Then followed various detailed suggestions, some of which dealt with ingredients and methods of cooking. Soup or broth dinners were not to be given more than twice a week; nor were bread and cheese or suet pudding dinners, except to the able-bodied. Fresh vegetables were to be provided, if possible, five times a week, and boiled rice alone was not to be made a substitute for them. Rice pudding was not to be given as a dinner except to children under nine, and to them not more than twice a week. Children were not to have tea or coffee, except for supper on Sunday, but milk at breakfast and supper, and they were to be given two or three ounces of bread at 10 A.M. It was "suggested that tea, coffee, or cocoa, with milk and sugar, and accompanied by bread and butter or bread and cheese, should be allowed to all the aged and infirm women at breakfast and supper, and the same to aged and infirm men, or milk porridge with bread" might be given at one of those meals. The ordinary rations were--of meat (cooked, without bone), for men four ounces, for women three ounces; of soup, one to one and a half pints (containing three ounces of meat) for an adult; and of bread at breakfast or supper, six ounces for able-bodied men, for the aged, women, and children over nine five ounces, and proportionately less for younger children.[458] [458] Circular of 7th December 1868, in Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, pp. 41-4. In the different Metropolitan workhouses the Central Authority sought to obtain absolute uniformity, and to this end had a model drawn up which was submitted to the guardians for their adoption. It is strange that this dietary allowed less bread and more meat than was recommended by the Board in the circular just described, only a few months later--perhaps because larger allowances of meat were made in the dietaries already in force in London unions. This dietary, prepared by Dr. Markham, contained tables for the able-bodied, the aged, and inmates engaged on extra labour, in each case of both sexes, but not for the other classes named in the above-mentioned circular. The points chiefly dwelt upon were the necessity of good cooking, of giving reasonable quantities of food, sufficient but not wasteful, and of obtaining materials of good quality, so as to attain the greatest possible economy (Circular of 23rd April 1868, in _ibid._ pp. 35-41). It is to be noted that the Central Authority issued no order on the subject. The result was that in most cases the guardians practically ignored the suggestions, and continued in their diversity. Camberwell, for instance, continued to allow the able-bodied pauper 107 oz. of bread per week, whereas the Poor Law Board had suggested 76 oz. only. The hated oatmeal porridge and suet pudding were minimised (Report of Mr. J. H. Bridges, 15th May 1873).