id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
hvd.32044087463089	Llanover, Augusta Hall, 1802-1896.	Good Cookery Illustrated 	1867.0		.txt	text/plain	96591	2640	61	So dear, so scarce, and often so bad was that element, (generally supplied by Heaven in quan- tities commensurate with the wants of all cre- ated beings,) that, very recently, philanthropic individuals had become painfully aware of the * See Traveller's Note Book. of Good Cookery. 225 sufferings of a large part of the population of London, and other great towns, from the impossibility of obtaining a cup of cold water to drink, in the course of transit through the streets during the heat and toil of the day, and many thousand pounds had been charitably subscribed towards fountains in some of the most populous parts of London, and that benevolent and wealthy persons had recently erected foun- tains at their own expense in some other towns; that of course every drop was a boon to men, women, and children dying of thirst, and thou- sands of whom, without that natural refresh- ment, had been, and still were, forced into public houses, whilst it was admitted, on all sides, that the curse of Great Britain was drinking, which was, to a great extent, caused as well as perpe- tuated by the want of convenient supplies of good water always at hand;—that the lower classes in London hardly knew what good water was, and the charitable free fountains, though better than nothing, were seldom, if ever, of any benefit to the poor cattle and horses, which, instead of being able (as on the Conti- Q 226 The First Principles nent) to drink out of large stone basins from running water, to be found in every square and the corner of every street, were entirely de- pendent on the mercy (or the cruelty) of their drivers, who either did not, or could not, supply them in buckets from pumps, which were fre- quently far apart, and often shut up because the water was considered absolutely poisonous. Next to bread and good water, oat- meal may be considered as one of the first necessaries of life to a rural population; indeed, in some parts of Wales it still (as in Scotland) takes the place of bread in many instances; and when this is not the case, its valuable and X 306 The Traveller's Note Book.	cache/hvd.32044087463089.txt	txt/hvd.32044087463089.txt