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Amongst the Lectures will be found able discourses on Religion, Politics, Biography, Science, Art, Literature, Poetry, the Press, Social Science, &c. The work will continue to be published monthly, in Twopenny Parts of 32 pages, pocket size, thus bringing it within the reach of thinking Workmen, for whose instruction the publication was originally intended, and who have been its principal supporters. We have no doubt

that in time "THE POPULAR LECTURER AND READER" will be found in the reading room of every Mechanics' Institute and Workmen's Club in the kingdom, secure for it the still wider influence and usefulness

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of a place in every cottage, will continue to be the aim of

THE EDITOR.

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"Where are the Dead?"-THOMAS SHORTER..

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"A Flower of the Household"-J. C. PRINCE

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Popular Lecturer and Reader.

Edited by HENRY PITMAN, Manchester.

No. 1. (New

Series.

JANUARY, 1863.

2d.

HOW TO MAKE TWO POUNDS OF FOOD GO AS FAR AS TWO POUNDS AND A-HALF.

A LECTURE FOR THE PRESENT CRISIS.

BY

REV. WM. NASSAU MOLESWORTH, M.A., Author of the Emertonian Prize Essay on "The French Alliance;""Plain Lectures on Astronomy;" &c.

s far as I am able to judge by the opportunities I possess of forming an opinion on the subject, I am led to hope that our soup kitchens, our sewing classes, together with the other modes of relief likely to be afforded during the present winter, will suffice to keep body and soul together, and to prevent absolute starvation; but, I believe they will be insufficient to maintain the bodies of our unemployed operatives in full health and vigour. We all know, too, that there are many among them who are of so independent a spirit that they cannot bring themselves, except in the last extremity of distress, to accept charitable assistance in any shape whatever; and, I fear, that many of these very meritorious class of persons will endure very severe privations.

Entertaining these opinions, and knowing these facts, it appeared to me that I might render some service in the present crisis, by pointing out to our unemployed friends how their food might be rendered as fully available as possible for the direct nourish

1.-JAN.

ment of their bodies, and how, by a little care and attention, they might derive as much strength and support from a smaller supply of food as they would, without such attention, obtain from a much larger quantity. The title of my lecture, and indeed the subject also, was suggested by one of the numerous and-to me at least-very interesting and profitable conversations which I have had with some of our unemployed friends'attending the adult schools in Rochdale.

I was reading to them from a popular work on physiology, and one of them remarked, with a slight touch of impatience, very natural and pardonable under existing circumstances, that if any of us would shew them how they could get employment and earn food, it would be much more serviceable to them than to point out the nature of the food, and the manner in which it was digested. I answered, that if I or anyone else could give them that information, they might be sure that we should lose no time in communicating it to them; that in the meantime, we were doing what we could to feed both body and mind. I pointed out, shortly, the advantages of the study of physiology to working men, and I further remarked, that if I could shew them how to make two pounds of meat go as far as two pounds and a half, I should have taught them something worth knowing in these hard times.

But in order to do this, I must have gone over a great deal of matter which, however interesting and important in itself, has no particular relation to the object I thus stated; and, therefore, it occurred to me, that it would be very useful at the present time to put aside other questions, and deal simply with that portion of the science of physiology which relates to the question I have referred to. This has led me to prepare the lecture you are now assembled to hear.

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