Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-01
WORKaOUSE SUPPLIES.
The Provision Of an Economical Table
Brightly Discussed : Some Figures on
R.fo.--so-w "a

The Provision Of an Economical Table
Brightly Discussed = Some Figures on
Reformatory Feed.
County Controller Speer's advertisement,
asking bakers and butchers to compete for
the furnishing of supplies to the workhouse.
revives interest in an engrossing subject. It
is a common remark in some sections that
snch and such man is "a good fellow. but
he doesn't know how to keep hotel.''
There are very few who do, and, what is
more, there are very isx people who
know how to provide an ecouomi-
cal table, though their necessities
may demand the most rigid economy Could
day laborer feed his family as we'll as peo-
pie in the workhouse are fed, he might get
his head above water in time even on 81 so
a day wages, unless that family were very
large. There are no delicacies worth speak
ing of in the workhouse menu, but the food
eaten is well cooked and nutritious and
guests generally gain in weight
A woman who understands cooking could
get up food cheaper than they do at the
prisons il the poor had sufficient gumption
to buy wholesale, 80 or 100 families paying
0 competent man a good salary to do it for
them. Under such an arrangement 40 cents
day would feed family of ordinary size.
There is another thing to be
learned from these statistics, and
it is the explanation of how
q saloon keeper can sell a glass of beer for 8
cents and throw in a 10 cent lunch. It is a
matter Of common remark that some saloons
furnish plate of soup and accompaniment
with glass of beer better than can be had
in the average restaurant for 10 cents. Some
people think safety of the future is bound
up in the management of our public schools
and others place it in various other institu-
tions, but though the idea may not be so in
spiriting, it is safe to say that no inconsider.
able portion of future happiness will be
found in the dinner pot. Dyspepsia cannot
much longer mask itself in the guise of re-
igion, and the latter becomes less gloomy
every year. The following figures furnished
by Messrs. Berlin and Warner are interest
ing:
In 1887 bread for the jail cost 81 ,775 90;
meat, $812 72, and groceries and vegetables,
$3.50 "a, a total of $3, 468 05. The number
of guests entertained was 5,319, and the cost
of feeding them was 6 91-1O0 cents per day;
cost of entertaining guests per head, 95-100
cents per day for food and supplies, and
total cost per head, including salaries, gas,
water, ETC.. 80 6-100 cents per day. War
den Berlin explained that this cost was con-
siderably increased above the normal and
nOuAu OC ACoS IL IubuI6s ~ bucTc ID u Ica5OQ-
able probability that boarders may event.
ually be kept for 81 per week, including
chamber wards, salaries, etc., as the forego-
ing includes over 81 500 cost of repairing,
furniture, telephone, etc. This was in 1887.
At the Claremont House in 1888, the daily
average number of guests was 564. 1885
and it cost to keep them SIS, ,693 70. They
did little work about the hotel for which
they were credited in their board bills, ST.
1876 II. The Observation-Disclosures
ing-machine at this hostelrie shows that the
guests averaged an increase OF 81 pounds in
weight when they left. If they didn't get
all they wanted, it at least seemed to agree
with them. Food bills amounted to $21,-
078 81, or about 10 cents day, but as the
guests at Claremont worked, while those
at the Hotel Berlin did not, they ate a
fraction of cents worth more food per day.
The daily average cost of maintaining each
guest was 38 85S-100 cents, but their earnings
reduced it to 18.64100 cents