CHAPTER III.

LARGE INSTITUTIONS ESTABLISHED ABROAD FOR THE PERFECT AND ECONOMICAL FABRICATION OF BREAD BY MEANS OF MACHINERY AND STEAM POWER, WITH M. ROLLAND'S APPARATUS AND OVENS.

The Bread Question more seriously considered Abroad than in England. The great interest manifested in it by intelligent men. The Insalubrity, and other disadvantages of the old System of Panification exposed.-Difficulties of the Bakers.. -Wilful blindness in England to existing evils. The French Press on Bread-making, and on Monsieur Rolland's Apparatus and Ovens. — Magnificent Establishment at Lyons planned and reported by Monsieur Lesobre. Particulars of the Rolland Invention.

THE bread question, in all its bearings, appears to have excited a far more earnest degree of interest in France, Belgium, and some parts of Germany, up to the present moment, than with us; and the practical results of it in those countries have been highly satisfactory and beneficial.

A general impression seems to exist there, amongst the intelligent orders of society, of the absolute necessity of a thorough reform in the old methods of " panification, " or bread-making;

some not very attractive pictures of which are given in several of their recent publications on the subject, written by men of ability, who have entered with great zeal into the subject. They all concur in stating, that for centuries past there has been no real improvement in the operations of the baking-trade; and that while striking and rapid progress has been made in all other of the industrial arts, these-faulty as they are-have remained unaltered. The insalubrity, coarseness, and want of economy, which distinguish them are thus described, and commented on, in the archives of the French Académie des Sciences, and in various expositions which have been made through the press, or at the meetings of learned societies. I insert some of the details - unattractive as they are without softening them for the fastidious reader, because any disgust which they may inspire, will be a natural and healthy consequence, and may awaken a desire to aid in their abolishment. It is not well to shut our eyes, and determine to ask and to see nothing of evils which more or less affect life itself; though thousands of irreflective persons prefer to do this, rather than to investigate and endeavour to remove them. Many do not even choose to believe that the water supplied to the inhabitants of London requires purifying before it can be drunk with safety; or that the imperfect sewerage of that

mighty city, so taints and loads the air with disease, as to render it often a deadly poison to those who inhale it. So it is with regard to the bread they eat. They do not wish to be disturbed in their belief that it is all that it ought to be; and treat as pure fancy, or prejudice, the idea that it can disagree with anybody, or be productive of serious and painful disorders. The common mode of making it is too well known to admit of contradiction. It is thus not very invitingly described by a foreign contemporary:-"It will be asked by our descendants, with astonishment, if indeed it could be true that, at this epoch of industrial progress, our principal aliment were prepared in the gross manner that it is, by plunging the arms into the dough, and raising and tossing it about with such force as to exhaust the strength of the half-naked journeymen, and cause streams of perspiration to flow and mingle with the alimentary substance?” And again :

"If instead of being satisfied with the aspect of the loaves exhibited in the windows of the bakers' shops, we were to descend into the offices where they are made, and witness the want of cleanliness and wholesomeness which attend their fabrication; could see here a reservoir of water which is never changed; there supplies of flour exposed to the influence of an impure atmosphere, either too damp or over-heated; and above all, sickly, per

spiring men in contact with our food, we should turn away with a very legitimate feeling of disgust."

These are revolting pictures, but they are true; yet much which repels us in them is beyond the control of the bakers themselves, arising from the want of space, and fitting accommodation for the trade they follow. How can the air of the illventilated underground premises in which their operations are carried on generally in populous and crowded cities, be otherwise than most unhealthily foul, destructive to the men employed in them, and having the worst effects on the food which they prepare? No article of our nourishment requires more scrupulous nicety in everything connected with its fabrication than bread. value-which cannot well be over-estimated-is dependent on its purity; and this can be preserved (even when it is composed of genuine ingredients) only by the utmost cleanliness in all the details of its preparation, and the absence of every unwholesome influence in the locality where it is effected.

Its

The leading journals of France, in their notices of an invention which fairly promises to supersede, at last, the old objectionable routine of the baking trade, are unanimous in their severity of remark on its glaring defects. The Courrier de Lyons, 16th February, 1854, treats it rather humorously, thus:-"From the fine arts let us pass to the art of bread-making, which is not in itself a fine art,

but which has the merit of contributing to the existence of all others. If we call it an art at all, it is from pure politeness, and in conformity to common usage that we do so; for in fact it is nothing but a barbarous routine, unworthy of the civilisation which has created so many industrial miracles. There are truly singular anomalies in the march of material progress which nothing but custom prevents us from remarking. For example: we have decomposed all the original elements, water, fire, air, and earth; have conquered pain by means of chloroform; annulled distance and time by the electric telegraph; measured the mountains of the moon; brought to sight stars which were imperceptible; analysed light; and made tables dance! We have launched upon the ocean marvellous vessels which defy the tides and the winds; and created and subdued horses of fire which can drag a rolling village over precipices or through the bowels of a mountain with the speed of a hippogriff. In a word, we are become Titans through the medium of science, which nevertheless has not given us bread worthy of man! This fact is certain. In the midst of the general progress of civilisation, the important art of bread-making has remained very nearly as coarse and barbarous as it was in the times of the cabbages of Fabricius, or the plough of Cincinnatus;

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