Table of Fees payable in the Two Houfes, on Bills of Enclosure.

-Yeoman ufher and door-keepers Order of committee

Account of Fees received in the House of Commons on Bills of Enclosure, for Fourteen Years, ending 1799.

Report of the Committee of the Houfe of Commons refpecting Bread, Corn, &c. &c.

The committee appointed to confider of means for rendering more effectual the provifions of an act, made in the thirteenth year of the reign of his prefent Majefty, intituled, "An Act for better regulating the Affize and making of Bread;" and who were inftructed to confider of the most effectual means of remedying any inconveniences which may arife from the deficiency of the laft crop of grain; and empowered to report their proceedings, from time to time, to the houfe: Have proceeded, in purfuance of the orders of the houfe, to confider of the provifions of the faid act; and are decidedly of opinion, that the act in its prefent flate is completely ineffectual for the purpofes for which it was intended; that the regulations contained in it are in

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many respects defective; and that the execution of it would be totally incompatible with the prefent mode of fetting the affize of bread by law, and would anfwer no object, unless, at the time when bakers are prohibited from making, according to the demand of their customers, different kinds of bread, millers fhould be prohibited from manufacturing different forts of flour..

Your committee proceeded next to confider, how far it might be proper to recommend to the houfe to adopt fuch farther regulations and reftrictions; and as they underftood a prejudice exifted in fome parts of the country against any coarfer fort of bread than that which is at prefent known by the name of the "Fine Household Bread," on the ground that the former was lefs wholefome and nutritious than the latter, they thought it important to obtain the opinions of fome eminent and refpectable phyficians on

this point. The refult of their evidence appears to be, that although a change of any fort of food, which forms to great a part of the fuftenance of man, might, for a time,. affect fome conftitutions, that as foon as perfons were habituated to it, the fandard wheaten bread, or even bread of a coarfer fort, would be equally wholesome with the fine wheaten bread which is now generally used in the metropolis; but that in their opinion, the fine wheaten bread would go farther with perfons who have no other food, than the fame quantity of bread of a coarser fort.

Your committee were next defirous of afcertaining, whether a ftandard bread was likely to be acceptable to the people of this metropolis; they have examined for this purpofe feveral confiderable bakers, who agree in ftating, that fcarcely any bread is confumed in the metropolis but that which is made from the fine wheaten flour; that attempts have been formerly made in times of carcity to introduce a coarfer fpecies of bread into ufe, but without fuccefs; and that in their opinion, the high price of bread would be confidered, by the lower claffes of people, as a fmall evil, when compared with any mealures which would have the effect of compelling them to confame a bread to which they have not been accustomed.

Your committee then proceeded to inquire, whether a mealure, which compelled the millers to manufacture only one fort of flour, would be likely to increase the quantity of luftenance for man. It has been ftated to your committee, that, according to the mode of manufacturing flour for London and its

neighbourhood, a bufhel of wheat, weighing fixty pounds, produced forty-leven pounds of flour, of all defcriptions, which were applied in various ways directly to the fuftenance of man; that about one pound was the wafte in grinding, and the remaining twelve pounds confifted of bran and pollards, which were made ule of for feeding poultry, fwine, and cattle. It has, however, been fuggefted, that if only one fort of flour was permitted to be made, and a different mode of dreffing it was adopted, fo as to leave in it the finer pollards, fiftytwo pounds of flour might be extracted from a bufhel of wheat, of the before-mentioned weight, inftead of forty-feven pounds; that this proportion of the wheat would afford a wholefome and nutritious food, and would add to the quantity, for the fuftenance of man, in places where the fine houfehold bread is now ufed, five pounds on every bufhel, or fomewhat more than one ninth. But as this faving is computed on a finer wheat, and of greater weight per bufhel than the average of the laft crop may produce, and can only apply to thofe places which have been ftated, and as a coarfer bread is actually in use in many parts of the country, the faving on the whole confumption would, according to this calculation, be very confiderably reduced.

Your committee have confidered how far other circumftances might operate, or the faving likely to be made of flour by adopting this propofition: they beg leave in the first place to obferve, that if the phyficians are well founded in their opinion, that bread of a coarfer quality will not go equally far with the fine wheaten bread, an increafed con

fumption