The public dinner - Its undue length - Toasts too numerous - Suggestions for shortening the proceedings - Good cookery independent of pedantic and complicated receipts - Schools of cookery - Elementary scientific teaching wanted to make cookery interesting and a progressive art - Better food, in better condition, and in more abundant supply, a pressing want for London - Conclusion.

Before concluding, a remark or two may be permitted in reference to that great British institution, the public dinner. Its utility must, I suppose, be conceded, since for a vast number of charitable and other useful institutions, the opportunity of commanding once a year the ear of a generous British public for an exposition of their claims, seems in no other way at present attainable. A royal or noble chairman, a portentous menu, an unstinted supply of wine, such as it is, and after-dinner speeches in variety, form an ensemble which appears to be attractive to the great body of "supporters." On the other hand, those whose presence is enforced by the claim of duty find these banquets too numerous and too long. The noise and bustle, the badly served although pretentious dinner, the glare of gas and the polluted air, the long, desultory, and unmeaning speeches, interspersed with musical performances - which, however admirable in themselves, extend unduly a programme already too comprehensive - unfit many a man, seriously occupied, for the engagements of the morrow. Might it not be worth while to try the experiment of offering fewer dishes, better service, and abolishing half the toasts? Might it not be possible to limit the necessary and essential toasts of a public dinner to the number of three or four - these to be followed at most by one or two special toasts associated with the object of the dinner? With the utmost deference to long received usage, and after some little consideration, I venture to suggest that the following programme would at all events be an improvement on the present system, if such it can be called.

The public dinner and its uses; the hardship it entails.

The first toast, or toasts, by which we declare our fidelity to the Crown, and our loyalty to the person of the Sovereign, as well as to the Royal family, to remain, by universal consent, as before. The next, or patriotic toasts, unlike the preceding, are regarded as demanding response, often from several persons, and here it is that time is generally wasted. These might therefore be advantageously compressed into one, or perhaps two, which need not be limited to the military and naval services, although it would, of course, include them. The object might be attained by constituting one or two comprehensive patriotic toasts, as " The United Services," to embrace the army, navy, and volunteers, and to be responded to either by a naval or a military officer as arranged, but by one only. Then might naturally follow "The National Institutions," consisting of, say (1) Parliament: its leaders. (2) Justice: the judges. (3) Religion: its ministers. (4) Science and Art: heads of societies, academies, colleges. (5) Literature and the Press : distinguished writers. One of these, as a rule, only to be given, and in nine cases out of ten, probably number one would be the most appropriate and the most popular.

Hints for its improvement.

Diminish number of the toasts.

Toasts which fire essential.

Suggestions for combination and compression.

The next to be "the toast of the evening:" in other words, the particular subject of the dinner. After this might follow a fourth, embracing the healths of officers connected with the subject, visitors, etc., if necessary.

I confess I see no reason why the military and naval forces, however profound our respect and our gratitude for their great services to the nation must be - and in this matter I yield to no man - should invariably be responded to by at least two, mostly now by three officers, while the other great, and scarcely less important interests, should be left out of consideration altogether, or be only occasionally introduced. The toast of "National Institutions" would mostly ensure to the chairman and managers of the dinner an opportunity of obtaining one or two good speeches, say, one for Parliament, or for Justice, or Religion, or for Science, or Literature. The choice to be determined upon by the presence of some individual belonging to any one of these interests, and who is known to be a capable and agreeable after-dinner speaker. Thus all the varied elements of our national life would receive in their turn a due share of attention from the great mass of public diners, and better speeches would probably be secured than by the present mode.

Combination and compression continued. Much improved of late.

I confess this is rather an episode; but the subject of "toasts" is so interwoven with the management of the public dinner that I have ventured to introduce it. I even dare to think that the proposition may be not unlikely to receive the support of "the chair," the duties of which, with a long array of toasts, are sometimes excessively onerous; only more so, be it recollected, in degree than those, of a humbler kind, which are entailed on many of the guests who are compelled to assist. Considerable improvement has taken place during the last few years in the management of public dinners, This is largely due to the influence of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who, when called on to preside at the annual festival of some important charity, which has been so fortunate as to obtain His Royal Highness as their advocate, requires a menu reasonably limited, and the elimination of unnecessary toasts and speeches.

Recent improvement and its cause.

In concluding this imperfect sketch of the very large subject indicated by the title employed, I desire to express my strong sense of its manifold shortcomings, especially by way of omission. Desiring to call attention, in the smallest possible compass, to a great number of what appear to me to be important considerations in connection with the arts of selecting, preparing, and serving food, I have doubtless often failed to be explicit in the effort to be brief. It would have been an easier task were time at my disposal to illustrate these considerations at greater length, and to have exceeded the limits of this small volume; I might thus perhaps also have avoided, in dealing with some topics, a tone in statement more positive than circumstances may have warranted. Gastronomic tastes necessarily differ, as races, habits, digestive force and supplies of food also differ; and it becomes no man to be too dogmatic in treating of these matters. Degustibus non est disputandum is in no instance more true than in relation to the tastes of the palate. Still, if any rational canons are to be laid down in connection with food and feeding, it is absolutely necessary that something more than the chemical and physiological bearings of the subject should be taken into consideration. With these it is unquestionably essential for any one who treats of my subject to be familiar; but no less necessary is it to possess some natural taste and experience in the cultivation of the gustatory sense, just as a cultivation of the perception of colour and a sensibility to the charm of harmoniously combined tints, are necessary to an intelligent enjoyment of the visual sense, and to the understanding of its powers. Hence the treatment of the whole subject must inevitably be pervaded to some extent by the personal idiosyncrasy and predilections of the individual. It is this fact, no doubt, which, operating in relation to the numerous writers on cookery, has tended to produce some of the complication and confusion which often appears in culinary directions and receipts. But the gastronomic art is a simpler one than the effusions of some of its professors might lead the wholly uneducated to believe; and the complicated productions originated by some of its past and greatest practitioners are as unnecessary as are the long and complicated prescriptions formerly in vogue with the leading physicians of past time. Both were the natural outgrowths of an age when every branch of technical education was a "mystery;" and when those who had attained the meaning thereof magnified their craft in the eyes of the vulgar by obscuring what is simple in a cloud of pedantic terms and processes. But that age and its delusions are passing away, and it is high time for simplicity in the practice of cookery and the service of the table to take the place of some useless and extravagant combinations and treatment which tradition has handed down.