We now come to food. Two questions, besides that of the amount of money to be spent, bear upon food. What are the chief articles of diet? Where are they bought? Without doubt, the chief article of diet in a 20s. budget is bread. A long way after bread come potatoes, meat, and fish. Bread is bought from one of the abundance of bakers in the neighbourhood, and is not as a rule very different in price and quality from bread in other parts of London. Meat is generally bargained for on street stalls on Saturday night or even Sunday morning. It may be cheaper than meat purchased in the West End, but is as certainly worse in original quality as well as less fresh and less clean in condition. Potatoes are generally 2 lbs. for 1d., unless they are “new” potatoes. Then they are dearer. When, at certain seasons in the year, they are “old” potatoes, they are cheaper; but then they do not “cut up” well, owing to the sprouting eyes. They are usually bought from an itinerant barrow. Bread in Lambeth is bought in the shop, because the baker is bound, when selling over the counter, to give legal weight. In other words, when he is paid for a quartern he must sell a quartern. He therefore weighs two “half-quartern” loaves, and makes up with pieces of bread cut from loaves he keeps by him for the purpose until the weight is correct. In different districts bakers sell a quartern for slightly different prices. The price at one moment south of Kennington Park may be 5d., while up in Lambeth proper it may be 5½d. In Kensington at the same moment delivered bread is perhaps being sold at 6d. a quartern. The difference in price, therefore, at a given moment might amount to as much as 7d. a week in the case of a large family, and 3d. in the case of a small family. When a weekly income is decreased for any cause, the one item of food which seldom varies—or at any rate is the last to vary—is bread. Meat is affected at once. Meat may sink from 4s. a week to 6d. owing to a fluctuation in income. But the amount of bread bought when the full allowance was paid is, if possible, still bought when meat may have almost decreased to nothing. The amount of bread eaten in an ordinary middle-class, well-to-do, but economically managed household of thirteen persons is 18 quarterns, or 36 loaves, a week—something not far short of 3 loaves a head a week. This takes no heed of innumerable cakes and sweet puddings consumed by these thirteen persons, who at the same time are consuming an ample supply of meat, fish, bacon, fruit, vegetables, butter, and milk. In Lambeth, the amounts spent on bread and meat respectively by the wives of four men in regular work are given below: Mrs. D.: Allowance, 28s.; ten persons to feed; 10½ quartern at 5½d.; meat, 4s. 2d. Mrs. C.: Allowance, 21s.; eight persons to feed; 8½ quartern at 5½d.; meat, 3s. 2½d. Mrs. J.: Allowance, 22s.; five persons to feed; 7 quartern at 5½d.; meat, 2s. 11d.