The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-02-20
CURE CRIMINALS BY COOKING, NEW
 PLAN OF EXPERTS
Much Crime In This Country Is Blamed on Poorly
 Cooked Food.

Cooked Food.
 l If most crimes are the result of
 empty stomachs or of Improperly
 cooked food, then the kind of prison education, crimonologists say, that
 has been undertaken by the tennsyl- vania eastern penitentiary is truly of the right sort In this penal insti-
 tuition an interesting and apparently successful experiment has been made 1 in an attempt to cure criminally by l instruction in cooking. There is a familiar saying that great deal of crime is due to badly cooked food, since, it is pointed out, improperly prepared and unappetizing food drives many a man to drink, and i drink makes him criminal and eventually lands him in prison. Without doubt there is lot of truth in this statement" says MT. J. B. Harrington writer in The Fore
 cast magazine, land probably even
 more truth in the assertion that | women find themselves behind prison bars because they do not know how to cook. It is a fact that the larger | percentage of women convicts are women who. were entirely untrained in any of the household arts. They knew nothing of buying or cooking food, they knew nothing about the
 management of home, and when such women were, for one reason or another, thrown upon their own re- sources, it is quite natural that they should have turned to criminal ways l in order to keep themselves alive. "Of course, the best method of re- moving this cause of crime is to see 1 that every girl is taught the house. l hold arts in the elementary schools. This is being done at the present time in practically every school in the country. The next step is to pro-
 vide facilities for instructing grown women in cooking, and the next is to | teach the women whp are already paying the penalty for their mis- deeds.
 | ''For many years 1t has been the custom of prison authorities to teach 1 the men convicts some useful trade or occupation, and lately there has been widespread attempt to do ike- wise for the woman.
 NO organized effort, however, has yet been made to teach the women ys there seems no reason to doubt the assertion that if every woman con- vict left the penitentiaries when her term was up with a thorough knowl- edge of the methods of preparing l nourishing, wholesome and appetiz- ing foods, not nearly so many of them would find their way back to the prisons after a few months of liberty.
 In order to see just what effect a
 lesson in cooking would have upon women convicts, officials of the east ern penitentiary, in Philadelphia, re-
 gently arranged for a cooking expert
 to come to the prison and give num- Der of the women inmates a practical demonstration of proper methods of preparing number of simple dishes.
 Several months before this a plan had been introduced into this peni- tentiary by which the women con- victs were allowed to prepare and cook their own meals. The plan worked admirably. The women took up the work with enthusiasm, and it was not long before the cost of feed- ing the women inmates was consid- erably reduced and a better feeling and spirit of cooperation among the inmates made manifest. The plan had it's drawbacks, however, inas-
 much as there was no expert to teach the women the better methods of do- ing things culinary.
 Here is where the appointment of a cooking expert came in. The first ] thing she did was to give a demon stration before the women con- victs.
 Every move she made in prepar- | ing the meat and vegetables for the soup and the stew. every motion in | compromising the pie and theN jelly | roll. was watched with the closest at- tention, and it was not long before l the prisoners were lau yhing and talk 1 ing and asking questions in just the same manner as if they were young girls in boarding school instead of l women who were serving sentences l for various crimes against the com ! munity
 "As the final touches were given l to the raisin pie, one woman wsa
 heard to mLrmur pathetically: Gee, l taught those things when I was girl!' And her remark was typical l of the thoughts in the minds of every l woman in the group.
 "The meal which was prepared be- 1 fore these women was intended for {! a family of four adults, and the ma- 1 terials for it's preparation cost only 1 45 cents. When you consider that 1 such a meal means that each member 1 of the family would get a large plate 1 of soup, generous helping of beef stew, and quarter of raisin pie, l with bread and butter, at cost of II cents, the value of such a lesson l in cooking is obvious.
 eff only one woman was prevented 1 from again offending against the law 1 through such lessons, the work would l be entirely worth while, but all the 1 parties interested feel certain that l many women will be enabled through 1 the gentle art of cookery some day ] to take their places as useful mem 1 bers of society instead of slipping 1 back into the same life of crime and 1 law breaking"