[8] By some experiments lately made it has been found that the soup will be much improved if a small fire is made under the boiler, just sufficient to make its contents boil up once, when the barley and water are put into it, and then closing up immediately the ash-hole register, and the damper in the chimney, and throwing a thick blanket, or a warm covering over the cover of the boiler, the whole be kept hot till the next morning. This heat so long continued, acts very powerfully on the barley, and causes it to thicken the water in a very surprising manner. Perhaps the oat-meal used for making water gruel might be improved in its effects by the same means. The experiment is certainly worth trying.
[9] This invention of double bottoms might be used with great success by distillers, to prevent their liquor, when it is thick, from burning to the bottoms of their stills. But there is another hint, which I have long wished to give distillers, from which, I am persuaded, they might derive very essential advantages.—It is to recommend to them to make up warm clothing of thick blanketing for covering up their still-heads, and defending them from the cold air of the atmosphere; and for covering in the same manner all that part of the copper or boiler which rises above the brick-work in which it is fixed. The great quantity of heat is constantly given off to the cold air of the atmosphere in contact with it by this naked copper, not only occasions a very great loss of heat, and of fuel, but tends likewise very much to EMBARRASS and to PROLONG the process of distillation; for all the heat communicated by the naked still-head to the atmosphere is taken from the spirituous vapour which rises from the liquor in the still; and as this vapour cannot fail to be condensed into spirits whenever and WHEREVER it loses ANY PART of its heat,— as the spirits generated in the still-head in consequence of this communication of heat to the atmosphere do not find their way into the worm, but trickle down and mix again with the liquor in the still,—the bad effects of leaving the still-head exposed naked to the cold air is quite evident. The remedy for this evil is as cheap and as effectual, as it is simple and obvious.
[10] The Bavarian pound (equal to 1.238, or near one pound and a quarter Avoirdupois,) is divided into 32 loths.
[11] For each 100 lb. Bavarian weight, (equal to 123.84 lb. Avoirdupois,) of rye-meal, which the baker receives from the magazine, he is obliged to deliver sixty-four loaves of bread, each loaf weighing 2 lb. 5 1/2 loths; equal to 2 lb. 10 oz. Avoirdupois;—and as each loaf is divided into six portions, this gives seven ounces Avoirdupois for each portion. Hence it appears that 100 lb. of rye-meal give 149 lb. of bread; for sixty-four loaves, at 2 lb. 5 1/2 loths each, weigh 149 lb. —When this bread is reckoned at two creutzers a Bavarian pound, (which is about what it costs at a medium,) one portion costs just 10/16 of a creutzer, or 120/528 of a penny sterling, which is something less than one farthing.
[12] This allowance is evidently much too large; but I was willing to show what the expence of feed the Poor would be at THE HIGHEST CALCULATION. I have estimated the 7 ounces of rye-bread, mentioned above, at what it ought to cost when rye is 7s. 6d. the bushel, its present price in London.
[13] Farther inquiries which have since been made, have proved that these suspicions were not without foundation.
[14] Since writing the above, I have had an opportunity of ascertaining, in the most decisive and satisfactory manner, the facts relative to the weight of Indian Corn of the growth of the northern states of America. A friend of mine, an American gentleman, resident in London, (George Erving, Esq. of Great George street, Hanover-square,) who, in common with the rest of his countrymen, still retains a liking for Indian Corn, and imports it regularly every year from America, has just received a fresh supply of it, by one of the last ships which has arrived from Boston in New England; and at my desire he weighed a bushel of it, and found it to weigh 61 lb.: It cost him at Boston three shillings and sixpence sterling the bushel.
[15] The price of Indian meal as it here estimated,—(2d. a pound,) —is at least twice as much as it would cost in Great Britain in common years, if care was taken to import it at the cheapest rate.
[16] Those who dislike trouble, and feel themselves called upon by duty and honor to take an active part in undertakings for the public good, are extremely apt to endeavour to excuse,—to themselves as well as to the world,—their inactivity and supineness, by representing the undertaking in question as being so very difficult as to make all hope of success quite chimerical and ridiculous.
[17]
The Housekeeper of my friend and countryman, Sir William Pepperel,
Bart. of Upper Seymour Street, Portman Square.