“Of course all London children must go to school or be taught at home, just as all country children are. And there is nothing very interesting in the ordinary schools in London, for they are like those anywhere else. But there are some special schools which belong to London, even if they are not still actually there; one of these is the Duke of York's School for soldier-boys, which used to be at Chelsea, but has been moved into the country near Dover. Five hundred little boys, the sons of soldiers, who are nearly all going to be soldiers themselves, are here trained. They are dressed in a scarlet uniform in summer, just like soldiers, and in winter wear dark-blue uniform, and the school is like a barracks where real soldiers live. The boys come here as young as nine years old, and stay until they are fourteen or fifteen, and then if they like it they go into the real army, and are drummer-boys. To see them on Sunday is a pleasant sight. They have a chapel and a chaplain of their own; on Sunday mornings the boys meet together and march up and down like an army. They march beautifully, keeping step all the time, and wheeling round just as the men do, for they are carefully drilled. Then the band plays, for they have a capital band, and they all go to church. During the service the boys are very good and still as mice, because they are well trained. But it is not long. It is a bright, short service, with a sermon, quite short and simple, so that the boys can understand it. There are many hymns, and when it is over they go back for dinner. Dinner is very important, but before I tell you about that I will tell you what they get to eat for all their meals. They have cocoa in the mornings for breakfast and bread-and-jam or bread-and-butter, and they have the same again at tea-time. On extra days they get cake too. For dinner on Sundays in winter they have pork, with potatoes and apple-sauce. I don't know if you like apple-sauce, but the soldier boys do, and they think it is waste to eat it with pork; so they leave it until they have finished their meat, and then spread it on their bread and eat it separately. Afterwards there are plum-puddings, an ordinary big plum-pudding for every table, and at each table there are eight boys. Each boy who sits at the head of a table marches out and marches in again carrying a plum-pudding, which he sets down on his own table; then he takes a knife and cuts it neatly across and across, making four pieces; then he cuts it across and across again, and makes eight pieces, and he gives each boy a piece, and there is no more plum-pudding. It is a pretty big bit that, an eighth of a plum-pudding, but it all goes somewhere; and the boy who cuts it has to be very careful to see that he does it quite fairly, so that no one gets more than anyone else. I think the plum-pudding and the pork must be a good mixture, for you hardly ever see elsewhere such bright-looking faces as there are here.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
499. INGREDIENTS.--1 wineglassful of brandy, 2 oz. of very fresh butter, 1 glass of Madeira, pounded sugar to taste. _Mode_.--Put the pounded sugar in a basin, with part of the brandy and the butter; let it stand by the side of the fire until it is warm and the sugar and butter are dissolved; then add the rest of the brandy, with the Madeira. Either pour it over the pudding, or serve in a tureen. This is a very rich and excellent sauce. _Average cost_, 1s. 3d. for this quantity. _Sufficient_ for a pudding made for 6 persons.
Sources: The passage is from G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton, The Children's Book of London, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — burgundy cloth, pudding stamp.