instead of by a pauper inmate, really hot meals (even to the use of "hot water dishes"), and efficient service, so as to increase the comfort of the inmates, was circulated to the boards of guardians.[457] After many reports and elaborate inquiries, the Central Authority in 1868 issued a Circular of very authoritative suggestions for a general improvement in the workhouse dietaries. After a protest that no cause had been shown for any fundamental change in the principles which had been hitherto recommended, it was urged that there were various points which the guardians should remember in framing dietaries. The first of these points was the addition of several classes who were to have separate dietaries, viz.:-- (_a_) The aged and infirm not on the medical officer's book. (_b_) Inmates on the medical officer's book for diet only and not on the sick list. (_c_) Inmates allowed extra diets on account of employment, and those allowed alcohol for the same reason. (_d_) Children aged nine to sixteen, if the guardians thought they should be separately dieted. (_e_) Sick diets to be framed by the medical officer as before. (_f_) Imbeciles and suckling women to be dieted as the aged, "with or without the substitution of milk porridge and bread at breakfast or supper or at both meals." [453] Circular of 13th June 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 44-6. [454] Report of Dr. E. Smith on Metropolitan Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Wards, in House of Commons, No. 372 of 1866, pp. 51-2. [455] Circular of 20th July 1866, in Nineteenth Annual Report, 1866-7, p. 39.