Of Food. 439 



cooked with the consumption of only 44 Ibs. of pine- 

 wood. And hence it appears how very great the waste 

 of fuel must be in all culinary processes, as they are 

 commonly performed ; for though the time taken up 

 in cooking the soup for the poor is, at a medium, more 

 than four hours and a half, while that employed by 

 the soldiers in their cooking is less than two hours and 

 a half, yet the quantity of fuel consumed by the latter 

 is near thirteen times greater than that employed in 

 the public kitchen of the House of Industry. 



But I must not anticipate here a matter which is to 

 be the subject of a separate Essay, and which from its 

 great importance certainly deserves to be carefully and 

 thoroughly investigated. 



CHAPTER V. 



Of the great Importance of making Soldiers eat together 

 in regular Messes. The Influence of such economi- 

 cal Arrangements extends even to the moral Char- 

 acter of those who are the Objects of them. Of 

 the Expense of feeding Soldiers in Messes. Of the 

 surprising Smallness of the Expense of feeding 

 the Poor at Munich. Specific Proposals respecting 

 the Feeding of the Poor in Great Britain, with 

 Calculations of the Expense, at the present Prices 

 of Provisions. 



ALL those who have been conversant in military 

 affairs must have had frequent opportunities of 

 observing the striking difference there is, even in the 



