And then, for the benefit of the infirm old folk, Crooks persuaded the Guardians to substitute butter for margarine, and fresh meat for the cheap stale stuff so often supplied. He held out for milk that had not been skimmed, and for tea and coffee that had not been adulterated. He even risked his reputation by allowing the aged women to put sugar in their tea themselves, and the old men to smoke an occasional pipe of tobacco. Rumours of this new way of feeding the workhouse poor reached the austere Local Government Board. First it sent down its inspectors, and then the President himself appeared in person. And Mr. Chaplin saw that it was good, and told other Boards to do likewise. He issued a circular to the Guardians of the country recommending all that Poplar had introduced. More, he proposed that for deserving old people over sixty-four years of age "the supply of tobacco, dry tea, and sugar be made compulsory." This humane order of things, you may be sure, did not commend itself to all Guardian Boards; and when later there came further instructions from headquarters that ailing inmates might be allowed "medical comforts," the revolt materialised. A deputation of Guardians went to Whitehall to try to argue the President into a harder heart. Crooks and Lansbury were there to uphold the new system. Mr. Walter Long had succeeded Mr. Chaplin then. He listened patiently to ingenious speeches in which honourable gentlemen tried to show that it was from no lack of love for the poor they had not carried out the new dietary scale, but---- "Gentlemen," Mr. Long interrupted at last, "am I to understand you do not desire to feed your poor people properly?" Then all with one accord began to make excuse. It was the difficulty of book-keeping, they said. It appeared they were prepared to stint the poor rather than add to the book-keeping. From that day an improved dietary scale was introduced into our workhouses. The man who fed the poor in Poplar saw the workhouse poor of the kingdom better fed in consequence. What kind of food was it that Poplar dared to give to the poor? Those "luxuries for paupers" down at Poplar, about which the world was to hear so much, what were they? A working-man had appeared, and after years of unwearied well-doing had got rid of "skilly" and "greasy water," substituting, with the approval of two Presidents of the Local Government Board, the following simple articles of food. Observe the list carefully, for the kinds and quantities of food here set out were precisely those supplied to the able-bodied inmates during the outcry that arose over "paupers' luxuries" at the time of the Local Government Board Inquiry in 1906. The list is the official return of the food supplied in one week to each inmate. A MAN'S DIET FOR A WEEK. (COST, 4s. 2d.)