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.