven and setting in her bread! And, if the bustle does make
the sign of labour glisten on her brow, where is the man that would not
kiss that off, rather than lick the plaster from the cheek of a duchess.

107. And what is the _result_? Why, good, wholesome food, sufficient for a
considerable family for a week, prepared in three or four hours. To get
this quantity of food, fit to be _eaten_, in the shape of potatoes, _how
many fires_! what a washing, what a boiling, what a peeling, what a
slopping, and what a messing! The cottage everlastingly in a litter; the
woman's hands everlastingly wet and dirty; the children grimed up to the
eyes with dust fixed on by potato-starch; and ragged as colts, the poor
mother's time all being devoted to the everlasting boilings of the pot!
Can any man, who knows any thing of the labourer's life, deny this? And
will, then, any body, except the old shuffle-breeches band of the
Quarterly Review, who have all their lives been moving from garret to
garret, who have seldom seen the sun, and never the dew except in print;
will any body except these men say, that the people ought to be taught to
use potatoes as a _substitute for bread_?

BREWING BEER.

108. This matter has been fully treated of in the two last numbers. But
several correspondents wishing to fall upon some means of rendering the
practice beneficial to those who are _unable to purchase_ brewing
utensils, have recommended the _lending_ of them, or letting out, round a
neighbourhood. Another correspondent has, therefore, pointed out to me _an
Act of Parliament_ which touches upon this subject; and, indeed, what of
Excise Laws and Custom Laws and Combination Laws