Thus wrote the Lancet on the subject:  “The mass of the poor population of Ireland is in a state of starvation.  Gaunt famine, with raging fever at her heels, are marching through the length and breadth of the sister island, and they threaten to extend their fury to this Country.  The British public, under the form of clubs, committees, and relief associations, are actively engaged in sending food to the famine districts.  All this is done without boasting or ostentation.  But parliament and the executive, in the midst of the best intentions, seems to be agitated by a spasmodic feeling of benevolence; at one time adopting public works, at another preaching a poorlaw—­now considering the propriety of granting sixteen millions for railways, and then descending to M. Soyer, the chief cook of the Reform Club, with his ubiquitous kitchens and soups, at some three farthings the quart, which is to feed all hungry Ireland.

“As this soup quackery (for it is no less) seems to be taken by the rich as a salve for their consciences, and with a belief that famine and fever may be kept at bay by M. Soyer and his kettles, it is right to look at the constitution of this soup of pretence, and the estimate formed of it by the talented but eccentric self-deceived originator.

“M.  Soyer proposes to make soup of the following proportions:—­Leg of beef, four ounces; dripping fat, two ounces; flour, eight ounces; brown sugar, half an ounce; water, two gallons.

“These items are exclusive of the onions, a few turnip parings, celery-tops, and a little salt, which can hardly be considered under the head of food.  The above proportions give less than three ounces of solid nutriment to each quart of soup a la Soyer.  Of this its inventor is reported to have said to the Government ’that a bellyful once a day, with a biscuit, (we quote from the Observer,) will be more than sufficient to maintain the strength of a strong healthy man.’

“To bring this to the test.  Organic chemistry proves to us that the excretae from the body of a healthy subject by the eliminatory organs must at least amount to twelve or fourteen ounces; and organic chemistry will not, we fear, bend to the most inspired receipts of the most miraculous cookery book, to supply the number of ounces without which the organic chemistry of the human body will no more go on than will the steam-engine without fuel.  M. Soyer, supposing each meal of his soup for the poor to amount to a quart, supplies less than three ounces, or less than a quarter the required amount, and of that only one solitary half ounce of animal aliment, diluted, or rather dissolved in a bellyful of water.  Bulk of water, the gastronomic may depend, will not make up for the deficiency of solid convertible aliment.  No culinary digesting, or stewing, or boiling, can convert four ounces into twelve, unless, indeed, the laws of animal physiology can be unwritten, and some magical power be made to reside in the cap and apron of the cook for substituting fluids in the place of solids, and aqua pura in place of solids in the animal economy.