LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CHILDREN AND THEIR DINNERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
13113,—Will you kindly permit me to inform your readers, whose consideration may have been drawn to the above subject by the article in your issue of September 29th, that a scheme for feeding the poorest children in our Board Schools has been in successful operation for six months at Lisson Grove, and at Saffron Hill, Holborn? At Lisson Grove, 70 or 80 children have been dined three times a week, on roast mutton or beef, rice or suet pudding, potatoes or haricot beans, at a cost, reckoning food alone, of Qd. per head; the object aimed at having been not to give the most -economical meal possible, but to provide the most nutritious dinner possible for children, some of whom come to the table but once a -week, others twice a week, and only the most needy three times a week.
A third of the children are the children of widows. Their mothers' earnings seldom average ten shillings a week ; often there are three or four children to be kept out of this, some- times more ; with many, the earnings are less than half the above sum. The remainder of the children who come to us have fathers, either ill, disabled, or "out of work."
And now, practical people will ask, "Are children visibly benefited by one, two, or even three dinners a week P" We un- hesitatingly answer, "Yes, they are brighter and stronger, and fitter to teach," a testimony that is corroborated by their teachers. Fresh cases of need, leading us to remove to a larger room, are pressing upon us.
Last week, visiting the home of one of the children, a girl of ten, we learnt that she had not tasted meat for four or 'five months ; the child has no father, her mother is dying in con- sumption. This child has gone daily to school, with what capacity for assimilating knowledge may be left to the imagina- tion of your readers. Another girl, living in a cellar kitchen, in a more than commonly respectable street, had not been to school the day we called, because her mother (a widow) had not a slice of bread to give her, and could not bear to sdnd her te school without food.
Most of us now-a- days,I believe, are sufficiently well instructed to form a notion of the mischief likely to arise from the con- straint of long hours, with hard or monotonous tasks, where there is not enough nutrition for the functions of grovith alone. The dinners are now given at Omega Hall, Omega Place, Alpha Road, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, at 12.30. The visits of any interested will be cordially welcomed there, and all information will be gladly supplied, on applica- tion to my address. Contributions should be sent to the Treasurer, H. E. Allen, Esq., 41 Marlborough Hill, St. John's Wood, N.W. It is earnestly desired to extend this move- ment into other and equally or even more necessitous districts.— I am, Sir, &c., ANNA PENNINGTON, Hon. Sec. 52 Loudoun Road, St. John's Wood, N. W. [Fourpence-halfpenny is too much.—En. Spectator].
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