THE RURAL EXODUS 87 



and steaks, and the poorer folk with bacon, 

 bread-and-butter and tea, such articles will 

 form staple features of our public and private 

 catering. Even tea, a national beverage, 

 is too often, in the homes of well-to-do and poor 

 alike, a vile decoction, carelessly prepared and 

 positively deleterious to health. We are told 

 that County Council lectures on Cookery are 

 badly attended, and that our village matrons 

 obstinately refuse to learn fresh methods of 

 cookery even when these produce cheaper and 

 more savoury food. Inadequate grates, dear 

 coal, and the care of small children are factors 

 in the question which are frequently overlooked 

 by well-to-do critics of cottage cookery, never- 

 theless one must admit that the excessive 

 sale of tinned meats in country villages would 

 suggest a certain amount of culinary ignorance 

 and lack of initiative in the homes of the poor. 

 When a young villager finds himself, as a 

 bachelor, in a big city he can secure for a few 

 pence good and savoury food which forms a 

 signal contrast to the plain and monotonous 

 diet of his country home. 



In sharp contrast to the grinding poverty 

 and dull monotony of the village, a vivid im- 

 pression of urban comforts and pleasures is 

 conveyed to the rustic mind by the visits from 

 time to time of country folk who have migrated 



