The Poor Man’s Kitchen.

Not long ago, it was discovered that our prisons are palaces, that the treadmill is as pleasant as waltzing, that picking oakum is not more difficult than potichomanie, and that if any one desires to fare luxuriously every day, without expense to himself, he has only to turn thief, and be sentenced to two years’ confinement. Unfortunately, the life of a prison is attended with a few disadvantages. We are not all fitted for a life of monastic seclusion; silence is not always agreeable; restraint very soon becomes irksome. In spite of these drawbacks, however—which those who have long battled with the world, and whose spirits are drooping under the fell influence of adversity, might well be content to endure for the sake of peace and plenty—the condemned cell seemed a blessed refuge for the distressed, a pretty little chamber in the Castle of Indolence and Many Delights. In one point, especially, the House of Correction, it was supposed, might inspire all prisoners to sing with Dr. Watts—

“I have been there, and still would go;

’Tis like a little heaven below.”

for the larder seemed worthy of an abbey in the rare old time in which

The monks of Melrose made gude kail

On Fridays, when they fasted;

And wanted neither beef nor ale

So long us their neighbours lasted.

At all events, the poor man began to imagine that there was no such potluck for him as he could get every day of the year in any penitentiary throughout the land. He and his little ones were starving on a crust of bread, and cast envious looks at the tabby waiting about the area gate for the daily visit of the cats’-meat-man. Why should he not have as good a dinner as the felon who had broken into the house with his centre-bit, or had broken the bank with his frauds? Why should he pace homewards day after day, pale-cheeked, hollow-eyed, with sinking heart and hungry blood, all for the crime of being honest? A cry of indignation rose throughout the country. If people did not go the length of supposing that our prisoners are fed on turtle-soup, and sleep on feather-beds, they declared at least that the management of prisons is such as to place a heavy premium on crime. The criminal is not punished, but rewarded. Our philanthropy has gone too far. We are milksops. Gaolers are gentlemen; turnkeys are bland as the angels that opened the prison doors; they take care that hinges never grate harshly on the ear, and they shoot the bolts sweetly, softly, solemnly, as dying falls of music. Success to swindling! When swindlers are thus petted, who would not go to prison? Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. Let us have jolly dinners with shut doors in preference to empty stomachs under the open sky. Instead of plenty to do, and nothing to eat, let us have the crank on Christian principles—that is, in a fine combination of texts of scripture and boiled beef. After all, there is not a little attraction in the fleshpots of Egypt, and for the sake of the garlic, the leeks and the feast of fat things, with which their souls are satisfied, the chosen Israel long to enter once more the house of bondage, rather than serve God in the wilderness on a diet of sparrows—for what else are quails, at least according to the London experience? Lost in those deserts of brick and mortar, which all great cities are—famished and faint as he treads “the stony-hearted Oxford Street”—the British workman is fain to enter the house of his bondage for the sake of the daily allowance of cooked meat—three ounces, without bone.

In these flattering descriptions of prison discipline there is a good deal of exaggeration, but there is truth enough to perplex many worthy people who are anxious for the wellbeing of the working classes. The authorities may point to the fact that the fare of our penitentiaries is barely sufficient to keep the prisoners from losing flesh; but this is not a fact which appeals to the popular imagination. We see men feeding sometimes voraciously, and yet never gaining in flesh; while others, who are very spare eaters, grow fat in spite of themselves. Therefore, granting that, scientifically, the weighing machine is a fair test of what a man ought to eat, yet, practically, it is not a standard to which the common sense of mankind can submit. There is a fallacy in these measurements which never imposes upon the poor man. He says—“Nobody takes the trouble to weigh me. I have as little fresh air, and as little liberty as those fellows. I am confined in a close workshop all day. I breathe a stifling atmosphere, which the prisoners do not. My whole manner of life requires even more than these convicts do, a nourishing diet. But neither for myself, nor for my family, can I get such excellent or such abundant food as the greatest scoundrel in England obtains every day from his warders. It is a frightful shame—it is a national crime. Your weighing machine is a grand imposture.”

And what is the nature of this food which excites so much envy? Between one prison and another there are differences, and it must be remembered that in all prisons there is established a considerable difference between criminals confined for short, and those committed for long periods. Prisoners are divided into classes—generally three. First-class prisoners are the aristocracy of crime, who are at the top of their profession, who are in for more than a couple of months, and who are entitled to first-class fare. The second-class are those who have been sentenced to less than two months, but more than a fortnight; while the third and lowest class includes those who have been committed for a fortnight and under. Not to make the prisons too attractive to petty offenders, those in the second and third classes, who may be described as the fluctuating population of our bridewells, get the very commonest fare. Those in the second get but a very small portion of animal food; these in the third get none at all. It is the class who are confined for lengthened terms, and who may almost be described as the permanent population of our prisons, that get the sort of fare which has caused so much envy.

We may take the dietary table of the House of Correction at Cold Bath Fields as a fair example of the mode in which first-class prisoners are fed. They get three meals a day—breakfast, dinner, and supper. At the first of these, every prisoner gets six ounces and two-thirds of bread, together with a pint of cocoa. The bread, it is true, is brown, and our lower classes have a prejudice against loaves made from coarse flour; but the prejudice is an absurd one. The man of wealth regards brown bread as a luxury; it is the most wholesome, nourishing, and palatable form of the staff of life; and those who begin by making faces at it very soon come to enjoy it. Every day a loaf is given to each prisoner, about the size for which we pay twopence in the shops. With two cuts of a knife, it is divided into three parts; it is then placed in a bag and handed to each prisoner, being his allowance for the day. He eats a third at breakfast, a third at dinner, and the remainder at supper. We are still at breakfast, however, and wish to know about that pint of cocoa which is handed to each man. The general way in which the ingredients are mixed is this:—In every hundred pints of the article, as it issues from the kitchen, there ought to be three pounds two ounces of cocoa, eight pounds of molasses, or four pounds of raw sugar, and twelve and a-half pints of milk. So that the allowance to each man, in his pint of cocoa, is half-an-ounce of cocoa, half-a-gill of milk, and either one ounce and a-third of molasses, or two-thirds of an ounce of sugar—the rest being water. If this is not a very luxurious breakfast, still it is not a bad one, and many an honest man would be glad if he could command it for himself and his family.

Dinner comes at two o’clock. The men sit down on narrow benches, before long strips of table. A table-cloth is laid for each; it is a piece of brown paper somewhat less than the size of the present page. Upon this the salt, to which the prisoner is allowed to help himself in any quantity, or his bread, or anything else, is deposited, and after dinner he pockets the paper, for he will receive a new table-cloth on the morrow. His quantity of bread I have already mentioned. It is a third part of the little loaf which is handed to him in a numbered bag, and for each meal weighs six ounces and two-thirds. The foundation of the dinner, however, is animal food. On four days of the week, the prisoners get meat and potatoes; on three they get soup. The meat (though not the soup) has the disadvantage of being served up cold; but this is unavoidable when a great quantity of beef or mutton has to be divided simultaneously into small pieces for a thousand prisoners, who commence their meal at one and the same moment. Each man gets six ounces of meat and half a pound of potatoes. During the winter half of the year the meat is beef and mutton alternate fortnights; during the summer half it is beef entirely. In some prisons the allowance is as low as three ounces of cooked meat without bone; but as provisions are probably dearer in London than anywhere else, it is worth while for the purposes of comparison, to confine our attention to the rations permitted in the Houses of Correction at Clerkenwell and Westminster. We shall then be able to put the case against the prisons in the strongest light. The sufficiency of the prison diet will be equally seen if we now turn to examine the nature of the dinner on the three days of the week, which are allotted to soup, with the usual modicum of bread. Each man gets a pint and a half of soup. This mess is so prepared that in every hundred pints of it there are stewed down two ox-heads, three pounds of barley, six pounds of peas, three pounds of rice, one pound of salt, and two ounces of pepper, with a due proportion of such vegetables as are in season—carrots, leeks, turnips. This is the Westminster receipt. In other prisons the receipt varies a little. At Lewes, for example, every quart of soup contains six ounces of meat without bone, five ounces of potatoes, two ounces of oatmeal and flour mixed, a sufficient quantity of leeks or onions, and a little parsley or thyme. At Horsemonger Lane, it is made from pot liquor of the boiling beef, and contains per pint, an ounce of chopped beef, two ounces of peas or barley, and vegetables seasoned with pepper and salt. At other prisons the mess is made into a sort of Irish stew, that besides containing plenty of nourishment, is rendered palatable by mint or other pot herbs. On the whole it will be admitted that the dinner, if it is of a very plain character, is also substantial, and that no one who can command such fare need starve or complain. There are thousands of poor men who would say that the meal requires but one thing to make it perfect, and that is the glass of beer which is allowed in the Munich prison.

Supper is the meal for which fastidious appetites will have least inclination, for it consists of the usual quantity of bread, together with a pint of gruel. What is this gruel which has such an evil reputation? It contains about one and a half ounces of oatmeal to the pint, and is seasoned with salt or sugar, as the case may be. Now, from the time when Dr. Johnson in his dictionary defined oats to be the substance on which horses are fed in England, and men in Scotland, to the present day, this very fattening article of diet has been the object of innumerable sneers. Lord Kames, with that audacious patriotism for which his countrymen are distinguished, retorted with not a little wit—“Yes, and where can you find such horses and such men?” These matters are very much under the shadow of prejudice. The Hebrew declines ham, and the Englishman can never become partial to frogs and snails. A Scotchman is astonished to find that turnip-tops are eaten in England, and we were all very much surprised when the illustrious Soyer told us not long ago, that the nettle is one of the most delicious green vegetables—fit for the table of a prince, though the poor man can pluck it by the road-side. About this oatmeal, it was but recently that we had some of our public men pronouncing upon its merits in the most dogmatic terms. Mr. Bright described oatmeal porridge as a horrible mess, and seemed to think it one of the grievances of the lower classes in Scotland that they are condemned to feed upon it. The Scotch were at once in arms against him, and they had some right on their side. First of all rose the Duke of Argyll, and declared emphatically that oatmeal porridge is capital food. Then came Dr. Guthrie, who did battle for another preparation of oatmeal, called sowens. “I stand up for Scotland and oatmeal porridge!” he said. “Clearly Mr. Bright knew nothing of what he was speaking about when he disparaged them.” (The Scotch, it will be observed, have a respectful habit of designating their food in the plural number. As kings and editors are always “we,” broth and porridge are always “they.”) “I have heard the case of a countryman of his somewhat in point, who was fain to say a good word for something with less substance. Travelling in the Highlands, he got tired; he got bemisted; he got, what an Englishman, is very apt to do, hungry, and so cast himself upon the hospitality of a cottage he stumbled on. The good woman had no English, and he had no Gaelic; but by the language of signs she came to understand what he wanted. She had no oatmeal in the house—nothing better than what we call sowens. Now sowens, you know, are very good and palatable when they are manufactured; but before that process they bear a remarkable resemblance to dirty water. That the man thankfully swallowed them I make no doubt—for he went home and told his friends that he had been the object of the most remarkable providence that ever befell a human being. Quoth he, after telling the first part of the story, the woman took some dirty water and put it into a pot, and, by the blessing of God, it came out a pudding!” There is certainly one mode of preparing oatmeal which all Englishmen relish—namely, when the finer qualities of the meal are baked into those thin cakes, which are obtained in perfection only in the north of Scotland; and with regard to the gruel at which Mr. Bright and other members of “the bloated aristocracy,” turn up their noses, it is, even in its simplest form, not to be despised by hungering men; while, by the addition of some cheap condiment, it can always be made agreeable to the taste. The prisoners, at all events, partake of it heartily; and a little butter, milk, or treacle, helps it wonderfully.

The conclusion which is drawn from all this is, that prisoners are well fed, that the diet provided is beyond the means of many poor families and that there must be something wrong if criminals are so much better off than the honest artisan who is starving with his family on a pittance of 20s. a week. That there is something wrong it is not necessary to deny. But the question may be raised, whether the wrong lies in our system of prison discipline. If the fare which is provided for our criminals is good and ample, is even generous, there is this also to be remembered, at the same time, that it is dirt-cheap. It is so cheap that when the cost of it is mentioned, everybody will at once admit that the idea of lowering the price still further would be a ridiculous meanness. At the Clerkenwell House of Correction the diet which we have described is provided to each prisoner at the cost of certainly not more than 4d. a day. The average cost of feeding all the prisoners in that gaol during the year 1859 was 2s. a week for each man; but as this average is struck so as to include the second and third-class prisoners, there will be a difference in the calculation if we take account only of the first-class prisoners receiving first-class fare. That difference, however, must be very slight, as, among the 1,200 daily inmates of the prison, there is but a sprinkling of the second and third-class criminals. We are clearly within the mark if we put down 4d. a day for each man. At the Ely House of Correction the charge is 3¼d. for each. At the Salford New Bailey the daily cost of food is 2¾d. a head. For the whole of England the average cost of each prisoner’s diet is 3¾d. a day. There is a very curious and instructive table in one of our blue-books, which shows the total average cost per annum of each prisoner; and when people talk of the luxury of prisons, we may ask them to read this table, and then to say what they think:—

£.s.d.
Prison diet, &c.5125¼
Clothing, bedding, and straw172
Medicines, &c.017¼
Wine, beer, and spirits0010
Washing and cooking017
Fuel, soap, candles, oil, and gas11711
Stationary, printing, and books063¾
Furniture0411¼
Rents, rates, and taxes026¾
Officers’ salaries9197¾
Pensions to retired officers0710¼
Support of prisoners removed under contract to other jurisdictions0310½
Removal of prisoners to and from trial0811¼
Removing transported convicts050
Repairs, alterations, and additions295
Sundry contingencies not enumerated119¾
Annual repayment of principal or interest of money borrowed for alterations or rebuilding of prison2129¾
£26198½

It should be stated with regard to this return, although it does not in the least affect the general argument, that it is an average with which what are called the Government prisons have nothing to do. The above average is derived from a comparison of the county and borough prisons. In the government establishments, which hold the criminals that under the old system would be sentenced to transportation, the cost of each prisoner may be one or two pounds more. If we must be exact, let the figures be quoted, and from these it will be found that in 1856, the gross total cost for each prisoner was 28l. 5s., and that this sum was reduced to 16l. 5s. 4d. by setting against it the value of prisoners’ labour. Putting these prisons then aside, as not affecting the general argument, and looking simply at the ordinary houses of correction to be found in every county in England, what do we discover? We discover in the first place, that every prisoner costs the county at the rate of 27l. a year, or a trifle over ten shillings a week. If we take into consideration the numerous items which that sum covers, it does not appear that this is a vary exorbitant sum. But when we turn our attention to the first six items of the foregoing list, which include the diet, the clothing, the bedding, medicines, wine, beer and spirits, washing, cooking, fuel, soap, candles, oil and gas, everybody must be astonished at the smallness of the amount sufficient to meet what may be described as the personal wants of the prisoner. He is fed and clothed, he is warmed and lighted, he is washed and doctored throughout the year for 9l. 1s., 6½d. These first six items which constitute the expense of living, are covered by sixpence a day. The one article of diet is, I have already stated, covered by the sum of threepence-three-farthings a day.

What is the inference to be deduced from such a fact? Will any body say that our prisoners are extravagantly fed? Will anybody undertake to keep them in life, on a smaller sum? It is surely palpable that if a comparison with the diet of prisoners, the fare of our honest poor looks meagre enough; that if a premium seems to be placed on crime by the goodness of the penitentiary kitchen, there may be a wrong somewhere, but it is certainly not in the system of prison discipline. Surely the wrong is not that prisoners are so well fed, but that honest men are worse fed. Why should they be worse fed? They pay far more than fourpence a day for their food, and that food is not nearly so nice, nor so wholesome, as that which every pick-pocket obtains. The proper inference is that in prisons these things are managed well, while in the poor man’s dwelling they are managed badly. It is entirely an affair of management.

There are two great losses which the poor man suffers from. In the first place he has to buy from the retail dealer, and consequently pays more for every article that he requires. He has to pay so much indeed for each item, that a number of little delicacies which he has to buy fresh every day in order to give a flavour to his food—such as parsley, cost him far more than they are worth—cost it may be two or three hundred per cent. beyond their real value. In the second place, after he has got all his articles of food together, there is a great deal of waste because things are prepared on a small scale. He will buy bone with his meat, but he is unable to turn the bone to account. Or he gets too much fat with his meat, and he has either to cut it off, or to throw it into the pot so as to spoil the dinner. Besides which, in nine cases out of ten, his wife is a vile cook, and would spoil the best of food. What with buying his things dear, buying what he cannot turn to any use, and having to trust to the tender mercies of those culinary artists who are said to be chiefly provided by the enemy of mankind, the working man’s teeth enjoy but poor practice. The remedy for the startling contrast between the dinner-tables of the thief in prison and honesty in a garret, is not to place the felon on shorter commons, but to teach honesty the art of combination, and to bring that system of the division of labour which in manufactures has achieved the most splendid results, to bear upon the ordinary economy of human life.

The wild theories of communists have unfortunately brought discredit on the principle of combination as applied to the domestic life. But there was wisdom in the idea of a common kitchen, if not of a common purse. How will the poor man ever be able to command twenty ounces of bread, six ounces of cooked meat, eight ounces of potatoes, a pint of cocoa and a pint of gruel, all for fourpence (indeed less than fourpence), except by combination of some sort? In the manufacturing towns of the north, the workmen form themselves into a sort of joint-stock company, purchase their provisions wholesale, sell them to the members of the company at a profit barely sufficient to cover the expenses, and so contrive to live at a comparatively cheap rate. There are other schemes of a similar description afoot, which have been more or less successful; and it may be that in time the working classes will establish institutions for cooking, for brewing, and for providing themselves with all the necessaries of life. Such institutions as these must be left to spring up spontaneously among themselves; but, in the meantime, it seems to us that something may be done to show the lower classes what is in their power if they only set about it in the right way. As a general rule, the establishment of large kitchens for the purpose of victualling the poor must be left to private enterprise. They will be established by persons who see their way to make a moderate profit in providing wholesome food at a cheaper rate than has yet been possible. If anybody sneers at cheapness, and suggests a doubt whether such undertakings can ever be sustained except by charitable contributions, there is a very good answer at hand in the success of the model lodging-houses. It was said that model lodging-houses would never pay. But they pay so well, that Mr. Newson, who has built a couple of such houses at the back of Berkeley Square (and they are well worth going to see), has declared his readiness to build similar houses in the City, say about Farringdon Street, if he can only get the ground at a moderate rent. The accommodation which in this way he gives to the families of the working classes for 3s. 6d. or 4s. 6d. a week, is perfectly marvellous. And what an enterprising builder has thus accomplished in providing house-room, enterprising victuallers will emulate in providing cheap, wholesome, palatable food, and in making a profit out of the transaction. The idea is not worth much unless it will pay. It can have no genuine vitality unless it will be self-supporting. If Clerkenwell House of Correction can feed 1,200 prisoners daily at fourpence each, surely it is within the bounds of probability that as many customers can be well served with food for eightpence or ninepence a day, and a tolerable margin of profit be left to the account?

But those who hold strenuously, as we do, that schemes of this sort must pay their own way, and should be left to the enterprize of individuals—that they are purely a question of commerce, with which charity and patronage have nothing to do—may nevertheless think that, in the first instance, an example has to be set, and that trade, which is always suspicious of new projects, is not likely to set the example in a hurry. It was not the instincts of trade that started the model lodging-houses; but, once started, the tradesman is glad to keep up the game. So it is not likely that the mere instinct of trade will in a moment set cheap kitchens afloat; and in these matters the example has generally to be given by persons who are willing to act together on philanthropic grounds. On public grounds, a committee of noblemen and gentlemen, headed by Prince Albert, started the Crystal Palace, ran all the risk of failure, carried the scheme to a successful issue, and inspired the directors of the palace at Sydenham to follow the example, under certain modifications, with pounds, shillings, and pence as the motive power. Perhaps a poor man’s kitchen ought not to be mentioned in the same page with crystal palaces; but perhaps, also, it is capable of producing as much real good as acres of glass and miles of iron pillars. And surely there are many gentlemen in this metropolis who take an interest in the poor of our great cities, who only require that such facts as the foregoing should be brought under their notice, in order to follow them up to a practical conclusion, and whose names would be certain to obtain from the public the small sum of money necessary to erect the cooking apparatus, and to put the scheme in motion.

The working-classes have lately exhibited such a talent for organization, that there is every likelihood of their speedily learning the lesson. The builders have but lately concluded a strike for more pay. It is demonstrable that they can, by their own exertions, obtain all that they demand. If they have failed in obtaining more wages, it is still possible for them to achieve what comes to the same thing—to make the actual amount of wages go as far as the increased rate which they desire. Why should not Messrs. Potter and Co. turn their formidable powers of organization in this direction? It is surely more feasible, as well as more laudable, for trade unions to provide their members with cheap and nourishing food, than to aim at the intimidation of masters, and of men not belonging to the society. The unions are anxious to embrace every member of the particular trades to which they are attached. Could any machinery be established more certain to bring about that result, than the institution of kitchens connected with each trade? Every member of the union, on presenting his ticket, would get his rations at cost price, while those, not members of the union, would get the same rations if they chose to pay a little more. That slight increase of price would be a screw that would act effectually in inducing all workmen to belong to a society. The advantages which a trades’ union holds forth to the members are, for the most part, contingent. If a union workman is sick, he will have an allowance in his sickness; if he dies, his family will have a claim on the society; should he innocently get into trouble with his employers, he will be backed by all the funds and influence of his fellow members. But many workmen cannot bring themselves to anticipate such contingencies. They are not sick; they are not going to die; nobody is troubling them. Why should they join a society? But offer them every day a cheaper and a better dinner than they can get, save as being enrolled in the union, and they will join to a man. The unions, which in spite of the illegal and tyrannical purposes they have been made to serve, are a most valuable institution, which no man of sense would wish to take away from the working man, would then produce greater good than they have yet accomplished; they would fill the poor man’s mouth, and it generally happens that when the mouth has done all that it wants to do in the way of eating it is not inclined to do much in the way of sedition.

It is a very humiliating reflection that eating and drinking occupy more of our thoughts than anything else in heaven above or in the earth beneath. We are not yet as the lilies that take no thought of such matters. Man is like the lower animals in this respect that with the vast majority of our race, the struggle for existence is a struggle for dinner. We have all somewhat of the Tartar Khan in us, and after we ourselves have dined, are ready to proclaim that the whole world may dine also. But we first. Nobody shall dine with our good will, if we are starving. Who can count all the wars, murders and quarrels that have arisen out of this one question of dinner—the question of questions? How many of the piteous cases that come before Sir Cresswell Cresswell are to be explained by deficiency of food, badness of cooking, and fits of indigestion? There is no such irritant as hunger and deranged gastronomy. If we could only get at the wisdom which is supposed to lie in ancient fables we should probably find that Pandora’s box, the source of every mischief, was an empty oven or larder, or some such receptacle. The poor man especially feels the truth of this doctrine. He conspires against the rich, because he never gets a dinner, and on that point he feels with the Great Cham. He beats his wife, because with his hard won earnings she can place only bad food before him. He drinks beer, and drowns himself in gin, because no meat that he can get is half so pleasant. People imagine that by introducing the light wines of France into this country we shall put a stop to drunkenness. It is a great mistake. The French are a sober people, not because they drink wine, but because they are good cooks. Where you have bad cookery and good liquor, depend upon it the liquor will carry the day. And we shall not stop the rage for liquor in this country by making it still better—by turning the gin into Cognac, and by turning the beer into Bordeaux. The cure lies rather in restoring the balance between meat and drink. Put the meat more on a par with the drink, and then see what the result will be. Either teach the poor man to cook, or give him his meat well cooked. Let the Temperance Leagues and Alliances look to it. They will accomplish far more good by improving the working man’s edibles than by meddling with his potables—by seconding that natural law which makes a man chiefly dependent on his food, rather than by attempting to place artificial barriers in the way of his getting whatever drink he may require. The best cure for the drunkenness of the lower classes is not a Maine Liquor Law—but soup and sausages, pudding and pies; is not to shut the beershops, but to open the poor man’s kitchen.