The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-02 00:00:00

.141T.p1111,1.

Tins Eviourora, BREAK B- UT Fici BEND. Ms. S.!w.—
The American Minstrels and Japanese Tommy, MX Coate!.
tier and Eltiee.—With THE MuLica AND MIS MEN,
THE ZOBSEIB OF BOHEMIA.

NIGH WATS.* AT LONDON BRADS&
fill DAT —Morning. •h. 29•4..--Attarnoon, 411. 4dm.
fisitenow—llorulng. 6h. 45........A1humea. bh. 21.

- - --
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2.

To that large portion of the people of London
whose misfortune it is to be obliged to dine away
from home on six days out of seven the question
discussed at the London Tavern on Monday night
is an exceedingly important one. There is no
difficulty in any of the business parts of the metro-
polis in answering the question, where shall we
dine ? But there is great difficulty, and to very
many persons, as that meeting showed, there
is a practical impossibility in the way of dining
satisfactorily. We English know far better how
to earn a dinner than how to cook it ; but we can
even cook it better than we can serve it. A good
dinner can, of course, be got in London, but we
must pay extravagantly for it ; and a cheap dinner
is sure to deserve the other epithet which is so
often associated with cheapness. That combina-
tion of economy and good taste which characterises
some of the French dining places seems to
be one which our inaptitude for cookery renders
impossible to us, and as economy is
the first consideration for most of those who dine
during business hours, they are obliged to dis-
pense with thrt neatness and finish in its presen-
tation which are so essential to the full enjoyment
of a meal. Even the best of the ordinary City
dining-rooms are far from attractive. Noise and
bustle characterise them almost necessarily, and
an atmosphere laden with the exhalations of
innumerable dinners is one of their inevitable
accompaniments. But in the places where cheaper
dinners are to be got there is usually added to
these annoyances a pervading untidiness and
squalor. The common earthenware, the coarse or
crumpled table-cloth, the badly cleaned knives,
the German silver forks and spoons, and the
damaged cruets, all have their separate and in the
aggregate destructive effect upon a City appetite.
Only custom renders it possible to a person of
ordinary refinement even to eat a dinner with such
surroundings, and not even habit itself can enable
such a person to enjoy it. Yet even such dinners
are comparatively dear, and dinners with more
endurable surroundings are excessively dear.
Alderman COTTON'S shilling dinners of thirty years
ago, which were so comfortable that he looks back
upon them with more gusto than upon any which
he has since had, may probably derive some of
their enchantment from distance ; but nothing
like comfort—if comfort is associated with quiet,
as the Alderman suggested—can be had now for
double the price. But to the many thousands who
dine daily in the City it is of the first importance
that they should enjoy their dinner without being
obliged to pay dearly for it. They are mostly
persons of moderate means, many of them are per-
sons of small means, who are nevertheless accus-
tomed to the neatness, cleanliness, and comfort of
middle-class homes. The daily dinner sway from
home is a considerable item in their personal
expenditure, and their absence from the
meal at home does not proportionately
diminish the cost of housekeeping. Of
course, they do not expect home com-
forts in a public meal. They are willing to
put up with inevitable inconvenierces, but they
have a right to expect a meal decently and respec-
tably served at even less than it would cost them
at home. They could get quite as much as they
require, and of a tolerably good quality, for little
more than half the price they are now paying, but
not in places to which persona accustomed to a
cleanly home could possibly go, and they very
justly complain that for the tolerable decency of
the places they frequent they should pay double,
or at least half as much again, for their food.
Hence the movement which produced Monday
night's meeting. Mr. G. W. SHARP, and those
whom he represents, have made out a complete
case for the reform of the London dining-rooms,
and they will do an important service to a large
and most useful class if they succeed in effecting it.
The proposal to establish a Clerks' Dining-room
Company, on the principle of limited liability, is
the most obvious, and perhaps the most direct
means of accomplishing this desirable object.
Perhaps the principle of co-operation, involving as
it would do a return of bonus to customers as
well as the dividend to shareholders, and the
charging the same price to all, would work better
in practice than the proposed plan of charging the
shareholders lower prices than those charged to
the public ; but the co-operative principle is not
yet understood among the middle classes of
London. But, however the scheme is carried out,
it evidently rests upon sound calculations. In
Glasgow, Leicester, Nottingham, and other places,
working men are supplied with a good dinner for
4}d. or Lid., and, as a general rule, the food is
found to be excellent in quality and sufficient
in quantity to satisfy an ordinary appe-
tite. But if this can be done without loss—
and of course it is not done with any idea of
profit—surely the demand of the London clerks
that they shall be supplied with a meal nicely
cooked and neatly served at double that price
must be a reasonable one. The danger which
threatens such an attempt to satisfy it as is now

proposed is that which was foreseen at the nteet-
ing—that the association should become a mere
trading company, operating not with a view to
the convenience of the members, but with an eye
to dividends. The application of the co-operative
principle, were it found to be practicable, would
effectually prevent this result, and would place the
association beyond the danger of injury by the
competition it will certainly excite. The present
dining-rooms might successfully compete with a
joint-stock association ; they could not compete
wi.•h a co-operative society, because the very
principle of co-operation is that of giving to
the customers a share of the profits. The working
men of the great manufacturing towns have suc-
ceeded in applying this principle to the supply of
most of their household needs, and there seems to
be no reason except their imperfect acquaintance
with it, why the London clerks should not suc-
cessfully apply the same principle to the supply
of that prime necessity of their health and comfort
—a cheap, wholesome, and well-served dinner.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

A reluctance to triumph over the honour of a
great political party, the Daily Newt suggests, may have
kept some away from the Crystal Palace fete, and others
may have felt that the rioter/ was incomplete ; but the
' conservatives are not so sensitive, and est the leek with
an affected appetite and relish. Mr. Gladstone's presence
war not to be desired, for the mood of festivity is not
that which is appropriate to the tasks to be performed.
Nevertheless, the present is a time at which statesmen
should show themselves among the party who support
them, and give a distinct manifesto of policy. There is
little or nothing that the strongest radical or democrat
could desire that the present administration would not
concede for the purpose of retaining office. But it is not
well that England should be governed by a aeries of half-
revolutionary coops d'Etat, and a few years of Mr.
Disraeli would debauch the nation. Even Mr. Ayrton,
despite his tendency to political criticism and
scepticism, nee that the immediate future of parliamen-
tary reform and of liberal government in England depends
upon the loyalty of the liberal party to Mr. Gladstone,
and he did good service on Monday by frankly saying as
much. Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone must lead if he is
to be followed. Reformers mast find their bond of union
and principle of co-operation in a definite scheme—a policy
clearly avowed, steadfastly adhered to, and deliberately
pursued.
The Post explains the fete by the reoollection that it is
absolutely nectmear ,r for agitators like Mr. Potter and his
friends to keep themselves before the eyes of their own
peculiar public, and to feed the appetite they have created
with the windy food it loves.