PENNY DINNERS FOR THE LONDON POOR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 14, 17 January 1870, Page 2

PENNY DINNERS FOR THE LONDON POOR.

v. At first the penny dinners were by no means a promising speculation. On the first day there were four customers, one of whom ate three platefuls and then wanted his money back. In the early days many people came iu and asked if the meat used in making the dishes was Australian, and, on being answered in the affirmative, emitted a sniff of contemptuous disgust and walked out. By-and-by the tide began to turn. A good many penny dinners were sent for frora the neighboring workshops and factories, and by the end of the first month more than 60 dinners a day were consumed. Then, like Phaeton's car, the penny dinner acquirit vires eundo ; before two months were over 600 was the daily average. Now quite 1100 a dny are disposed of, a goodly share of which are eaten on the premises, while numerous pannikins come childrenborne from a radius of more than a mile. The rush at midday is quite overwhelming. Ou one Friday 40s. was taken in pennies between half-part twelve and half-past one. The accommodation for the dinners on the premises has become quite insufficient, and Mr. Tallerman is in treaty for the adjacent City of London Theatre, which he proposes to convert into a monster dining hall, and which will accommodate 1600 persons. Of course there is a great variety among the horde of customers. The working classas, both male and female, predominate ; the ladies, who at the outset were the bitterestagainst the rubbishy tack, being now amongst the most constant customers, and peculiarly prone to the luxury of a second course. But there are large numbers not belonging to what are generally known as the working classes. City clerks have begun to find their way down to Nortonfolgate for a cheap, plentiful, and wholesome dinner. Some of the younger lads go in for luxurious feeding at a most demoralising rate, having three courses for the sum of 3d. The following is the menu :■ — Bouillon (pea soup) and bread, Id.; Irish stew, do.; meatand pastry (sausage roll), do. The quantity of provisions required to feed all this 'great multitude is considerably greater than the five barley loaves and two small fishes. More than half a ton of Australian meat is daily consigned to the steam boilers, of which there are four, each holding 60 ' gallons. Two hundred weight and a half

of hot vegetates, and three sacks of j ■ potatoes go into the cauldrons along with j j the meat, and the combination comes out j ' of them in the form of Irish stew. The pea soup is in addition. Then there is an extensive sale of sausage rolls, over 300 per day. The saveloy is a favorite article ; of consumption in the neighborhood of ; Nortnn-folgate, but sundry insinuations I ■ which have been current of late as to the ; nature of its composition have rendered it somewhat trying to sensitive individuals to ask for it by its ordinary appellation. i' While the scrupulous purity of Mr. \\ Tallerman's saveloy is unquestionable, he, ' at once with a touching solicitude for the I I feelings of his customers, and a shrewd I business-like astuteness, has re-christened the savory edible by the name of a nugget, and by this name it appears to smell very sweet in the nostrils of the public, for about five gross of nuggets a day are sold. It is amusing to notice how the customers of the better class invariably, on their first visit, profess, in a careless, jaunty way, to have come out of mere curiosity , — -just to try what like it is. After a day or two they drop the harmlesT fiction, and walk off with their plateful in the most business-like way. The meat is now retailed at 4*-d. per lb., and wiil doubtless be sold at 4cl. by-and-by. It is intended to try another experiment with the meat in the course of a few days. Messrs. Collyns and Co. have it in view to opeu out a cask or two and sell it from a stall to be engaged for the purpose in the new market at Smitbfield, and Mr. Tatterman intends giving a dinner to 1000 workmen and their wives ou the 30th of November.