The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-19

ball of mashed meat about as large as your fist, with potatoes and rice, or boiled salmon, potatoes and turnlps' Beer, milk or coffee Is served for z cents extra.
 The Scent dinner was pretty mucn the same, with the exception Of the soup; boiled beef potatoes and rice, or boiled salmon, potatoes and turnips' A plate of soup alone, which in ltseil would be more than a meal for most people, being filled with chunks of meat and vegetables, was served for three cents.
 The same dinners are furnished to the public to be eaten at their homes for and cents respectively, and usu- ally contain enough food for two or three women, although the Noweglans have stalwart appettes. The outdoor service is conducted in another part or the building, upon another street. The patrons procure tickets at an office ana then form in line-nen, women anu children, each with a bucket or a pash- ct, or both in hand. Many tickets are given gratuitously but it is impossible to distinguish the paying from the charity customers Benevolent people throughout the city purchase punches of tickets, which they give to the poor and sometimes in lieu of wages. IT you hire man to clean up the yard, you can give him so much cash ana so many meal tickets, or if person ap- peals to you for relief it is always bet ter to give a ticket to the "Steam kltch- en- rather than money. Many ~ustoln- CTS buy two portions, which they take home and warm up at meal time Tor the whole family.
 In the center of a large room and rows of immense caldrons with coils and steam pipes embracing them The air is filled with pungent odors rom the bubbling soup and clouds of steam arise from the other cookpots. on ss long table are pyramids Of bread cut into cubes three or four inches square, usually rye or blackbread, such as the natives of Norway prefer Along the walls are deep cupboards containing the linens, the culinary supplies ana utensils. Tn an adjoining but detached building is a furRace and boiler room which furnishes the steam, and, beside it. laundry and a dish washing estao- ishment larger than an ordinary mousse It requires a good many dishes to serve 3, 900 persons, even in simple way. In an annex the finer qualities of beef, mutton and other meat are cut off and sold to the public from an ordinary butcher shop, which in Norway Is call ed a "bazaAr.' Here, also, all Xmas of sausage and force meat are made and sold to the general public thus utilizing all the supplies, which are brought in large quantities, the beer by the carcass and the vegetables by the carload. The sausage of the Steam Kitchen is said to be the best to be found in Christiania. During the fruit season the company runs can ming factory upstairs preserving all kinds of fruits, jellies, pickles, and that sort of thing. At the baking depart ment bread Is old to the general public at wholesale and retail, and small re- tail establishments are supplied with all sorts of groceries, as well as meats and other edibles. Thus the restaurant is only part of a large business from which the company derives it's profits. There is naturally q good deal of jeal- ousy among the competing small deal CTS against the "Steam Kitchen but it serves a benevolent purpose and there is no disposition among it's cus- toners to question its business methods or reduce it's profits It has succeeded in abolishing the cheap restaurants such as are found in all large cities, at which wretched food, generally the scrappings from the high class hotels and eating houses is worked over and sold to the poor.
 It was an interesting sight--the buck ct brigade that stood in line and pass ed slowly by the serving windows, which were attended by half dozen brawny Norwegian women with bare arms. big breasts and broad faces, They wore neat white aprons and caps and handled the food with a dexterity that showed long experience. They seemed to know most of the customers and carried on a familiar conversation with them while filling their orders. When a bucket and a ticket were passed up, blue for 9-cent and red for a 7-cent dinner, the waitress would first plunge q, huge ladle into the soup pot and empty it's contents into the bucket; then passing along the rows of kettles she would harpoon at hunk ot meat with a long two-pronged fork, scoop un quart of rice with q wooden