bread itself; and instead of a bit of a loaf, they had a savoury soup, flavoured with a red herring, in balls with bread crumbs—a substantial, hot, nourishing soup, at the cost of a lump of dry bread.
This was the way the Bavarian soldiers went to work,—making as much a point of skilful cookery as of good materials. They had a beef stew, with soup and savoury dumplings—enough for the day’s food, a little under 2d. a head. Other days they had eggs instead of the beef, made, with bread, butter, flour, and condiments, into dumplings and soup, eaten together. They seem to have been strangely fond of liver; for they had liver dumplings as well as fried liver and liver soup. There were many variations in their bill of fare; but the steady rate was from 19 to 25 lbs. of food, without the supper bread, provided for each mess of twelve, at a cost of 2d. or less per man.
In England, when the Count was here, provisions of all kinds were excessively dear; yet he undertook to establish eating-houses which should be self-supporting, and which should furnish meals at a cost which might well astonish the English world of his day. He did it by his knowledge of economy of heat, as well as by his other experience. The cost of firewood in Bavaria must have been striking to a man fresh from America, where the forests were at that time in everybody’s way, and it was rather a service than not to cut down a tree to cook a supper in the woods. In Bavaria, the way of shutting up the fire, to economise the heat, must have caught his eye at once; and for many years he studied the economy of heat till he got his name associated for ever with stoves.
His eating-rooms were to be well warmed, and his meals for 1500 people capitally cooked by an amount of fuel which, according to the custom of the day in England, would hardly have warmed a middle-class kitchen. The large scale, permitting all the advantages of wholesale prices and the using up of all scraps, was another cause of the cheapness. But, whichever way it was looked at, it was remarkable at a time when the middle classes were almost as much alarmed as the lower about how they were to live, on account of the dearness of all kinds of provisions.
The dietary comprised four dishes or messes, at 1d., 2d., 4d., and 6d. There was a room appropriated to each kind,—these four spacious apartments being well warmed and lighted, and the meals served in comfort. The penny meal consisted of twenty ounces, or a pint and a quarter of soup, made of barley, peas, potatoes, bread, and seasoning. The twopenny meal, of the same weight and measure, was a capital pea-soup with fried bread. The fourpenny was a soup like the second on the list, with two ounces of bacon shred fine, and fried bread. The sixpenny was a stew of beef and vegetables, with a quarter of a pound of bread.
There was an addition to the plan, of reading-rooms and sitting-rooms where any cleanly work could be carried on; these rooms to be open to the regular diners at the establishment; but my present business with the Count is as the greatest nourisher of the poor at the smallest cost on record.
His largest experiment is the most wonderful—his dealings with the beggars of Bavaria. Neither I nor any one else can for a moment associate our Lancashire, or Scotch, or Irish sufferers with any beggars, and especially with the Bavarian mendicants of that day. There is nothing now known like the Bavarian beggars of eighty years ago. Even in the Papal territory, the mendicants are few and modest and decent compared with those precious subjects of the Elector when Count Rumford went among them. I have not room to describe them at length; and it would not be at all an agreeable picture. It is enough to say that the law itself quailed before them, and that they made life a curse in that country. Foreigners and natives, young and old, men, women, and children, they swarmed in town and country till no citizen could call anything his own. In the rural districts they broke into the homesteads, pulled up the farm produce, stole the fowls, waylaid the farmers, stripped the labourers and their cottages, and made themselves at home wherever they pleased to enter. In the towns, nobody could cross the street without paying to be allowed to pass. In the shops, seller and customers were alike at their wits’ end, for the beggars filled the place and mobbed the windows, and would be bought off or would help themselves. They followed the merchant or banker into his dining-room, and would not let him eat his meal in peace. Everything that was left about in the house was stolen; the public walks were impassable, except for soldiers or beggars. Perhaps the most striking circumstance was that these beggars so infested the churches that even worship was hindered. They would so molest the citizens in the midst of the prayers that to empty one’s pocket was the only way to pray in peace.
No,—there was one thing worse, as I now remember. These wretches stole the infants of the citizens, and put out their eyes, or dislocated their limbs, or starved them—(and they starved even their own children)—to work upon the public compassion. Enough! It is easy to see that when society had once become afraid to refuse alms, a large proportion of it would turn beggars. Shepherds, artisans, children, and all the women below the rank of lady asked alms and got them; so that employers repaid themselves for their enforced donations by reducing wages in proportion to the begging talents of their servants and labourers. The town and country were divided into beats, commanded by companies of mendicants; and alliances between rival bands were cemented by marriages between the children of eminent beggars. The population of the capital was then 60,000. In one week after Count Rumford undertook to deal with the beggars, 2600 were entered on his list; and within four years, 10,000 had been arrested and dealt with.
I cannot give the whole story of Count Rumford’s proceedings. I need only say that within a short time the vagrants were all registered, housed, employed, well fed and made comfortable, and the children educated, at incalculably less expense than their mendicancy had cost the community. Everybody was willing and thankful to contribute in return for relief from the scourge of their lives.