open into that pit, because the heat is
economised by the furnaces being under ground.
The two small engines may, of course, be found
at home in their apartments, close at hand.

Everybody knows that one of the housewife's
cares in life, is yeast. Every passing
year gives birth to receipts for securing good
yeast, or to suggestions for doing without it. It
is found in London that there is great
comfort in doing without yeast, when the baker
is enough of a chemist to set his bread to
ferment properly by other methods. The
great Birmingham millers would be very
glad to ferment their bread by some agency
less capricious than that of yeast; but the
Birmingham bread-eaters like their own old
ways. They like their old-fashioned bitter
bread, and complain of London bread for being
insipid. The Londoners, on their part, make
faces at the bitterness of Birmingham bread.
The great bread-makers do what they can.
They deal with the best brewers, and keep close
watch over the yeast. Mr. Lucy's dough-house
is protected from cold by the engine-house on
the north, and the bake-house on the south; and
the thermometer is for ever in hand. If frosty
weather hurts the working of the beer, and
spoils the yeast, and if the customers will
have yeast bread, there is no help for it: the
eaters must put up with a bad batch in bad
weather. Of adulteration there seem to be
no complaints; and we are assured that there
is scarcely any such thing in the town. Happy
Birmingham! If bakers' customers will have
extraordinarily white fancy bread, the bakers
must use some alum instead of salt.

In a corner, is a pile of blocks of salt
—powdery blocks, neat oblong squares, like
excessively white bricks. On the other
hand are the boiler and tank. Before us is
the great curiosity of the place, the dough
machine; and we can see at once that the
flour is to be poured into it from the long
hopper above. Here we have the water,
the salt, and the flour. Where is the yeast?
O! here it comes, in that tall tin measure,
which would nearly hold a man. A fat boy
of fourteen would about fill it. Now for the
bread-making!

The engines turn two axles in a large
trough. These axles are set with crooked
steel bars, which make a sort of chevaux-de-
frise, an apparatus for pulling the dough all
manner of ways when the axles are set
revolving, with some range, moreover, along the
trough. Flour is rained, in a short deluge,
from the hopper into the trough: two men,
who have been mixing warm and cold water
by the guidance of a thermometer, in a
monstrous bucket, sling a hook to the handle, and
crane the bucket to the edge of the trough
(which is about as high as their heads), tilt it
over, and souse the water among the flour.

Then, bowlful after bowlful of yeast is
poured into a sieve, held over more water
of the due warmth. A man takes up a block
of salt, whirls his arm round in the great pail,
mixing the yeast and water, and salting them
by the same operation. The frothing bucket
is hauled to the trough, in like manner with
the first ; and so on till the yeast is used up,
to the last rinsings, and the proper quantity of
water is supplied. Then the trough is boarded
up, to prevent the escape of flour ; the axles
are put in gear ; the chevaux-de-frise revolves ;
the dough is pulled and torn ; and, in return
for its torment, it gives out a seething, hissing
sound, very pleasant to healthy eaters of
wholesome bread. More flour is rained down
as it is wanted. The kneading is soon done ;
such a force as this being thus regularly
applied.

Perhaps the oddest sight of all is the
removal of the dough. Little vats, on wheels,
are run under the trough; a board at the
bottom of the trough is shifted, and the dough
oozes down, in grotesque masses. The thing
is on so large a .scale, that we were reminded
at once of a scene on the stage. We saw
before us a cave, with a roof of stalactites—
only the stalactites were oozing down like a
waterfall. The men help the descent of the
dough, and then scrape the chevaux-de-frise
perfectly clean. The trough is shut up, and
the little vats are wheeled away to warm
corners, where the dough is to rise at its
leisure. It rises in about an hour and a half;
is allowed to fall three times; and, at the end
of two hours and a quarter, is craned up in
its vat to the floor above, and let drop through
the hopper into the trough, to be there mixed
with as much more water and salt, and flour,
as it needs.

The room where it is worked into loaves is
like what one fancies the kitchen of a great
old monastery. The place is large, rather low
and dark, with prodigious boards, sprinkled
with flour, and eight ovens ranged along one
side,—ovens of a marvellous capacity. They
stretch far away into the wall; and very long
are the poles, with spade-like ends, called
"peels," which are used for transacting business
at the further extremity of these warm, arched
caverns, where the crickets, in a crowd, are
chirping merrily. When baked, the loaves
are ranged in racks, in another chamber, to
part with their steam. Each shelf contains a
hundred loaves; and the room may contain
two thousand, which can be handed into the
wagons, and despatched in twenty minutes.

It really is a pleasant thing to take up the
wholesome new twopenny loaf—retailed at
twopence half-penny—and think from how
many parts of the world grain has been
contributed to make it, and see and feel what a
goodly portion the buyer has for his money.
It is not exactly pleasant to see lumps and
crusts of bread lying in the gutters, and
kicked about on the pavement, as one may
now see at Birmingham; because it is never
pleasant to see sheer waste, while it is certain
that there are always some who have not
enough to eat. But the evidences of plenty
are very cheerful throughout the place; and