Some years since, a great railroad corporation in the West, having occasion to change the gauge of its road throughout a distance of some five hundred miles, employed a force of 3,000 workmen upon the job, who worked from very early in the morning until late at night.  Alcoholic drinks were strictly prohibited, but a thin gruel made of oatmeal and water was kept on hand and freely partaken of by the men to quench their thirst.  The results were admirable; not a single workmen gave out under the severe strain, and not one lost a day from sickness.  Thus this large body of men were kept well and in perfect strength and spirits, and the work was done in considerably less time than that counted on for its completion.

In Scotch households oatmeal porridge is as inevitable as breakfast itself, except perhaps on Sundays, as this anecdote will illustrate.  A mother and child were passing along a street in Glasgow, when this conversation was overheard:—­

    “What day is the morn, mither?”

    “Sabbath, laddie.”

    “An’ will wi hae tea to breakfast, mither?”

    “Aye, laddie, gin we’re spared.”

    “An’ gin we’re no spared, will we hae parrich?”

BREADSTUFFS AND BREADMAKING

Although the grains form most nutritious and palatable dishes when cooked in their unground state, this is not always the most convenient way of making; use of them.  Mankind from earliest antiquity has sought to give these wonderful products of nature a more portable and convenient form by converting them into what is termed bread, a word derived from the verb bray, to pound, beat, or grind small, indicative of the ancient manner of preparing the grain for making bread.  Probably the earliest form of bread was simply the whole grain moistened and then exposed to heat.  Afterward, the grains were roasted and ground, or pounded between stones, and unleavened bread was made by mixing this crude flour with water, and baking in the form of cakes.  Among the many ingenious arrangements used by the ancients for baking this bread, was a sort of portable oven in shape something like a pitcher, in the inside of which a fire was made.  When the oven was well heated, a paste made of meal and water was applied to the outside.  Such bread was baked very quickly and taken off in small, thin sheets like wafers.  A flat cake was the common form in which most of the bread of olden times was baked; being too brittle to be cut with a knife, the common mode of dividing it was by breaking and hence the expression “breaking bread” so common in Scripture.