Hyde Petty Sessions.--Nine
farmers and dealers condemned to pay costs and five shillings fines.

_Guardian_, July 9, Manchester--Sixteen dealers condemned to pay costs
and fines not exceeding ten shillings.

_Guardian_, July 13, Manchester.--Nine dealers fined from two shillings
and sixpence to twenty shillings.

_Guardian_, July 24, Rochdale.--Four dealers fined ten to twenty
shillings.

_Guardian_, July 27, Bolton.--Twelve dealers and innkeepers condemned to
pay costs.

_Guardian_, August 3, Bolton.--Three dealers fined two shillings and
sixpence, and five shillings.

_Guardian_, August 10, Bolton.--One dealer fined five shillings.

And the same causes which make the working-class the chief sufferers from
frauds in the quality of goods make them the usual victims of frauds in
the question of quantity too.

The habitual food of the individual working-man naturally varies
according to his wages. The better paid workers, especially those in
whose families every member is able to earn something, have good food as
long as this state of things lasts; meat daily, and bacon and cheese for
supper. Where wages are less, meat is used only two or three times a
week, and the proportion of bread and potatoes increases. Descending
gradually, we find the animal food reduced to a small piece of bacon cut
up with the potatoes; lower still, even this disappears, and there remain
only bread, cheese, porridge, and potatoes, until on the lowest round of
the ladder, among the Irish, potatoes form the sole food. As an
accompaniment, weak tea, with perhaps a little sugar, milk, or spirits,
is universally drunk. Tea is regarded in England, and even in Ireland,
as quite as indispensable as coffee in Germany, and where no tea is used,
the bitterest poverty reigns. But all this pre-supposes that the workman
has work. When he has none, he is wholly at the mercy of accident, and
eats what is given him, what he can beg or steal. And, if he gets
nothing, he simply starves, as we have seen. The quantity of food
varies, of course, like its quality, according to the rate of wages, so
that among ill-paid workers, even if they have no large families, hunger
prevails in spite of full and regular work; and the number of the ill-
paid is very large. Especially in London, where the competition of the
workers rises with the increase of population, this class is very
numerous, but it is to be found in other towns as well. In these cases
all