The "hard-labor diet" of convict prisons fairly represents what the authorities consider the minimum. It is the same as that already described as "industrial-employment diet," with the following additions: barley, one ounce; bread, twenty ounces; shins for soup, eight ounces; carrots, one ounce; onions, one-half ounce; turnips, one ounce. It contains, however, fourteen ounces less milk and one ounce less "meat."

The nutritive value of the additions may be seen by Dr. Pavy's alimentary analysis, which is as follows:

From these totals must be deducted the articles cut off:

The same food must be given summer and winter, though the demand must be greater to provide for the extra quantity of heat required to be produced in cold weather. But then the amount of work is diminished at the latter season by I 3/4 hours, which is equivalent to an augmentation of the diet. The additions are more judicious than those made by the classes above mentioned, who partly furnish their own food; for bread and vegetables constitute a large portion of the convict ration, and the extra quantity of soup replaces the lost milk, without risk of the waste in cooking, common when the uneducated deal with solid meat.

4. "Hard work" is that got through by English navvies, hard-worked weavers, and blacksmiths, etc., which is more earnest and intense than the enforced "hard labor" of the convict. It is difficult to obtain accurate information, but it would appear from Dr. Play-fair's estimates that the customary addition to the diet is entirely in nitrogenous constituents. The higher their wages, the more meat the men eat.

The neglect of vegetables by the last two classes is, in a physiological point of view, imprudent, and possibly may be a contributing cause of an inordinate thirst for alcohol which impoverishes and degrades many among them. To satisfy their instinctive craving for a hydrocarbon, they take one convenient, indeed, in some respects, but of which any excess is unwholesome. The discovery already mentioned of the production of force from the assimilation of starch leads to a knowledge, opposed to old prejudices but supported by experience, that the raising of the energies to their full height of usefulness may be effected by vegetable food quite as well as by the more stimulating and more expensive animal nutriment, or by the more rapidly absorbed alcohol.

With regard to the tables quoted above, in which ultimate analyses are used as data for dietetic rules, it must be noticed that their authors deprecate arguments being founded on any but the very broadest characters of the articles analyzed. Specimens, even when of the highest quality, differ strangely from one another. Season, soil, modes of culture, the variations of species, and many other little-known influences, come into play and prevent our taking the market names of eatables as representatives of a definite chemical constitution. And it may be added that ample scope should be allowed for the peculiarities of the individual and of his life-history. In the application of general rules, some one must be trusted to relax or strain them when circumstances require, or failures of a fatal character may occasionally result, and more often a galling perversion of justice.

Estimates for the thrifty management of food-supply have usually reference to the feeding of others rather than to the calculation of a man's own dietary. Enough has been said on that point under the head of the influence of diet upon health; and if a person really wants to bring down the expense of feeding himself to the lowest point, he can readily rate himself under one of the classes enumerated above, and act accordingly. It may, however, be doubted whether it is wise to reduce the diet to the minimum which the work requires. The certain evils of an accidental deficiency, or of a miscalculation, are so serious that the danger outweighs the possible inconvenience of a slight excess. It were an unthrifty thrift, indeed, which imperiled vigor of mind and body to effect a pecuniary saving; for there is no investment so remunerative as high health. A man need not consider that he is wasteful when he spends money upon making his bill of fare palatable and provocative of indulgence to the extent of moderate superfluity. Pleasure and prudence here walk hand in hand.