n a wider economy; and
when I have said my say, I hope I may be able to lay claim to the credit
of having spoken intelligibly and profitably, though I must at the
outset bespeak indulgence by promise of nothing more than the serving up
of a dish of simple hodge-podge. The question I put in a wider reference
is the question of the Englishman, as expressed in the Scotchwoman's
dialect, What's intilt? and I assume that there enter into it, as
radically component parts, at least the ingredients of this motley soup.
Into the large hodge-podge of nature and terrestrial economics, as into
this small section of Scotch cookery, there enter the element of water,
the flesh of animals, and the fruits of the earth, as well as the
processes by which these are brought to hand and rendered serviceable to
life. The ingredients of hodge-podge exist in _rerum natura_, and the
place they occupy and the function they fulfil in it are no less
deserving of our inquisitive regard.

Thus, there is water in it, without which there were no seas and no
sailing of ships, no rivers and no plying of mills, no vapour and no
power of steam, no manufacture and no trade, and not only no motion, but
no growth and no life. There is mutton, or beef, in it, and connected
therewith the breeding and rearing of cattle, the production of wool,
tallow, and leather, and the related manufactures and crafts. There are
turnips and carrots in it, the latter of such value to the farmer that
on one occasion a single crop of them sufficed to clear off a rent; and
the former of such consequence in the fattening of stock and the
provision of animal food, that a living economist divides society
exhaustively into turnip-producing classes and turnip-consuming. There
are leeks and onions in it, and these, with the former, suggest the art
of the gardener, and the wonderful processes by which harsh and fibrous
products can be turned into pulpy and edible fruits. And there are pease
and barley in it, and associated therewith the whole art of the
husbandman in the tillage of the soil and the raising of cereals, with
the related processes of grinding the meal, baking the bread, preparing
the malt, brewing the beer, and distilling the fiery life-blood at the
heart.

Now, to discourse on all these, as they deserve, would be a task of no
ordinary magnitude, but the subject is an interesting one, and to treat
of it ever so cursorily might not unprofitably occupy a reflective
moment o