The Express.
London, England, 1863-08-14 00:00:00

LONDON, F 1: IDA Y, .4 UGUST 14.

CLEAN Bread is certainly one of the chief neces-
saries of life, but it seems to be something beyond
the reach of Londoners. A few months ago we
heard a good deal of a Company which was to
supply the metropolis with loaves of unimpeachable
purity. The bread was to be made by machine
power, and the most scrupulous attention was to
be paid to every detail of the manufacture.
Copious extracts were published from Mr. TanmEN-
BEER's reports, to show theabominationsof our ordi•
nary bakehouses. We were told, until our stomachs
sickened, of the foul, unsavoury, verminous condi-
tion of the ovens and workshops; of the unhealthi-
ness and uncleanliness of the journeymen, of the
prolonged hours of toil, and of the animal impurities
which necessarily result from the manual process.
We were even treated to a picture portraying
the horrors of that process, and contrasting it with
the cleanliness and comfort of the production by
machinery—a picture at which, probably, few who
glanced once ever glanced a second time. Unfor-
tunately, there was a great deal of truth in these
denunciations of the common mode of bread-
making. In a large number of our London bake-
houses it is detestably filthy. We should be
thankful that the human mind is generally so
unimaginative, so prone to take accustomed things
without investigation, and with no speculative,
inward eye; for a too curious regard to such
matters might result in our being unable to eat
anything at all. A Machine Bread Company,
however, forced us to think a little of the com-
position of our daily loaves, and it found its
account in so doing. It invited us to come
and eat clean bread, and a great many
accepted the invitation. The regular bakers
experienced a sensible diminution in their
customers. By-and-by, however, people found
that the machine bread was not so good as they
expected ; that it had fallen off ; that there were
manifest impurities of some kind in it ; that it
sometimes turned black, and sometimes got mouldy
with undue haste. Complaints were made at the
Brompton establishment, and one of the bakers
was dismissed. The man, conceiving himself
unjustly treated, sued the Company on Wednes-
day in the Sheriffs' Court, and some strange rc
velations came out. In cross-examination the
plaintiff admitted that he had been discharged for
making bad bread ; but he added that he could
"explain that." The German yeast, he said, was
"completely rotten, and running over with mag-
" gots." Furthermore, he had bad potatoes, and
the " flour was very queer." Knowing that he was
working for a Company which specially prided
itself on the cleanliness of its bread, he
spoke to the manager, but was told he must do
the best he could with his materials. Thus, ac-
cording to this statement, the bread was filthy and
adulterated. The public will probably be sur-
prised to hear that when they pay for bread made
of corn flour they get it made partly of
potatoes, which, it is known, contain a very much
smaller proportion of nourishment. Ara even the
corn flour, so called, is mixed with the meal of
beans. " The manager told me," said the plain-
tiff, "that they were obliged to get things at cheap
" prices, so that something could be put before
" the shareholders, as they were doing very badly.
" I have had to use yeast completely rotten and
" maggotty, and once I went to the board and
" was refused admission. I had a sample of the
" bad yeast. We had to squeeze out the moisture
" through our fingers."
To these assertions Mr. STEVENS, the managing
director of the Company, and its originator,
opposed a plain denial. He said that all the
materials were good, that the bread was bad
simply because the plaintiff was a bad workman,
and that there was a design to injure the
Company. An apparently strong point in
favour of the defendants was the tact that
the plaintiff's own brother, also in the service
of the Company, appeared against him ; but his
testimony really damaged Mr. Sri:yews, and
strengthened the case against him. The witness
said that he examined some bread at the Brompton
establishment which had turned bad in consequence
of the potatoes being bad, and he "believed the
" flour was the same." He admitted that his
brother was a good workman, but thought there
was a conspiracy against the machine bread.
Another of the witnesses for the Company
acknowledged that yeast of a questionable kind
had been used with his sanction, but added, for
the comfort of those who had eaten the bread so
made, that it "was not partiodarly bad." The
same witness added—" I have seen German yeast
" on the Company's premises with maggots in it,
" but not for use. Potatoes are used in our
" bread, and it is customary for millers to put in
" bean flour to the wheat flour. A bean was
" found one day in the flour." After all this, the
Judge's decision will surprise no one. He "did
" not think the Company had made out their de-
" fence," and therefore found for the plaintiff,
with costs.

We have drawn the attention of our readers to
this cue with some regret. The process of bread-
making by machinery is in itself so commendable,
and is one in which the public have so serious an
interest, that anything which retards its general
introduction is a misfortune. We see no reason
to be hard upon Mr. STEVENS himself for the bad
state of the yeast and flour. He has, it appear.,
several large establishments to overlook, and he
may have been entirely ignorant of the objection-
able materials that were being used at Brampton.
Perhaps bread-making by • Company is on too
large • scale to be kept well in band. We
recollect how fairly the League Freed Com-
pany started, some sixteen or seventeen years
ago, and bow its commodities deterio-
rated. A vast stock of flour and yeast
must be constantly in use, and if it becomes
!riled there is no doubt a great temptation to
cook ii up in some way or other to avoid a heavy
loss, which would tell on the dividends. Of course
the revelations in the Sheriffs' Court prove nothing
against the principle of making bread by machinery.
But the public will naturally say that it matters
not to them hot,: their loaves become foul if such
be the result. The Company must look more