At a mooting of Merchant Taylors' school at Ashwell last
week, the Rev. W. H. Hodgson, the Rector, complained justly of the extravagant cost of charitable dinners. No charitable dinner, he said, should cost more than is. a-head, and no tea more than 5d. a-head ; all cost beyond this was waste, where. as charitable dinners constantly cost from 2s. Gd. to 3s. Gd. a head, and teas from 9d. to ls. His own family Christmas dinner last year, be said, cost less per head than most of the charity dinners, and of course it is desirable that charity dinners should be limited to plain though sufficient food, and not cost more than dinners bought by those who earn their own livelihood. The real explanation of the great cost of charity dinners we take to be this,—that for every shilling which is spent on the poor, another shilling goes into the pocket of the trades- man who is employed to provide it,—in other words, the charity is partly devoted to the eater of the dinner or other meal, and partly to its purveyors.
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