PRIVATE- DINING ROOMS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 43, 14 November 1907, Page 3

PRIVATE- DINING ROOMS.

'An authority on the employment of women draws attention in a London contemporary to a .Hold which German women aro 'finding remarkably lucrative. • ■, In these days, when the tendency is to live in. flats .and rooms, where .doing for onesolf. is part of the contract, the.idea ■ might' well bo considered locally There are certain districts whero tho majority of residents live in flats; Togo to the noarest.cafe or hotel for a meal means time and trouble—and very often a trip from suburb to city. To meet what is quite a real want certain German women have started a mittagstisch, which, being interpreted, means midday table. This in its limited sense means a dining table in a private house, where at certain hours any. person may dine. This institution is pre-eminently at homo in Hamburg. In this wealthy city restaurants of all sorts abound, but the mittagstisch is something quito distinct from all of them. It differs from them in three essential particuJftrp. Firstly, the same fare is served to every Sliest during the same hours and at the same oricc, and there is no other fare to he had. Secondly, tho meal can be sent out to a reainnablG distance; and; thirdly, as the proprietress buys only for a few dishes, she is ible to provide a meal for much loss than Ihe ordinary restaurant. In every case an ordinary private houso has boon-' found to moot the case for the.proprietress. Girls aro employed to take out the dinners in specially constructed baskets. Each girl distributes, Dn an avorago, thirty dinners. These meslengers play a conspicuous part in Hamburg lifo, and are to be seen —neat, smiling and alort —during the midday hour in every frequented street. Tho mittagstisch has two important things to recommend it—it brings wholesome and appetising food within the roach of a typo of worker than generaljy fares badly, and it furnishes a now industry for many capable, enterprising women who havo to walk to and from their own homes.