

Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




YEAST: A PROBLEM




PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION



This book was written nearly twelve years ago; and so many things 
have changed since then, that it is hardly fair to send it into the 
world afresh, without some notice of the improvement--if such there 
be--which has taken place meanwhile in those southern counties of 
England, with which alone this book deals.

I believe that things are improved.  Twelve years more of the new 
Poor Law have taught the labouring men greater self-help and 
independence; I hope that those virtues may not be destroyed in them 
once more, by the boundless and indiscriminate almsgiving which has 
become the fashion of the day, in most parishes where there are 
resident gentry.  If half the money which is now given away in 
different forms to the agricultural poor could be spent in making 
their dwellings fit for honest men to live in, then life, morals, 
and poor-rates, would be saved to an immense amount.  But as I do 
not see how to carry