Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/138

 the proportion of the barley bread, composes the supper. The breakfast is, occasionally, similar also; but it now much more commonly consists of tea and bread and butter. The use of tea may now be considered as universal. As may be inferred from its high price, the infusion of it, in use among the poorer members of this community, is extremely weak, being, in fact, little better than warm water. The poorer individuals drink this often without either sugar, treacle, or milk.

In the towns the use of wheaten bread is becoming more general, even among the poorer classes; but in the country parishes, barley bread is the only kind in common use. This is also of a very bad quality. The coarse barley meal is baked in large loaves, which are seldom sufficiently cooked, so that the bread is generally extremely coarse, black and sour, and more like wet dough than bread. It is baked by being placed under an inverted brass pan, which is covered with burning furze, and in its characters bears ample proof of the rudeness and insufficiency of the process. Fresh animal food, under the form of butcher's meat, is rarely known to the labouring classes, except in towns, where an occasional meal of it is seen, as well as wheaten bread. Milk is also in use more or less, but is by no means an extensive article of diet. Scarcely any kinds of vegetables, but potatoes, are used by the common people, and are rarely to be seen in their little gardens. All species of green vegetables and fruits are entirely unknown to them as articles of food. Upon the whole, I should say that the principal articles of diet of the common people, are salted pilchards, potatoes, and