With regard to the quantities of food to be supplied, the policy of the Central Authority passed through three phases. In 1836 the boards of guardians were expressly directed that the diet in the workhouse (which, as we have shown, was to be practically uniform for all classes of paupers) was not to be "equal"--that is to say, was actually to be inferior--"to the ordinary mode of subsistence of the labouring classes of the neighbourhood."[234] This was perhaps more tactfully expressed in the Consolidated Order for the Administration of Relief in Town Unions, in saying that the diet was "in no case to exceed in quantity and quality of food the ordinary diet of any class of able-bodied labourers living within the same district."[235] All the contemporary warnings of the Central Authority were against giving too much; and there was no provision for ensuring that each pauper got even the quantity prescribed in the dietary chosen by the local authority. No extra dinner was allowed on Christmas or other feast days, unless, indeed, this was supplied by private individuals.[236] In 1842 a change was made. The Central Authority fixed a separate dietary for each workhouse, and there was no longer any reference to these dietaries being inferior to the subsistence of the independent labourer; on the contrary the intention of the Central Authority was avowedly "to assimilate them as much as possible to the ordinary food of the working classes in the neighbourhood"[237]--in Kent and Sussex mainly bread and cheese, in the northern counties meat, potatoes, and porridge, and in Cornwall including fish. Moreover, it was provided that any pauper might, on demand, have his prescribed portion weighed out to him.[238] Finally, by 1847, we gather that the principle had been silently adopted of fixing such a dietary as was calculated to keep the paupers in physical health, irrespective of the amount or kind of food that might ordinarily be obtained by the lowest class of non-pauper labourer in particular districts or at particular periods. Even extra food on Christmas Day was allowed at the expense of the Poor Rate, at the unfettered discretion of the boards of guardians.[239] [234] Circular on Workhouse Dietaries, 1836, in Second Annual Report, 1836, p. 63. [235] Consolidated Order for the Administration of Relief in Town Unions, 7th March 1836, sec. v. art. 21; in Second Annual Report, 1836, p. 91. [236] _Official Circular_, 2nd July 1840, No. 6, pp. 73-74. [237] Instructional Letter of 5th February 1842, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, p. 112. [238] General Order of 5th February 1842, art. 18, and Instructional Letter of the same date, in Eighth Annual Report, 1842, pp. 83, 113; repeated in General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847, art. 109. [239] General Consolidated Order of 24th July 1847, art. 107.