could she do it, it is an open question whether the constant smell incidental to cooking would not do more harm than good, when that cooking must of necessity be carried on in the one room where the whole family lives, eats, sleeps, and washes.

It must also be remembered that this is not merely a question of taste, involving no graver considerations than a limited selection of food. On the contrary, the matter of the palate is trivial, compared with the lack of nourishment such diet affords. In the country, as a rule, the labourer, however low his wages, has access to fresh vegetables, and has the means for securing home-made bread; but it is not the least amongst the evils of large towns that the poor are forced to live in such a way that the degenerate physical condition of the working classes is becoming proverbial; indeed, to our thinking, the only wonder is that, with our present system of bad lodging and bad feeding, we have not even a worse health-average. Nor is this an evil for which 'time' will provide a remedy, but rather may we expect each succeeding generation to be something less strong and vigorous; and not the most sanguine spirit would venture to affirm that our trade prospects are such that we can afford to look with indifference upon the prospect of an enfeebled race of workers.

Hitherto, there have been but few efforts to provide wholesome, well-cooked, nourishing food for the labouring man. Soup-kitchens, which do good work in their way, are mainly helpful to the destitute, whose case we are not considering. Coffee-stalls, cheap eating-houses and coffee-palaces, do something; but the former are very limited in accommodation and resources; and the latter have hardly had such capital and support as to give them a fair chance; and even when they succeed, the benefit is confined to the man himself, and does not include his family, which represents the next generation. It is therefore with sincere pleasure that we hail a comprehensive scheme for the establishment of public kitchens to supply the working-man and his family with food, wholesome, nourishing, well cooked, and at such a moderate cost as to bring it within the reach of the whole labouring population. The scheme is very ably and fully worked out in a small volume before us, entitled Food for the Million, by Captain M. P. Wolff (London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co.). From the preface, by the Rev. H. R. Haweis, we find that the writer, Captain Wolff, in June 1883 read a pamphlet, at the request of the National Health Society, in which he dealt with an acknowledged blot in our social system. I allude to the bad food and altogether shocking and expensive cuisine of the poor. The remedy which he suggested was received with that cautious apathy which characterises the Englishman's treatment of everything out of the usual routine. Captain Wolff proposed to start public kitchens on an enormous scale. Ninety million fourpenny portions were to be issued annually from one hundred and fifty kitchens, situated in the poorest parts of London. Instead of the present ruinous plan pursued by the poor of buying raw material in small quantities, and then wasting half, and cooking the rest badly, the public kitchens would offer them small but adequate quantities of exquisitely cooked food, the raw materials of which had been purchased wholesale, and distributed

cheaply, because worked up in vast quantities at a time. The poor were to save thirty to fifty per cent. by the transaction, whilst those who invested their capital in the kitchens were to realise seventeen per cent. for their money. John Bull listened, shrugged his shoulders, said the German captain was sanguine, went home, and soon forgot all about Wolff and his public kitchens.' And John Bull, who is not accustomed to connect fabulous interest with safe investment, may well be pardoned for thinking seventeen per cent. rather 'too good to be true.'

But Captain Wolff, fully believing in the truth of his own ideas, very wisely set to work to support his statements; and by careful collection of facts relating to cost of material and working expenses, has fully proved the feasibility of his scheme from a pecuniary point of view; and the impartial reader of his powerful arguments can hardly fail to be impressed with the desirability of a fair trial being given to a scheme, at once simple, complete, and advantageous.

The first and most important part of the work of these kitchens will naturally be the providing of dinners, which can either be eaten in the dining-hall, or taken away for home consumption. In the latter case, it is proposed to supply bivalved tin vessels from the size of one to four portions; these are to be exposed for sale at cost price; and there is to be a plentiful supply of hot-water taps for the filling of these vessels; thus the food will be kept hot, and the wasteful warming-up will be unnecessary. As to the amount of food in a portion,' Captain Wolff says: "To satisfy a man's appetite, three-fifths of a quart of solid vegetables, such as peas, lentils, haricot beans; or four-fifths of the lighter kind, as potatoes, or potatoes with cabbages, or greens, or broad beans, or with carrots and turnips, will be sufficient; whilst a quarter of a pound (raw weight) of meat and edible fat, with gravy, or one-third of a pound of fish, might represent the lowest limit of intrinsie nutritious food which health requires, and the highest which can be supplied for the low price of fourpence a portion. But half-portions, of just one half the contents and the price of a full portion, should be offered as well. A little hungry male or female street arab, even should he or she have somehow or other scraped together the necessary penny, could scarcely swallow a full portion; not to mention the other fact, that they, as well as a good many men and women, would be prevented by want of means from getting a mouthful of hot and tasty food at all, unless half-portions were given.'

But the providing of dinners is not to be the only work of the kitchens. It is suggested that they should offer breakfasts and suppers on the premises, as well as for home consumption. How many thousands of tons of coal are yearly wasted during the summer alone. One penny for a large cup of tea, coffee, or cocoa ought to be the maximum charge. Bread, butter, cheese, sausages, cold ham, and such cold meat, or hot meat, with vegetables, as might have been left from the mid-day meal, and every kind of non-intoxicating drink, might equally be offered from six to eight A.M., and from six-thirty to nine P.M., all the year round.'

It is also proposed that lavatories should be

Journal

attached to each kitchen, with the entrance-fee of one halfpenny, and that part of the dining-hall could be reserved in an evening, as a sort of clubroom, for customers.

The subject of the bill of fare has an interesting chapter, showing what elements are necessary to the proper nutrition of the body, and how these may be obtained at the lowest possible cost. In view of the extremely small sums charged, this is an important consideration; and with great wisdom and moderation, the writer concludes his remarks thus: 'It cannot possibly be doubted that the introduction of public kitchens will soon be much appreciated. It nevertheless will destroy old time-honoured habits; and such a transition cannot be effected without a great deal of shaking heads, discussion, nay, even heart-burnings. I have also proposed a better mode of preparing vegetables, and this represents another shock to the palatal prejudices of the masses. I therefore do not believe that the public would be able to endure more at a time. For the full execution of the rational mode of nutrition, as shown above, requires the extensive use of peas, beans, and lentils in the form of pies or soups, as they represent, considering the price, the highest content of units of nutriment of all vegetables. But pulse is not at all liked in England, nor are soups.'

Without losing sight of the ideal end, that is, the gradual importation of this rational nutrition of the customers, by offering them, one day to come, such breakfasts and suppers as would be necessary for completing the units' given by the dinners up to the necessary total, the future Board of Directors ought at the beginning to content themselves with the first part of the task, as described above, leaving it to the customers' choice to enjoy, as heretofore, their tea or coffee with bread, butter, cheese, sausages, &c., as their fancy may induce them to do, in the morning and evening.

The formation of a working staff, with its Board of Directors, lady-superintendent, cook, kitchen-maids, &c., is carefully explained, and great stress is laid on the value of lady-helpers to assist at the mid-day meal. Giving his own experience on this point, the writer says: "I secured in that little kitchen which I started in Germany with considerable success, the help of ladies for every week in turn, in order not

only to look occasionally after the general working arrangements, but particularly to receive each day the empty, and return the filled vessels for home consumption at the kitchen window, and to hand the filled plates through another window to the customers in the dining-room. Thus they soon became acquainted with each face, as they themselves became known to the public. A kind look, an approving or pitying word, a little support to a helpless old woman or small child, soon established a sort of mutual regard and sympathetic feeling, not only between those two parties, meeting for so short a time, but towards the establishment itself likewise. Nor was I in any difficulty about finding such helpers; for those who had had only once the opportunity of seeing, after returning the filled vessel to some pale-faced, ragged, hungry-looking little boy, his eyes light up at the anticipation of his savoury meal, felt highly rewarded for such a two hours'

self-sacrifice, and were ever ready to offer their services again.'

There is much more on the same subject well worth reading; and we fully indorse the sentiment, that whilst, as a rule, 'man's manner of performing business bears a distinctly curt, strict, and exclusively rational character,' there is that in a true woman's nature which gives her the power of arousing the sympathy of others by the unaffected offering of her own.

Finding that his high figures were too startling to the uninitiated, Captain Wolff now suggests that a beginning might be made thus: 'A small number, say eight to ten sample kitchens, should be started in London under a well-chosen number of ladies and gentlemen of reputation. In these experimental establishments, the ground-plan of the kitchens and the adjoining rooms, the style of the business, the cooking, frying, and roasting apparatus, the best manner of preparing the food, the introduction of new dishes, the easiest way of issuing the portions, the method of keeping the accounts, &c., could be shown; and a staff of carefully chosen kitchen-directresses and headcooks could be educated, and so well instructed as to be able to work independently and satisfactorily wherever there might be a demand for them.'

Once fairly started, Captain Wolff has no sort of doubt as to the success of the enterprise, the one obstacle at present being the want of funds sufficient to secure a firm basis; for without sufficient capital to buy in large quantities at wholesale prices, it would be impossible to provide nourishing food at the low figures named. Once at work, the affair would be more than self-supporting; but the poor for whose benefit it is to be undertaken lack funds to make a start; and to begin with less than sufficient capital would be to end in failure.

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF. BY MRS OLIPHANT.

CHAPTER XIV.

WARING went out with Constance when the sun got low in the skies. He took a much longer walk than was at all usual, and pointed out to her many points of view. The paths that ran the olive woods, the little terraces which

among

cut up the sides of the hills, the cool gray foliage and gnarled trunks, the clumps of flowersgarden flowers in England, but here as wild, and rather more common than blades of grassdelighted her; and her talk delighted him. He had not gone so far for months; nor had he, he thought, for years found the time go so fast. It was very different from Frances' mild attempts at conversation. Do you think, papa? Do you remember, papa?'-so many references to events so trifling, and her little talk about Tasie's plans and Mrs Gaunt's news. Constance took him boldly into her life and told him what was going on in the world. Ah, the world! that was the only world. He had said in his bitterness, again and again, that Society was as limited as any village, and duchesses curiously like washerwomen; but when he found himself once more on the edge of that great tumult of existence,

he was like the old war-horse that neighs at the sound of the battle. He began to ask her questions about the people he had known. He had always been a shy, proud man, and had never thrown himself into the stream; but still there had been people who had known him and liked him, or whom he had liked; and gradually he awakened into animation and pleasure.

When they met the old general taking his stroll, too, before dinner, that leathern old Indian was dazzled by the bright creature, who walked along between them, almost as tall as the two men, with her graceful careless step and independent ways, not deferring to them, as the other ladies did, but leading the conversation. Even General Gaunt began to think whether there was any one whom he could speak of, any one he had known, whom, perhaps, this young exponent of Society might know. She knew everybody. Even princes and princesses had no mystery for her. She told them what everybody said, with an air of knowing better than everybody, which in her meant no conceit or presumption, as in other young persons. Constance was quite unconscious of the possibility of being thus judged. She was not self-conscious at all. She was pleased to bring out her news for the advantage of the seniors. Frances was none the wiser when her sister told her the change that had come over the Grandmaisons, or how Lord Sunbury's marriage had been brought about, and why people now had altered their houses for the Row. Frances listened; but she had never heard about Lord Sunbury's marriage, nor why it should shock the elegant public. But the gentlemen remembered his father; or they knew how young men commit themselves without intending it. It is not to be supposed that there was anything at all risqué in Constance' talk. She touched, indeed, upon the edge of scandals which had been in the newspapers, and therefore were known even to people in the Riviera; but she did it with the most absolute innocence, either not knowing or not understanding the evil. 'I believe there was something wrong, but I don't know what mamma would never tell me,' she said. Her conversation was like a very light graceful edition of a Society paper-not then begun to be-with all the nastiness and almost all the malice left out. But not quite all; there was enough to be piquant 'I am afraid I am a little ill-natured; but I don't like that man,' she would say now and then. When she said, 'I don't like that woman,' the gentlemen laughed. She was conscious of having a little success, and she was pleased too. Frances perhaps might be a better housekeeper; but Constance could not but think that in the equally important work of amusing papa she would be more successful than Frances. It was not much of a triumph, perhaps, for a girl who had known so many; but yet it was the only one as yet possible in the position in which she now was.

I suppose it is settled that Frances is to go?' she said, as General Gaunt took the way to his bungalow, and she and her father turned towards home.

'She seems to have settled it for herself,' he said.

'I am always repeating she is so like mamma

that is exactly what mamma would have done. They are very positive. You and I, papa, are not positive at all.'

'I think, my dear, that coming off as you did by yourself, was very positive indeed-and the first step in the universal turning upside down which has ensued.'

'I hope you are not sorry I came?'

'No, Constance. I am very glad to have you.' And this was quite true, although he had said to Frances something that sounded very different. Both things were true-both that he wished she had never left her mother; that he wished she might return to her mother, and leave Frances with him as of old; and that he was very glad to have her here.

'If I were to go back, would not everything settle down just as it was before?'

Then he thought of what Frances, taught by the keenness of a personal experience, had said to him a few hours ago. 'No,' he said; 'nothing can ever be as it was before. We never can go back to what has been, whether the event that has changed it has been happy or sad.'

'Oh, surely sometimes,' said Constance. That is a dreadful way to talk of anything so trifling as my visit. It could not make any real difference, because all the facts are just the same as they were before.'

To this he made no reply. She had no way, thanks to Frances, of finding out how different the position was. And she went on, after a pause: 'Have you settled how she is to go?' 'I have not even thought of that.'

'But, papa, you must think of it. She cannot go unless you manage it for her. Markham heard of those people coming, and that made it quite easy for me. If Markham were here'Heaven forbid.'

I have always heard you were prejudiced about Markham. I don't think he is very safe myself. I have warned Frances, whatever she does, not to let herself get into his hands.'

'Frances in Markham's hands! That is a thing I could not permit for a moment. Your mother may have a right to Frances' society, but none to throw her into the companionship of ''Her brother, papa.'

'Her brother! Her step-brother, if you please which I think scarcely a relationship at all.' Waring's prejudices, when they were roused, were strong. His daughter looked up in amazement at his sudden passion, the frown on his face, and the fire in his eye.

'You forget that I have been brought up with Markham,' she said. 'He is my brother; and he is a very good brother. There is nothing he will not do for me. I only warned Frances because-because she is different; because'

'Because she is a girl who ought not to breathe the same air with a young reprobate-a young'

She

Papa! You are mistaken. I don't know what Markham may have been; but he is not a reprobate. It was because Frances does not understand chaff, you know. She would think he was in earnest, and he is never in earnest. would take him seriously, and nobody takes him seriously. But if you think he is bad, there is nobody who thinks that. He is not bad; he only has ways of thinking'

April 4, 1885.]

'Which I hope my daughters will never share,' said Waring with a little formality. Constance raised her head as if to speak, but then stopped, giving him a look which said more than words, and added no more.

In the meantime, Frances had been left alone. She had directed her letter, and left it to be posted. That step was taken, and could no more be thought over. She was glad to have a little of her time to herself, which once had been all to herself. She did not like as yet to broach the subject of her departure to Mariuccia; but she thought it all over very anxiously, trying to find some way which would take the burden of the household off the shoulders of Constance, who was not used to it. She thought the best thing to do would be to write out a series of menus, which Mariuccia might suggest to Constance, or carry out upon her own responsibility, whichever was most practicable; and she resolved that various little offices might be turned over to Domenico without interfering with her father's comfort. All these arrangements, though she turned them over very soberly in her mind, had a bewildering, dizzying effect upon her. She thought that it was as if she were going to die. When she went away out of the narrow inclosure of this world, which she knew, it would be to something so entirely strange to her that it would feel like another life. It would be as if she had died. She would not know anything; the surroundings, the companions, the habits, all would be strange. She would have to leave utterly behind her everything she had ever known. The thought was not melancholy, as is in almost all cases the thought of leaving the warm precincts of the cheerful day; it made her heart swell and rise with an anticipation which was full of excitement and pleasure, but which at the same time had the effect of making her brain swim.

She could not make to herself any picture of the world to which she was going. It would be softer, finer, more luxurious than anything she knew; but that was all. Of her mother, she did try to form some idea. She was acquainted only with mothers who were old. Mrs Durant, who wore a cap, encircling her face, and tied under her chin; and Mrs Gaunt, who had grandchildren who were as old as Frances. Her own mother could not be like either of these; but still she would be old, more or less, would wrap herself up when she went out, would have gray, or even perhaps white hair (which Frances liked in an old lady: Mrs Durant wore a front, and Mrs Gaunt was suspected of dyeing her hair), and would not care to move about more than she could help. She would go out into Society' beautifully dressed with lace and jewels; and Frances grew more dizzy than ever, trying to imagine herself standing behind this magnificent old figure, like a maid of honour behind a queen. But it was difficult to imagine the details of a picture so completely vague. There was a general sense of splendour and novelty, a vague expectation of something delightful, which it was beyond her power to realise, but no more.

She had roused herself from the vague excitement of these dreams, which were very absorbing, though there was so little solidity in them, with a sudden fear that she was losing all the afternoon,

and that it was time to prepare for dinner. She went to the corner of the loggia which commanded the road, to look out for Constance and her father. The road swept along below the Punto, leading to the town; and a smaller path traversing the little height, climbed upward to the platform on which the Palazzo stood. Frances did not at first remark, as in general every villager does, an unfamiliar figure making its way up this path. Her father and sister were not visible, and it was for them she was looking. Presently, however, her eye was caught by the stranger, no doubt an English tourist, with a glass in his eye-a little man, with a soft gray felt hat, which, when he lifted his head to inspect the irregular structure of the old town, gave him something the air of a moving mushroom. His movements were somewhat irregular, as his eyes were fixed upon the walls, and did not serve to guide his feet, which stumbled continually on the inequalities of the path. His progress began to amuse her, as he came nearer, his head raised, his eyes fixed upon the buildings before him, his person executing a series of undulations like a ship in a storm, He climbed up at last to the height, and coming up to some women who were seated on the stone bench opposite to Frances on the loggia, began to ask them for instructions as to how he was to go. The little scene amused Frances. The women were knitting, with a little cluster of children about them, scrambling upon the bench or on the dusty pathway at their feet. The stranger took off his big hat and addressed them with few words and many gestures. She heard casa and Inglese, but nothing else that was comprehensible. The women did their best to understand, and replied volubly. But here the little tourist evidently could not follow. He was like so many tourist visitors, capable of asking his question, but incapable of understanding the answer given him. Then there arose a shrill little tempest of laughter, in which he joined, and of which Frances herself could not resist the contagion. Perhaps a faint echo from the loggia caught the ear of one of the women, who knew her well, and who immediately pointed her out to the stranger. The little man turned round and made a few steps towards the Palazzo. He took off the mushroom top of gray felt, and presented to her an ugly, little, vivacious countenance. 'I beg you ten thousand pardons,' he said; but if you speak English, as I understand them to say, will you very kind as to direct me to the house of Mr Waring ?-Ah, I am sure you are both English and kind! They tell me he lives near here.'

be so

Frances looked down from her height demurely, suppressing the too-ready laugh, to listen to this queer little man; but his question took her very much by surprise. Another stranger asking for Mr Waring! But oh, so very different a one from Constance-an odd, little, ugly man, looking up at her in a curious one-sided attitude, with his glass in his eye. He lives here,' she said.

'What? Where?' He had replaced his mushroom on his head, and he cocked up towards her one ear, the ear upon the opposite side to the eye which wore the glass.

'Here!' cried Frances, pointing to the house, with a laugh which she could not restrain.

The stranger raised his eyebrows so much and so suddenly that his glass fell. 'Oh!' he criedbut the biggest O, round as the O of Giotto, as the Italians say. He paused there some time, looking at her, his mouth retaining the shape of that exclamation; and then he cast an investigating glance along the wall, and asked: 'How am I to get in?'

'Nunziata, show the gentleman the door,' cried Frances to one of the women on the bench. She lingered a moment, to look again down the road for her father. It was true that nothing could be so wonderful as what had already happened; but it seemed that surprises were not yet over. Would this be some one else who had known him, who was arriving full of the tale that had been told, and was a mystery no longer, some 'old friend' like Mr Mannering, who would not be satisfied without betraying the harmless hermit, whom some chance had led him to discover? There was some bitterness in Frances' thoughts. She had not remembered the Mannerings before, in the rush of other things to think of. The fat ruddy couple, so commonplace and so comfortable! Was it all their doing? Were they to blame for everything? for the conclusion of one existence, and the beginning of another? She went in to the drawing-room and sat down there, to be ready to receive the visitor. He could not be so important that was impossible; there could be no new mystery to record.

When the door opened and Domenico solemnly ushered in the stranger, Frances, although her thoughts were not gay, could scarcely help laughing again. He carried his big gray mushroom top now in his hand; and the little round head which had been covered with it seemed incomplete without that thatch. Frances felt herself looking from the head to the hat with a ludicrous sense of this incompleteness. He had a small head, thinly covered with light hair, which seemed to grow in tufts like grass. His eyes twinkled keen, two very bright gray eyes, from the puckers of eyelids which looked old, as if he had got them second hand. There was a worn and wrinkled look about him altogether, carried out in his dress, and even in his boots, which suggested the same idea. An old man who looked young, or a young man who looked old. She could not make out which he was. He did not bow and hesitate, and announce himself as a friend of her father's, as she expected him to do, but came up to her briskly with a quick step, but a shuffle in his gait.

'I suppose I must introduce myself,' he said; though it is odd that we should need an introduction to each other, you and I.-After the first moment, I should have known you anywhere. You are quite like my mother.-Frances, isn't it? And I'm Markham, of course, you

know.'

He sat down, drawing a chair close to her. 'I am very glad to find you by yourself. I like the looks of you.-Where is Con? Taken possession of the governor, and left you alone to keep house, I should suppose?'

'Constance has gone out to walk with papa. I had several things to do.'

'I have not the least doubt of it. That would be the usual distribution of labour, if you remained together.-Fan, my mother has sent me to fetch you home.'

Frances drew a little farther away. She gave him a look of vague alarm. The familiarity of the address troubled her. But when she looked at him again, her gravity gave way. He was such a queer, such a very queer little man.

'You may laugh if you like, my dear,' he said. I am used to it. Providence—always the best judge, no doubt-has not given me an awe-inspiring countenance. It is hard upon my mother, who is a pretty woman. But I accept the position, for my part.-This is a charming place. You have got a number of nice things. And those little sketches are very tolerable. Who did them?

You?-Waring, so far as I remember, used to draw very well himself. I am glad you draw; it will give you a little occupation.-I like the looks of you, though I don't think you admire me.'

'Indeed,' said Frances, troubled, 'it is because I am so much surprised. Are you really-are you sure you are'

He gave a little chuckle, which made her start -an odd, comical, single note of laughter, very cordial and very droll, like the little man himself.

'I've got a servant with me,' he said, 'down at the hotel, who knows that I go by the name of Markham when I'm at home. I don't know if that will satisfy you. But Con, to be sure, knows me, which will be better. You don't hear any voice of nature saying within your breast, "This is my long-lost brother?"-That's a pity. But by-and-by, you'll see, we'll be very good friends.'

'Oh, I didn't mean that I had any doubt. It is so great a surprise-one thing after another.'

'Now, answer me one question: Did you know anything about your family before Con came?Ah,' he said, catching her alarmed and wondering glance, 'I thought not. I have always said so :he never told you. And it has all burst upon you in a moment, you poor little thing. But you needn't be afraid of us. My mother has her faults; but she is a nice woman. You will like her. And I am very queer to look at, and many people think I have a screw loose. But I'm not bad to live with.-Have you settled it with the governor? Has he made many objections? He and I never drew well together. Perhaps you

know?'

astonished than ever now.

'Yes, Markham. You think I am not much to look at, I can see. I am not generally admired at the first glance.-Shake hands, Frances.-You don't quite feel like giving me a kiss, I suppose, at the first offset? Never mind. We shall be very good friends, after a while.'

cried.

'No, I will not. On the contrary, I'll tell you everything. Con probably would put a spoke in my wheel too. My dear little Fan, don't mind any of them. Give me your little hand. I am neither bad nor good. I am very much what people make me. I am nasty with