These were intended for working men only, but it often happened that reduced gentlemen were found in them; and on occasions of excursion trains arriving from the country, well-dressed people carrying carpet-bags were often found demanding admission for the night. The pressure of class upon class is, however, so great, that it is often difficult to say whether the wearer of the fustian jacket or the seedy black coat is the better off. At all events, when these dining-rooms are self-supporting, it matters little what rank in the social scale frequents them, as they can be extended ad libitum, and they violate no principle of political economy. It is, however, far otherwise when such schemes are supported by public subscriptions, for then the philanthropist enters into unfair competition with the honest tradesman, and in the endeavour to minister to the needs of the poor, runs a chance of pauperizing respectable people.

About five years ago Mr. Corbett endeavoured to carry out the Glasgow method in London, but, for some reason not clearly explained, the result was not satisfactory after a short trial. At present, however, it is encouraging to find that measures have been taken to meet this want of the working-classes. "The People's Café Company " now caters for the artisan and the clerk in a most creditable manner, at three flourishing establishments, one at 87, High Street, Whitechapel, where 500 dinners and about the same number of breakfasts, teas, and lunches are daily served; there is another eating-house at 1, Ludgate Circus Buildings, specially for clerks; and a third at 184, White Cross Street, where 300 dinners and about 200 breakfasts, teas, etc., are served daily. All these places are furnished with a smoke-room, chess, draughts, and newspapers.

At the establishment in Whitechapel you may get a good dinner, consisting of soup, flesh-meat, and sweet pudding, for tenpence the three courses, including bread and potatoes, and "nothing for the waiter."

At the Ludgate Circus Buildings branch the prices are considerably higher, involving IS. 10d. for the same entertainment; but of course there is a difference in the appointments, and the convenience of the locality is, moreover, an important element in the cost of production.

The latter establishment also presents the curiosity of a vegetarian bill of fare, specially provided for the abstainers from flesh-meat. In this department the charges seem to be

regulated by the accommodation rather than the intrinsic cost of production. It must be considered rather costly for a vegetarian to have to pay eighteen-pence for a dinner consisting of purely vegetable soup, vegetable pie, vegetables, and tart or sweets. Sixpence per dinner is the utmost that a vegetarian should pay for a dinner cooked at home, and of the best quality; and surely one shilling ought to meet the requirements of reasonable profit. However, there is the accommodation to be considered-and that is worth paying for by those who "abominate carrion."

Not long since there was a "vegetarian banquet" at this establishment, at which 150 guests were entertained at the prodigious cost of half a crown each. Certainly there were twelve or fourteen different courses or dishes; but even then -considering that there was no alcoholic liquor supplied -it is difficult to see how a vegetarian could possibly stow away his special crude materials to anything like that money value. We have before us the account of a vegetarian feast provided for fifty persons, consisting of twenty-one different substances, the total cost being 14s., that is, about 34 d. per head, with soup, etc., remaining to give away!

These establishments of the People's Café Company are absolutely "non-alcoholic," and under the arrangement of "no gratuities to waiters." Altogether they are just such places where a "fashionable swell" may economize in his provender -that is to say, he may flourish in the West and vegetate in the East, without saying a word about it to anybody.

But whilst the working man can thus secure excellent meals for himself abroad, the question arises: How can the thing be managed for his family at home-on his earnings?

Now, Mr. Beeton's "Penny Cookery Book" undertakes to show the poor man, throughout the twenty millions of his class, what he can do, or rather all that he, can do, towards filling the bellies of himself, his wife, and four children (the stereotyped British family of six) upon earnings of 10s., 155., 30s., and 40s. per week-the last earnings being the limit between the upper twelve millions who can feast on fleshmeat every day (perhaps four times), and the lower twenty millions who must be content with only the "crumbs" of it that fall from "the rich man's table."

The following table gives the sum that can be afforded per day for the sustenance of the family, from the respective earnings above mentioned :—

Hence, we have it, that the daily allowance to each member of these six representative families cannot exceed 14 d., 2d., 3d., 34d., and 5d.; and the question is-What manner of sustentation can be got out of 14 d., 2d., 3d., etc. ? Well, Mr. Beeton shows that it can be managed; but only with the grand substratum of two and a half stone of flour per week, to be variously utilized by the family. The bills of fare of the respective families, as they advance in earnings, are excellent (to read, at any rate); but vegetable and farinaceous matter largely preponderates, as a matter of course: oatmeal, potato-stew, dumplings, colecannon (¿.e. cabbages and potatoes mixed together), gourd dumplings, porridge, with a scant allowance of cold bacon, and sausage dumpling, rising successively to stewed tripe, sheep's head, beef soup, ox-head soup, fish pie, mutton broth, "Brazilian stew," pork pancakes, hodge-podge, toad-in-hole, rabbit stew, —until at length the family with 40s. per week can feast its eyes and stomachs with four pounds of beef, potatoes, horseradish sauce, and rice, for a Sunday dinner!

It is to be observed that out of this fivepence per day, for instance, down to the penny farthing a day, Mr. Beeton provides breakfast and supper as well as dinner-all the items being duly set forth for each day of the week, with considerable and judicious variations. We do not hesitate to say that, if any intelligent and dutiful housewife were to conform to Mr. Beeton's directions, the daily fare for each of the above-named families would not only be very different from what is ordinarily "put up with," but, on the contrary, be very good and savoury. Any one may try the experiment and judge for himself, as to the possibility of living upon sums ranging from five farthings up to the luxurious fivepence a day.

We must not omit to mention that both Mr. Buckmaster and the late Mr. Francatelli have done their utmost to teach the working man how to provide good, wholesome meals for their families at a trifling cost. It will be a long time, how

ever, we fear, before our working classes will be induced to reform their cuisine, and rise above the bit of tainted bacon, pork, fish, or flesh-meat with which both their pockets and their stomachs are now so badly cheated.

On the other hand, the waste of food continues to an enormous extent. Francatelli said that he could easily feed a thousand families on the daily waste in food alone which takes place in the reckless metropolis of London. Not a week, not a day passes that we do not hear of quantities of fish, meat, and vegetables, fruit and poultry, absolutely wasted, and only utilized for making manure. This waste is not wholly due to the carelessness of shopkeepers or the apathy of the public. It is caused fully as much by the greed of the salesmen themselves. There is a traditional and most baneful system known as "keeping up the price," which is based on the erroneous notion that directly a thing becomes cheap it will be despised by the affluent classes; and so it is considered better to let the articles rot before the prices are lowered, when the tainted commodities become so much poison in the market, to the serious injury of the public health. It is a significant fact that our juveniles have given to the rations of decomposed fruit they consume the name of "a penn'orth of stomach-ache." The same is true of fish and poultry, in the determination to "keep up the prices." Thus we go on wasting wholesome food from year to year, and then we make the welkin ring with our despair at the costliness of provisions. It may be that to refrain from waste is an un-English " habit. It is scarcely, at the same time, either English or manly to whine. and whimper about the dearness of meat and vegetables, when we squander in sheer neglect that which would feed a thousand families every day.

66

VEGETABLE SOUPS.*

Soup has been appropriately termed "the vestibule or porch of the banquet." According to Hippocrates, it was invented because experience taught man that food which suits healthy people is not applicable for the sick; and as everybody in this work-a-day and dilapidating existence is always more or less ailing, soup may be said to be universally proper for the sustentation of life and vigour. The very fact of its having been constituted the vestibule of the banquet, that is, the beginning of the feast, indicates the value and function of this suggestion of the human instinct. The hungry body is more or less exhausted of vital force, and is impatient for an immediate supply of the materials needed for the latter. This is at once supplied by reducing the elements of food into a condition adapted for immediate absorption and assimilation; hence the almost instantaneous sensation of "refreshment" experienced and enjoyed after "discussing" our plate of soup at every well-appointed dinner, bringing conviction to the inner man that he has not said his "grace" in vain.

So much for the positive physiological value and importance of soup; and the French have all along been alive to the paramount utility of this mode of efficient alimentation. The savoury pot au feu of the French peasant, and the rich soup of the French soldier, are the chief rations on which they subsist in health and strength, and so highly are they esteemed, that the one is never absent from the fire, and the other is invariably preferred to solid meat.

Experienced cooks, also, have always been aware of the

* By Andrew Steinmetz.