THE BAKER,

As a companion to this inimitable every-day likeness of the Baker we cannot do better than open the eyes of our readers to the nefarious practices resorted to by a portion of that useful body of men.

Shortly after the appearance of Mr. Accum's work on Culinary Poisons, a small tract was published by James Maton, a journeyman baker, exposing the roguery practised by his craft. On being received as a journeyman in his first place in London, he says, " As I was the under-man, it became my duty to take the dishes out of the shop into the bakehouse; the second hand, as the cant phrase is, shaves the meat, that is to say, cuts as much off from each joint as he thinks will not be missed; the foreman drains the water off, and puts the dishes in the oven till they require to be turned, after which the liquid fat is drained from each dish, and the deficiency is supplied with water; this fat is the master's perquisite.

"It may be plainly seen, between master and man, that, by these perquisites, the public lose at least two ounces of meat; and there being a mutual understanding between master and man, there is little fear of detection."

It appears, that in the baking slang, such loaves as are charged to the customers, but never delivered, are denominated dead men;" and to these, the master, it seems, claimed the exclusive right; but Mr. James Maton was not to be cheated of his share. His method of securing his rights he thus details:-"I mentioned this circumstance to some other journeymen, who told me the 'dead men' ought to be my perquisite, and, finding the customers did not detect the imposition, or have their bills examined, I began to deal in dead men, determining not to bury any after Wednesday, for fear they should rise in judgment against me at the weekly settlement; and if my master attempted to bury his dead men in the same ground, I took care to detect him, and to tell him of it before the bills were carried in to the customers, when he would say it was a mistake. I soon became master of killing and burying, but wanted a confidential undertaker, being but a simple countryman."

A confidential undertaker was, however, soon found; and knavery was carried on in lucrative partnership.

I frequently detected my master in his deficient weighings of the flour, to a gentleman's house, the quantity seldom exceeded ten pounds, instead of fourteen pounds; and, if a peck, five pounds instead of seven pounds: the servants never thought about the weight, it being immediately emptied into the flour-tub, and, if any fault was afterwards found, it was attributed to a mistake.

"On New Year's day, (or it might be Twelfth Day,) we had about a dozen good plum puddings to bake, and I thought I had a right, equal to my master's, of making a parish pudding for myself and the maid; and there was one pudding of a superior kind, which smelt strong of brandy. I therefore thought I could improve on my master's plan, for his method was to take a little out of each dish; but my present method was to take all the best into my dish, and to give the customers the mixture instead.

'In June, 1807, I returned to London, and engaged with a master baker as foreman, in Upper George-street, Portmansquare, who I found changed his men very often, excepting the second hand, the most profitable situation; because, the master serving good families, his journeyman could make às many 'dead men' as he pleased, without fear of detection through the folly of servants. The man whom I succeeded put me up to every move that could be made on my master, as well as on those customers on whom I might pass 'dead men.' I adopted my old system when carrying out bread, of keeping a check upon my master. At one house, in Hill-street, Berkeley-square, I could bury six dead men' and half a peck of flour, weekly, as the cook and myself divided the profits: she told me my master used to overchage her mistress a peck of flour, and six or eight loaves weekly, and never would give her more than half a crown at a time, adding, I should not have put you up to it, but your master told me he served more families the same.' Whenever I detected my master in these mal-practices, I was admitted as one in the firm of the imposition.

I afterwards engaged myself with a master baker and miller at Wandsworth, who carried on a very extensive business: the foreman, I succeeded, had worked for his employer

eight years, and had accumulated some hundreds of pounds, whether right or wrong, I leave to his conscience; for his honest wages, if all saved, would not have amounted to half the sum, for these were only three-and-twenty shillings per week, and he quitted his employment without giving the customary notice. My new master at Wandsworth carried on the business of a miller as well as baker, and he had several bakers' shops to make bread for him by commission; he put journeymen into those shops to manage them in his behalf, who gave security to produce eighty-four quartern loaves out of each sack of flour, that is to say, four more loaves than the act of parliament averages. My master ranked amongst the first-rate millers; his flour fetched the best price ;—but he made use of a great quantity of potatoes, and there are so many tricks played with flour, that it would puzzle the most able chymist to enumerate its component parts. In the autumn of the potatoe digging, my master bought all the potatoes that were to be disposed of at Battersea, Chelsea, Isleworth, Fulham, Brentford, &c. He bought upwards of two hundred tons, and, to lull suspicion, he told his customers that he knew potatoes would be dear that winter, and he made the speculation to accommodate his customers at a small profit; this representation had the desired effect, and he even sold them retail for a short time at his mill to his neighbours; but it was our constant practice as much to take a load of potatoes to each baker as it was to take a load of flour. My master and I were on good terms, and when Christmas arrived, he invited my family and myself to partake of the festivities of the season, and I continued with him until June, 1808."

From these specimens of private iniquity, our homest baker turns to those of a more public character, in which frauds were practised on the soldiers, in the Isle of Wight.

The bread was often rejected by some regiments, but served to others more easily imposed upon. It was a very indifferent article, and instead of being made of flour, sound and sweet, produced from good English or foreign wheat, the mixture of which the bread was made consisted of wheat, barley, beans, peas, rye, and caravanseras, worked with yeast made from potatoes, and blended with sea water instead of salt. The stratagem used by the contractor to make his bread retain its weight is this: as the bread is drawn out of the

oven, a man is employed with a hand brush, which he dips in a pail of water, and washes the tops and bottoms of the loaves. After this process, the store room, or bread magazine, is made ready, by placing small pebble stones about an inch asunder, so as to retain small puddles of water, on a gradual descent, that the overplus might run off, after filling these puddles; before the bread is put into the store room, a sufficient quantity of water is thrown on the floor, and after the bread has been laid on the wet floor, it is covered with a tarpaulin, to confine the steam. Thus the bread retains its weight, but is rendered more unfit for the consumer, and frequently occasions the flux amongst the poor soldiers.

"At Guernsey, the soldiers were frequently put in confinement as disorderly, for finding fault with bread made of materials not to be digested, as we took care to exhibit good wholesome loaves to their officers. If we allow, in time of war, the military forces of the kingdom to amount to two hundred thousand, the head contractors, who re-let their contracts to sub-agents, retaining a profit of one penny per loaf for their own perquisite, without risk or trouble in the execution of the business; as the loaf is the portion of four soldiers, it makes, at one farthing per man, the enormous profit, to these idle, and worse than useless, contractors, of two hundred and twenty-five pounds per day, or eighty-one thousand nine hundred pounds per year. But this is only the first fraud prac

tised on the soldier: the second class of contractors re-let the contracts, and reserve each to himself one halfpenny per loaf, doing nothing;-this is the second fraud, amounting to forty thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds per year; and I have known the contracts in this manner re-let four or five times from one sub-agent to another, the last of whom is the baker, who makes his profit by purchasing a mixture of all kinds of grain, and by his adulteration. But after all this wickedness the baker's profit is not very large, as the sub-contractors compel the bakers to deal with them for what they call flour, and they screw them down as low as possible in every way.

Alum, ground and unground, is sold to the bakers at four pence per pound. Upon a moderate calculation, there are upwards of 700,000 pounds of alum used annually by the London bakers. What an immense profit do the dealers in alum derive from this baneful drug !"