Of Food. 439 



cooked with the consumption of only 44 lbs. 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 Jiours 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 



