HOW TO LIVE ON SIXPENCE A DAY.*

IN these days of dear meat, dear butter, dear milk, in fact of general dearness of provisions, most people would feel inclined to question the sanity of him who should tell them that the "average Briton" can not merely exist upon sixpence a day, but that with this modest sum he can provide himself with a diet not merely perfectly sufficient for the nutriment of his body but also most delightful to the senses, conducive at once to strength of mind and serenity of soul ! Sixpence a day—nine pounds two shillings and sixpence per annum—is sufficient not merely to keep a man alive but to effect his physical and spiritual regeneration ! Health, wealth, wit, and wisdom may all be ours on condition of making this little coin the limit of our daily expenditure in eating and drinking, and moreover, we are told by this new preacher of social economies that in so doing we shall not need to lead a life of penance, but that our fare shall be at once "delicious and elegant." With this latter expression we quarrel at the outset, or should do so did we not consider it transatlantic,—the Irish- man, we know, talks of " illigant " potatoes or an " illigant " pig, but the English writer who understands his language does not apply the word "elegant" to what he eats and drinks, although he may use it to express the way in which food is served up and placed on the table ; and we take it that the all-powerful sixpence is not expected to furnish little refinements in the way of table decorations.

However, the assertion that sixpence a day will amply provide us with satisfying and pleasant food is made in perfect good faith

• Hole to Live on Sixpence a Day. By T. L. N [choir, M.D., F.S.A. London : Herald of Health '' Office.

by one who would seem to practice what he preaches, Dr. Nichols, of Malvern, whose pleasant book, Forty Years in America, was noticed by us long ago on its first appearance. The author being a medical man of considerable experience, speaks with some weight when he asserts that, apart from the monetary view of the ques- tion, his dietary has vastly the advantage of that to which we are accustomed, and deserves, at all events, that his reasonings should be looked into, and his theory put to the test. For what a vast and important question is here involved. Prove that we, the people of England, can live in health and comfort at the present time upon sixpence, or upon thrice sixpence, a day, and what a mountain falls at once from our backs ! Make this but clear to that army of martyrs in the ranks of which, bravely struggling for existence, are poor clergymen with their children, whose name is legion—decayed gentlemen or women, whose modest annuities, eked out to the very utmost, are so insufficient to keep about them those last rags of gentility from which they find it BO bitter to part—clerks and employes of all kinds, with large appetites and Blender pay—all the host of men and women working in miscel- laneous small professions and trying, sometimes vainly, to keep body and soul together, or to provide, perhaps, for other bodies and souls which are dearer to them than their own—and what a jubilant cry would ascend to heaven, what blessings be invoked upon the head of their deliverer !

But the matter must be proved. Is it a fact that we can live, and live well, upon sixpence a day? We will see presently how Dr. Nichols makes out his case, but must premise at the outset that when he talks of living he speaks merely of food-pure and simple. Not only does he exclude, as might be expected, from his calculations all considerations of lodging, clothing, and other necessaries of life, but he does not even allow anything for the cost of fuel or preparation. He deals merely with the amount and quality of sustenance which is, in his opinion, the best suited to maintain the human body in its best condition, and to restore its 'vigour if impaired by sickness, and the daily portion of which, he contends, can be bought for sixpence, or even for half that sum. Herein, of course, he tells us nothing new. For every one is aware that until very lately the Irish peasantry lived almost wholly upon potatoes, and the Scotch labouring classes were content with oatmeal, and that a man of either nationality got through as good a day's work (not to say a better one) as the Englishman with his pound of beefsteak and pot of porter. Nor are we ignorant that millions of our fellow-creatures live upon rice and dates, while the food of the lower orders of Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians consists, for the most part, of bread, beans, onions, chesnuts, maccaroni, and water-melons. That people can live and be strong upon inexpensive fare we know,— look at the endurance of the Arab, of the Sepoy, and of the Ben- galese boatmen ; it is the application of the knowledge to our- selves which is the novelty. "John Bull" is so persuaded that a large amount of animal food and stimulant is necessary to his well, being, and the persuasion is so handed down from father to son, and from mother to daughter, that the possibility of doing without it never crosses his mind, and a certain stereotyped arrangement of meals prevails amongst the well-to-do classes from generation to generation, and is never interfered with save to admit of additions; so that the style of living not only for those who can afford it, but in every rank of society, becomes day by day more luxurious, —refined luxury in the upper class being the counterpart of gross feeding in the lower ones, and, to our shame be it added, co-existent with starvation amongst those who have fallen and been trampled on or pushed aside in the great battle of life.

No one can doubt for a moment that in England the waste of provisions is enormous. We are, it must be allowed, the most unsatisfactory feeders and the worst cooks in the civilised world, dependent upon our neighbours across the Channel for almost everything that we know of the science of gastronomy and also for the beat professors of the culinary art. We are mending, perhaps. by slow degrees. Our School of Cookery has done something. But how many of us consider what elements are needful to the support of our bodies or know how to adapt our food towards the formation of flesh, bone, and muscle, or the generation of necessary heat? A knowledge of physiology is at present only possessed by the advanced student, instead of its principles being, as they ought to be, guides to every man and woman. However, we are dealing for the present merely with the question of economics, and must look more particularly into Dr. Nichols's statements as to the quality, quantity, and cost of necessary food. As he lays it down as an axiom, in the first place, that what we eat shall be pleasant to the taste, well prepared, and nicely served, we need not feel nervous as to the quality of our

provender ; but then, at the very first start, we find that in cutting off what he considers useless and hurtful luxuries he debars us from tea, coffee, and chocolate, wines, cider, beer, and spirits,—the three former being absolutely prohibited as hurtful stimulants and narcotics, and the latter, while allowed to be "useful in rare cases medicinally," condemned as having "no power to build up the system or sustain it,—the grapes, apples, and grain consumed in their manufacture being simply wasted." The usefulness or otherwise of these things being an open ques- tion, each aide having its antagonists and defenders, we need not enter upon it here ; certain it is, that while to great numbers of persons the abandonment of them would be an act of considerable self-denial, they cannot be classed as necessaries of existence, since it is quite possible to do without them.

After speaking of the human body, the average weight of which, according to Dr. Nichols, is 154 pounds, of which 116

pounds are pure water, and the remaining 38 pounds dry matter, the writer proceeds to show that since we only need to take in sufficient sustenance to repair daily waste, most people eat a great deal too much, and consequently commit a sin of even greater prevalence than that of drunkenness,—namely, gluttony. From eight to twelve ounces of dry food in the day is, according to Dr. Nichols, amply sufficient to keep a man in perfect health, with all his powers and faculties at their highest efficiency ; but since water enters so largely into the composition of everything, it would take two pounds or more of food as it comes to the table to furnish the eight or twelve ounces of solid nutriment. In proof of his statements as to the sufficiency of his allowance, Dr. Nichols quotes the well-known case of the Venetian, Louis

Corner°, whose enfeebled constitution, restored by strict sobriety, became so healthy and vigorous, that at a hundred years old he was in the full possession of all his faculties and all his powers ; and he adds a list of those ascetics of early times who lived long and laboured hard upon scant fare of herbs and pulse, or coarse bread and water ; and he proceeds to show that men and women of genius and wonderful powers of mind have very frequently been in all ages remarkably abstemious.

"I conclude," says Dr. Nichols, "that the best diet, the one best adapted to the human constitution, and to sustain the highest vigour of body and mind, is one composed of bread and fruit. By bread I mean all the grains, placing wheat at their head, and including potatoes, yams, and the like, for the cooked potato is an inferior sort of bread. So is the chesnut. With bread and fruits as pivots, we may take milk and eggs simply, or in combination, as in cakes and puddings, or milk in its forms of cream, butter, and cheese. Then comes fish, and then the dearest and most doubtful and most expensive form of food, flesh ; and flesh is the part of diet that can be most easily done without, while bread in some form is almost indispensable."

When Dr. Nichols speaks of bread, however, he is far from alluding to the ordinary produce of the baker's-shop, in the manu- facture of which only white flour, from which the most valuable portion of the wheat has been eliminated, is used. He would have bread made of unbolted wheaten meal, and the better to secure its purity, he would have every family possess a hand- mill, and grind for its own requirements. He would, moreover, have the bread raised with muriatic acid and bicarbonate of soda, and baked at home ; such bread possessing, as he contends, most valuable hygienic properties. Other preparations of wheat, such as furmenty, and porridge, or as the Americans call it, "mash," he also strongly recommends, as being both exceedingly nutritious and exceedingly economical,—three pounds of fine wheaten meal containing, he says, as much nourishment as eight pounds of rump-steak, the cost being about in the proportion of 2d. against is. 4d. per pound. With wheat at 7s. a bushel, says Dr.

Nichols, the day's supply would cost a penny, add another penny for sugar and milk, and one more for fruit, and you would have a perfectly healthful and sufficient day's diet for threepence. Of course this calculation must depend upon where you may happen to live. In London, for example, your bushel of wheat would cost 9s., and a penny- worth of milk and a pennyworth of fruit would be but a scant ration! So, when he comes to speak of cheese, and talks of buying it at 4d. per pound, Dr. Nichols must be thinking of America! But, although some little exception may be occasion- ally taken to his estimates, he makes it very clear that an immen- sity may be done in the way of economy, even with advantage to health, and he shows that excellent, palatable, and nourishing

soups can be prepared at almost a nominal cost, and there is no doubt that to many persons the instruction contained in the little pamphlet may be extremely valuable.

Dr. Nichols's suggestive question, whether any one has the right to squander money on hurtful indulgences while others are in want, would, if answered as he would have it, revolutionize the

world, and would at once be condemned as unsound by the poli- tical economist, and cried-down as rank communism even by spiritual pastors of every shade of doctrine ; still there is some- thing in it which has an awkward knack of hitting bard at indi- vidual doors. When he says that any one of us would divide our loaf with the brother whom we actually saw present with us in need, and contends that want of thought, more than want of feeling, makes men extravagant, we cannot help agreeing with him to a certain extent, although we may not feel prepared, like the early Christians, to sell our possessions and distribute them to all men! Without going to extremes, we think that a little book like the one in question ought to do good, if it were only by teaching those who are obliged by necessity to economise, how to conduct their economies in a healthful fashion, some of the instances given in it of recoveries from hopeless sickness under a self-denying regimen being truly remarkable.