Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/87

 victuals and attend on the poor; good, sweet, wholesome, fat meat; good, sound small beer; best flour; good Gloucester cheese; good and clean butter. Pork and salt meat were forbidden, but bacon and fish were allowed as a variety. The fires were to be good and kept up in certain rooms at all hours, so that the paupers might boil their kettles. Lastly, the contractors were to supply wigs for such as wear them or require them." Earlier again, at Bedford, Sir F. Eden gives the dietary of the workhouse where meat was given six days a week, and broth and "hasty pudding" the seventh. Of this Sir F. Eden, writing in 1797, says, "The food was better than the most industrious labourer, either then or at present, could afford himself in his own habitation. In those days small beer was usually given for supper every night, and "good strong beer" on Christmas Day.

There is the further question of non-distinctive dress. Probably every Board of Guardians in London has now adopted it, as suggested by the Local Government Board, and the general impression is that it has worked satisfactorily. Some Boards have found it useful as a means of classification, giving it only to those who return sober from their leave. Others have probably given it to all, without distinction. One difficulty that appears to arise is the difficulty of finding any dress which is "not distinctive," the real fact being that the clothes provided are as a rule so much better than those worn by people of the same class outside, that it is impossible not to identify the inmate out for his weekly walk. When the matter first came before the writer's own Board, hats and bonnets of every conceivable shape, with every variety of trimming, double-breasted reefers, and every variety of trouserings were submitted for selection. It was a most arduous task. Finally, the old men, at