Report on Metropolitan Soup Kitchens and Dinner Tables, by the Society for Organising Charitable Relief, 1871, p. 57.
_Ibid._, November 1, 1870. The following year the Charity Organisation Society reports approvingly that the Destitute Children's Dinner Society "cordially accepts and endeavours to act up to the principle that 'to relieve destitution belongs to the Poor Law, while to prevent destitution is the peculiar function of charity.'" (Report on Metropolitan Soup Kitchens and Dinner Tables, 1871, p. 57.)
The cost of a meal was generally 4d., 5d. or 6d.
The methods adopted by other societies were very similar. A common feature of all was the infrequency of the meal. As a rule a child would receive a dinner once a week, at the most twice a week.[8] It is true that the dinners, unlike those supplied at the end of the century, when the predominant feature was soup, seem always to have been substantial and to have consisted of hot meat.[9] But making all allowance for the nutritive value of the meal, its infrequency prevents us from placing much confidence in the enthusiastic reports of the various societies as to the beneficial result upon the children. "Experience has proved," writes the Destitute Children's Dinner Society in 1867, "that one substantial meat dinner per week has a marked effect on the health and powers of the children."[10] "Not only is there a marked improvement in their physical condition," reports the same society two years later, "but their teachers affirm that they are now enabled to exert their mental powers in a degree which was formerly impossible."[11] The Ragged School Union in 1870 reports to the same effect. "The physical benefit of these dinners to the children is great; but it is not the body only that is benefited; the teachers agree in their opinion that those who are thus fed become more docile and teachable."[12]
We have only found one case where the dinner was given as often as three times a week. (See letter from John Palmer, Hon. Sec. of the Clare Market Ragged Schools, _ibid._, October 16, 1871.)
Thus a dinner given by the Refuge for Homeless and Destitute Children to pupils of St. Giles and St. George, Bloomsbury, consisted of boiled and roast beef, plenty of potatoes, and a thick slice of bread, the portion given to each child being abundant. (_Ibid._, November 27, 1869.)