make the most of the little they possess,
without pinching their children of that wholesome nourishment which is
necessary for the purpose of rearing them up to maturity in health and
strength.

The labouring classes seldom purchase what are called the coarser pieces
of meat, because they do not know how to dress them, but lay out their
money in pieces for roasting, &c., of which the bones, &c. enhance the
price of the actual meat to nearly a shilling per pound, and the
diminution of weight by roasting amounts to 32 per cent. This, for the
sake of saving time, trouble, and fire, is generally sent to an oven to
be baked; the nourishing parts are evaporated and dried up, its weight
is diminished nearly one-third, and all that a poor man can afford to
purchase with his week's earnings, perhaps does not half satisfy the
appetites of himself and family for a couple of days.

If a hard-working man cannot get a comfortable meal at home, he soon
finds his way to the public-house, the poor wife contents herself with
tea and bread and butter, and the children are half starved.

DR. KITCHINER'S receipt to make a cheap, nutritive, and palatable soup,
fully adequate to satisfy appetite and support strength, will open a new
source to those benevolent housekeepers who are disposed to relieve the
poor; will show the industrious classes how much they have it in their
power to assist themselves; and rescue them from being dependent on the
precarious bounty of others, by teaching them how they may obtain an
abundant, salubrious, and agreeable aliment for themselves and families,
for one penny per quart. See page 210.

For various economical soups, see Nos. 204, 239, 240, 224, 221, and
_Obs._ to Nos. 244 and 252, and Nos. 493 and 502.

_Obs._ Dripping intended for soup should be taken out of the pan almost
as soon as it has dropped from the meat; if it is not quite clean,
clarify it. See receipt, No. 83.

Dripping thus prepared is a very different thing from that which has
remained in the dripping-pan all the time the meat has been roasting,
and perhaps live coals have dropped into it.[209-*]

Distributing soup does not answer half so well as teaching people how to
make it, and improve their comfort at home: the time lost in waiting at
the soup-house is seldom less than three hours; in which time, by any
industrious occupation, however poorly paid, they could earn more money
than the quart of soup is worth.

DR. KITCHINER'S _Rec