One hundred years ago
Sir, — In your comments on the 4th inst. on the Conference recently held in London, on the subject of self- supporting cheap meals for school chil- dren, I notice that you say it is hard to believe the statement that the charge of a halfpenny had been found sufficient to cover the cost of food. Perhaps you will allow me, as probably the first certainly in Birmingham — to test the power of the halfpenny in the children's dinner movement, to give to your read- ers a few facts. Finding that the charge of a penny excluded the class of children for whose sake the work originated, the underfeds, I resolved to lower the price to the means of at least some of the children of that description. . . . First, it was found that class distinctions exist even to the lower strata of society. With but few exceptions, the 'penny children' abstain from association, at our meals, with 'halfpenny children'; and our cus- tomers now mainly consist of those who are only able more or less regularly to obtain the requisite halfpenny where- with to purchase a really good meal composed of a rich stew, made of the best quality of potatoes, carrots, on- ions, oatmeal, and fresh-meat bones stewed together for almost twenty hours.
Spectator, 18 April 1885
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