we see that Puritan and Cavalier, Tory and Radical, meet here in the truce of God?

There is an underlying meaning in the saying that flowers grow only for those who love them. We will not press the thought beyond the point to which anyone would wish to carry it. If we deny humanity to what we call the inanimate world, we may translate it into our dealings with what some deem the only creatures of God's hand. The blessing is on him that

considereth the poor; and the poor are the weak. The eye that is quick to note, and the hand to aid, will carry the habit beyond the precincts of the garden. Where compulsion hardens or sours, the sunshine of sympathy will develope. It may be said this needs much knowledge. So does knowledge of character; and how few of us are really developed. What was destined for a goodly plant too often grows dwarfed or awry. Consult their tastes; for tastes, to those who have them, are the requirements of healthy life. Place them where they are 'happy,' i.e. where Nature designed them to be, and, having marked the result, apply the same treatment to the human plant. Take some clytie from its gloomy corner and place it where it can turn lovingly to the Sun God, and let some modest flower that droops beneath the glare of day seek its congenial retirement. Of those which were killed by misapprehension of their needs, or which never knew what it was to live, we can only say in hope:

In Eden every flower is blown.'

For ourselves, if we are wise, the mournful song of Horace will be often in our ears, Linquenda tellus.' We must leave our earthly home; and if none of the trees we tended so lovingly follow us to the grave except the cypress, what of that? The heir may not be ungrateful. Some sap of the old stock may flow through the branches, and he may have noted that we cherished with especial care some tree that a dead hand had planted. We need not be greedy of statues; our memory is a living one. The seed we have sown will not perish from the earth; for when Nature, half reluctantly, resumes her wonted course, she will gather in her nosegay the flowers we brought her. Now they are dead,' says Victor Hugo, 'they are dead, but the flowers last always.'

ART. VI.-1. The London Commissariat. Quarterly Review: London: John Murray, September 1854.

2. Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom with Foreign Countries and British Possessions, 1898 (C. 9300: 1899).

3. Life and Labour of the People in London. By Charles Booth. Vol. VII, part ii (Food and Drink). London: Macmillan and Co., 1896.

4. The Production and Consumption of Milk and Milk Products in Great Britain. By R. H. Rew. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. London: Stanford, June 1892.

5. Report of the Departmental Committee on Beer Materials (C. 9172: 1899).

6. Reports on the Metropolitan Water Supply. By MajorGeneral Scott. Annual Reports of Local Government Board, 1897-8 and 1898-9 (C. 8978: 1898; and C. 9444: 1899). 7. Family Budgets. Compiled by the Economic Club. London: King and Son, 1896.

And other reports and documents.

IN

ARTICLE II.

N the article on The Food of London' which appeared in the last number of the Quarterly Review, a description was attempted of the character and sources of supply of some of the chief staple articles which enter into the diet of Londoners. We there endeavoured to estimate, so far as the available data permit, the quantity of each article which is annually brought into London, and the proportions which are drawn from the United Kingdom, from the rest of the British Empire, and from foreign countries respectively. We also noted some of the changes which have come over the London food supply in recent years, both as regards the form in which the food materials arrive and the countries from which they are drawn ; and we compared, so far as possible, the present conditions with those prevailing in 1854, which were described in an article in the Quarterly Review of that year.

In this way we passed under review the annual London supply of wheat and flour, of cattle and meat, of fish, vegetables, and fruit. In the following pages it is proposed to complete the account by treating in a similar way the chief remaining classes of food and drink, such as milk and other dairy products, tea, coffee, sugar, and cocoa, water, beer, and wine. Some observations will be added on certain aspects of the London food problem as a whole, especially as regards the

relation between the volume of stocks and that of annual supply.

Milk is one of the few articles of food which to any considerable extent are still produced in London itself, but, though the London cowkeepers still furnish their customers with some 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 gallons of milk per annum, or enough to supply the wants of a city of 500,000 inhabitants, the supply from this source is now small compared with the quantity of milk poured into London from the country. Exact statistics of milk consumption are not to be obtained, but by the aid of returns from the railway companies, and a calculation of the estimated yield of the cows in London, some rough idea may be formed of the London consumption. A few years ago Mr. Rew obtained returns from the railway companies showing that rather more than 40,000,000 gallons were brought by them to London in the course of a year. Adding 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 gallons for the output of London cowsheds, and 1,000,000 more for milk reaching London by road or in other ways, we get about 49,000,000 gallons as the consumption of milk in London in 1892, or about 11 gallons per head.

This allowance is considerably less than that usually made for the consumption per head of the whole population of the country, which is roughly 15 gallons. But on the one hand Londoners almost certainly drink less milk than country folk, and on the other hand they consume more 'condensed' milk. Mr. Rew thinks that London takes about one third of the condensed milk consumed, which, in the year to which his calculations relate, would be equivalent altogether to about 19,000,000 gallons of fresh milk. If Londoners consume condensed milk to the extent of the equivalent of 6,000,000 gallons, we have to add 1 gallons per head to the per capita consumption stated above, thus giving a total of 13 gallons per head. We dare not guess how much is to be added to this total on account of adulteration by water, but without any such allowance the average consumption would appear to amount to between a quarter and a third of a pint per day for every man, woman, and child in London.

This estimate is supported by such figures as are available from the consumers' point of view, though, as may be expected, consumption of milk varies very greatly, according to the social status and income of the family. Thus, Mr. Rew found that the average consumption of a number of West-end families was about three-quarters of a pint per head per day. On the

* Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, June 1892, p. 265.

other hand, the budgets of expenditure collected by the Economic Club show for thirty-eight persons of all ages in London an average expenditure of 34d. per head per week for milk, giving an average consumption of a pint and three quarters per week, or a quarter of a pint per day. If, in default of better data, we assume that these widely differing figures represent the average consumption of the middle and upper classes and of the working classes respectively, and take about one fifth of the London population as belonging to the former, we arrive at an average consumption of one third of a pint per head per day for the whole London population. At the present time the annual consumption of fresh milk in London must be over 50,000,000 gallons, and of this probably six sevenths come from the country by rail or road, chiefly from the home and midland counties, where the farmers have almost entirely renounced butter-making for the more lucrative business of supplying the vast demand of the capital for milk.

The supply of London with milk from the country is a growth of comparatively recent years. Before the advent of railways London was practically self-sufficing in this respect. Every dairyman was a cowkeeper, and in the middle of the century from 20,000 to 30,000 cows are said to have been kept in London. In 1854 the Quarterly Review estimated the number at 20,000, yielding 60,000 gallons of milk a day, and furnishing two thirds of the total milk supply of London. Even at that date railway-borne milk was a considerable element in the London supply, though subordinate to the produce of the London cows; but the secret of carrying the milk without deterioration through jolting had not yet been discovered. Necessity, however, is the mother of invention; and when the ravages of the rinderpest, which swept through the London cowsheds in the two next decades, compelled the London dairymen to look to the country for their supplies, the pressure of the growing demand caused the railway companies to improve their service and led to the invention of the milkcooler. Since then the supply of country milk to the London market has increased with gigantic strides, far more than keeping pace with population. Instead of being, as formerly, inferior to the produce of London sheds, country milk has long been recognised as superior in quality. Unable to compete with a superior article from the country, and hampered by the rising standard of sanitation in London, which increases the stringency of the County Council regulations for cowsheds, the London cowkeeper seems destined to disappear, except perhaps in the East-end of London, where he owes his continued

existence to the presence of the Jews. Kosher' milk must be milked direct into a jug or vessel and not mixed with other milk, so that the local cowkeeper will probably long be a familiar figure in Whitechapel. According to Mr. Baxter,* he is generally a Welshman; and members of this thrifty race seem to be the only dairymen who can still make cowkeeping pay. Usually he is a son or near relation of a small Welsh farmer, and, as in so many other dwindling trades, he has to work extremely hard for a very small return. Everywhere out of Whitechapel the cowkeeper seems doomed to extinction. Between 1891 and 1898 the number of licences granted for cowhouses was reduced from 597 to 375.

London having been beaten by the country districts as regards its milk supply, it remains to be seen if the country in turn has anything to fear from our over-sea competitors. Condensed milk, chiefly from Switzerland, has long been an important article of import, but, though a certain amount of 'raw' milk has been imported from France, the quantity is at present insignificant as an element in the London supply. Whether fresh milk can be profitably imported in the future depends largely on the much-debated question of preservatives. A great part of the country milk drunk in London is already 'doctored' with boracic acid or other chemicals to ensure its keeping; and experts are divided as to the danger or harmlessness of this treatment. There was some talk recently of the use of a secret preservative by an exporter in the north of France, and the matter actually gave rise to questions in Parliament. At present, however, there is no sign of any likelihood of serious competition from the Continent in the supply of fresh milk to London, though with recent developments in one's mind he would be a bold man who would affirm its permanent impossibility.

The distribution of milk in London tends more and more to fall into the hands of large firms with several branches. Thus in Kelly's Directory for 1895, 1450 dairymen were enumerated, compared with 1465 in 1870, when the population was much smaller. Over a third of the total number-mainly the smaller masters-are Welsh, the larger firms being almost all English. For some reason there appear to be no Scotch or Irish in this trade.

The rapidly increasing part played in recent years by the country districts in the supply of London with milk, has been accompanied by a corresponding decline in the proportion of

*Life and Labour of the People,' vol. vii, p. 15.