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Show BAKER'S DOZEN mm is told King John's Food Regulations Regula-tions Resulted in Heavier Count of Rolls There Is no reason to believe, writes the editor of Milling, that the baker Is more generous than an other business bus-iness man. In splto of tho fact that in supposedly more prosperous days he reckoned 13 as his dozen. This was not tho outcome of generosity, but a very practical fear that if customers did have just cause for complaint, the bakers would flr.d themselves locked up In a pillory or pacing a strawstrewn cell In ono or other of the exceedingly unpleasant prisons of ancient England. King .lohn was a suspicious poison, poi-son, and with this was mingled a pro-fessed pro-fessed (bsir, t., see that ills subjects got a square deal in matters so far removed from statehood as their daily bread. The bakers fell under the eye of King John, and he became convinced convinc-ed that the craft was not above tampering tam-pering with the scales, bread being sold by weight. To remove any hope Of gain by short weight, he framed a law whereby the short weight baker was pilloried, and his customers given giv-en the pleasure of hurling aged fr.iit and ancient eggs at him to their hearts' content. So the canny bakers learned their i - - SSSSSSSBSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSKBg lesson. They gave an added roll !0 every dozen sold, and thus took no' chances of a royal weigher suddenly, appearing with stales and a warrant.1 It Is good of the Western Baker. addt ! Milling to give such a frank deeerlp-; tion of the origin of the baker's do en. and to make no claim for gcn-ir-l osity of the trade it represents. |