“ Lowest in the scale of such dietaries comes what is termed “bare existence” diet, administered to certain classes of the community who have a claim on their fellow-countrymen that their lives and health shall be preserved in statu quo, but nothing further. This applies particularly to the members of a temporarily famine-stricken community. Before the days of prison reform, too, the dietary scale of many prisons was to a certain extent penal, in that the food supplied to prisoners was barely sufficient for existence. Nowadays more humane principles apply ”

“ In the casual wards of workhouses the dietary is plainer, consisting of 8 oz. of bread, or 6 oz. of bread and one pint of gruel or broth for breakfast; the same for supper; for dinner 8 oz. of bread and 11/2 oz. of cheese or 6 oz. of bread and one pint of soup. The American poor law system is based broadly on that of England, and the methods of relief are much the same. Each state, however, makes its own regulations, and there is considerable diversity in workhouse dietaries in consequence. The German system of poor relief is more methodical than those of England and America. ”

“ The dietary of convict prisons, in which prisoners are all under long sentence, is divided into a diet for convicts employed at hard labour and a diet for convicts employed at sedentary, indoor and light labour. ”