"These, then, are the qualities and appearances in a loaf which I recommend the purchaser to disregard.

"Septimus Gibbon, M.D.,

"Medical Officer of Health."

BREAD ASSOCIATIONS.

There are now in various parts of the continent —in France and Belgium more particularly,— subscription-bakeries, or, as they call them, "Friendly Bread Associations," which are reported to answer remarkably well in every respect. Some of them are on a small scale, and conducted on a plan which enables persons of very limited means to profit by their advantages. The subscriptions, which can be constantly renewed, do not exceed eight or ten shillings; and bread, sufficient for the daily consumption of a family, is supplied to that amount, until it is exhausted, much better in quality and rather lower in price than that sold by the bakers. The wheat, as in the large factories already mentioned,

* An establishment of the same nature exists, I believe, at Manchester, or Birmingham. Some notice of it was given by one of the subscribers in The Times not very long since; but the particulars have escaped my recollection, and I cannot recall the date of the journal which contained them.

is purchased of the grower, by which a considerable saving is effected, and the genuineness of the bread is secured; and the profits which arise from the suppression of all unnecessary expenses, after a time are divided amongst the subscribers. When a building has to be purchased or erected in the first instance for the bakery, and all the accessories for the fabrication of the bread have also to be purchased, a certain period must elapse before any clear profits can be expected, beyond those which are in reality afforded by the purity and cost of the bread furnished to the members of the association.

A thorough knowledge of practical business details is, of course, necessary in organising these friendly companies; and an entire absence of what is familiarly called "jobbing," and which is said to prevent the satisfactory working of many enterprises in this country.

NEW FRENCH PROCESS FOR CONVERTING WHEAT INTO

WHITE BREAD.

To supply the labouring part of the population of Paris with the fine white bread with which alone they will be satisfied, has become an object of natural anxiety in that capital, now that provisions of all kinds have risen to so very high a price there; and the first scientific men of the day are

seeking to discover processes, by means of which this false taste may be gratified at a less serious cost than it is at present. As real popular education advances, and people are brought to see the truth of things, as it becomes more and more developed by the aid of science, and by the efforts of enlarged and enlightened minds, it is probable that the deeply-rooted prejudices (which have their origin often in profound ignorance) that now stand opposed to much of what is best and most profitable as food, will give place—with many others to a just appreciation of convincinglyexposed facts.

The man who understands the nature of the component parts of wheat, will not quarrel with the mere colour of the bread he eats, when he knows that it is not the result of any sophistication of the materials of which it is composed. He will not insist on the sacrifice of a large portion of the grain, the whole of which is so important to him as nutriment, merely to gratify an irrational prepossession in favour of white bread. In England —and in London more particularly, amongst the working classes—this prepossession exists quite as generally as in any part of the world; the consumption of brown bread being confined almost entirely to the families of the more affluent orders. Only a cursory mention can now be made here of the recent discoveries reported at considerable

length, to the Academie des Sciences at its meeting of January 12th, 1857, and published in the Moniteur Universel of the 20th (and in other French journals most probably), and partly also in the form of a slight pamphlet, entitled "Extraction and Conversion of the whole of the Flour of Wheat into White Bread of the first Quality, by M. Mege-Mouries. To be had of MM. Firmin Didot Freres, Libraires, and of the Author, Rue Jacob 19."

A short extract or two from the above-named report may give the reader some idea of its tendency, and of its claim to attention.

66 CHEMISTRY APPLIED TO PANIFICATION.

Report made to the Academy of Science, of a Memorial by M. Mege-Mouries, entitled Chemical Researches on Wheat, Flour, and Bread-making?

"At its sitting of June 9th, 1856, M. MegeMouries presented to the Academy the result of his researches on Panification, partly theoretical and partly practical;—partly theoretical, because the author explains the real cause of the dark hue of brown bread, and indicates the manner by which it may be avoided, even when the bran is left in the dough; partly practical, because he proposes a new system of panification which is something more than a mere project, since one of the colleges of Paris has for three months past

been supplied with the bread made by it; and the occupants of the orphan asylum of Saint Charles (of the 12th arrondissement) have lived on it since last June to the exclusion of all other.

It must be observed here that the Academie des Sciences has naturally much influence with the French government on questions of this nature, and that it considered the discoveries of M. MegeMouries of sufficient importance to appoint a commission to ascertain their practical value; and this commission, after having seen his new processes in all their details, carried into operation at a small bakery, which he had himself established, applied to the prefect of the Seine for permission to have them tested by more extensive experiments, at the bakery of the hospitals of Paris, which was immediately accorded, and they were placed in communication with M. Salone, the director of the Boulangerie de Scipion; in conjunction with whom M. Mege-Mouries pursued his labours until a definite result was obtained for the further investigation of the commissioners, who then proceeded with their examinations.

The positive advantages afforded by the new system appear to be, the deriving from seventeen to twenty per cent more of fine white bread from wheat than is commonly done, and reducing to comparative simplicity the present most elaborate