The assertion, that a warm dinner may be cooked for 1000 persons, at the trifling expence of four-pence halfpenny for fuel; and that, too, where the cord, five feet eight inches and nine-tenths long, five feet eight inches and nine-tenths high, and five feet three inches and two-tenths wide, English measure, of pine-wood, of the most indifferent quality, costs above seven shillings; and where the cord of hard wood, such as beech and oak, of equal dimensions, costs more than twice that sum, may appear incredible; yet I will venture to assert, and I hereby pledge myself with the public to prove, that in the kitchen of the Military Academy at Munich, and especially in a kitchen lately built under my direction at Verona, in the Hospital of la Pieta, I have carried the economy of fuel still further. To prevent frauds in the kitchen of the institution for the poor at Munich, the ingredients are delivered each day by the store-keeper, to the chief cook; and a person of confidence, not belonging to the kitchen, attends at the proper hour to see that they are actually used. Some one of the inspectors, or other chief officer of the establishment, also attends at the hour of dinner, to see that the victuals furnished to the poor are good; well dressed; and properly served up. As the dining-hall is not large enough to accommodate all the poor at once, they dine in companies of as many as can be seated together, (about 150); those who work in the house being served first, and then those who come from the town. Though most of those who work in their own lodgings send for their dinners, yet there are many others, and particularly such as from great age or other bodily infirmities are not able to work, who come from the town every day to the public hall to dine; and as these are frequently obliged to wait some time at the door, before they can be admitted into the dining-hall;--that is to say, till all the poor who work in the house have finished their dinners;--for their more comfortable accommodation, a large room, provided with a stove for heating it in winter, has been constructed, adjoining to the building of the institution, but not within the court, where these poor people assemble, and are sheltered from the inclemency of the weather while they wait for admittance into the dining-hall. To preserve order and decorum at these public dinners, and to prevent crowding and jostling at the door of the dining-hall, the steward, or some other officer of the house of some authority, is always present in the hall during dinner; and two privates of the police guards, who know most of the poor personally, take post at the door of the hall, one on each side of it; and between them the poor are obliged to pass singly into the hall.