MEALS FOR THE HUNGRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

MEALS FOR THE HUNGRY.

FOUR COURSES FOR SIXPENCE. PENNY FOR PLATE OF HASH. A four-course dinner for sixpence! That is what Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, can do. Thanks to the enterprise of practical men and women, thousands of people in this hard-hit town are being enabled to carry on through the days of financial depression with good square meals to put heart into them.

A system which began in Middlesbrough in the days of bleak unemployment years ago has been extended so that there are now dozens of homely restaurants where meals can be obtained at amazingly low prices. One can buy a four-course meal for sixpence. It consists of soup, a cut off the joint, two vegetables, a sweet, and coffee.

If the hungry one has not got sixpence he can get a substantial cold pie for threepence and a cup of coffee as big as his hand for one penny. One cafe, run by good-hearted women who manage to combine philanthropy with sound business, can provide " penny dinners for hungry kiddies."

For a penny any child is served with a plateful of nourishing hash. It is plain food, of course, but thoroughly sustaining. How is it done ! A woman, who keeps a typical cafe explains. " I keep my own chickens," she said, " and my husband used to breed pigs to supply the table. Everything has to be bought in bulk, of course, and we have to scheme things out very carefully. Then we all work very hard, and that helps. Even then business has to bo brisk to make things pay."

A widow, who runs a working men's cafe, near the transporter bridge, relates how she and her daughter work early and late at their business. " And it is a pleasure to see that what we, offer is appreciated," she said. " The workmen who come here realise that we are hard worked, and do all they can to keep the place clean and tidy."