sale does not work to the serious disadvantage of the consumers. A little consideration will show that the sale of bread could only be put on a more scientific basis by the exercise of an enormous amount of trouble, and the employment of a very numerous and expensive staff. No doubt the ideally perfect way of regulating the sale of either bread or any other feeding stuff would be to enact that it should be sold by weight, and that the seller should be compelled to state the percentage composition, so that the buyer could calculate the price he was asked to pay per unit of actual foodstuff. Now bread normally contains 36 per cent. of water, but this amount varies greatly. A two pound loaf kept in a dry place may easily lose water by evaporation at the rate of more than an ounce a day. The baker usually weighs out 2 lbs. 3 ozs. of dough to make each two pound loaf, and this amount yields a loaf which weighs in most cases fully two pounds soon after it comes out of the oven. But if the weather is hot and dry such a loaf may very well weigh less than two pounds by the time it is delivered to the consumer. In other words the baker cannot have the weight of the loaves he sells under complete control. Furthermore the loss in weight when a loaf gets dry by evaporation is due entirely to loss of water, and does not decrease the amount of actual foodstuff in the loaf. To sell bread in loaves guaranteed to contain a definite weight of actual foodstuff might be justified scientifically, but practically it would entail so great an expense for the salaries of the inspectors and analysts required to enforce such a regulation that the idea is quite out of the question. Practically, therefore, the situation is that it would be unfair to enforce sale by weight pure and simple for the weight of a loaf varies according to circumstances which are outside the baker’s control, and further because the weight of the loaf is no guarantee of the weight of foodstuff present in it. Nor is it possible to enforce sale by guarantee of the weight of foodstuff in the loaf, for to do so would be too troublesome and expensive. Finally the keenness of competition in the baking trade may be relied on to keep an efficient check on the interests of the consumer. Quite recently an important public authority has published the results of weighing several thousand loaves of bread purchased within its area of administration. The results show that over half the two pound loaves purchased were under weight to the extent of five per cent. on the average. Legislation is understood to be suggested as the result of this report, in which case it is to be hoped that account will be taken of the fact that the food value of a loaf depends not only on its weight but also on the percentage of foodstuffs and water which it contains. CHAPTER VII THE COMPOSITION OF BREAD