iritual and physical, traverses Europe in ghastly shapes". This comment sums up the despair and desperation felt by millions across the continent following disastrous harvests in 1845 when the potato crop failed most notably in Ireland and a wheat crop failure in 1846 led to massive food shortages in France and Europe. William Simpson and Martin Jones document the prices rises in grain in their book Europe, 1763-1914 .Wheat prices rose dramatically between 1845 and 1847 by an average of 75%. Other grains such as rye increased in price by 100%. Add to this the rise in population in urban Paris from one million in 1835 to two million in 1863 and it becomes clear that demand was out stripping supply. Workers flocking to Paris had the threat of starvation over them. "Normally 50 per cent of an urban worker's income was spent on food, so there was nothing to spare to cope with a price increase". Berger and Spoerer argue that it was much higher, "lower-class households around 1850 still spent between two-thirds and three-quarters of their incomes on nourishment"
             From these disastrous crop yields we clearly see a knock on effec
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