Is it impossible to bring about a reform in this important matter?  Difficult, not impossible.  Dinner-giving is not an integral part of the monarchy, and it might therefore be touched—­if not too rudely—­without a political revolution.  The grand obstacle would be the unsettled claims.  A has given B a show-dinner, and it is the duty of B to return it.  Invitation for invitation is the law of the game.  How, then, stands the account?  Would it be necessary to institute a dinner-insolvency court, where all defaulters might take the benefit of the act?  We think not.  No creditor in his senses would refuse a handsome composition; and if it could be shewn—­as it might in the present case—­that the composition was in real, though not ostensible value, equivalent to the debt, hesitation would vanish.  Before proceeding to shew this, we shall present what may be called the common-sense statement of the whole case:—­

Mankind in their natural state dine at noon, or at least in the middle of the working-day.  It is the middle meal of the day—­the central of three.  In our artificial system of society, it has been postponed to a late hour of the afternoon, so as either to become the second of two meals, or, where lunch is taken, the third of three.  The change is not consistent with hygienic principle; for, if lunch be not taken, the interval between breakfast and dinner is too great, and in that case hunger tempts to make the meal too heavy for the exhausted powers of the stomach:  if, on the contrary, lunch be taken, dinner becomes an absurdity, as in that case a meal so elaborate and heavy is not required, and cannot healthfully be partaken of at so late an hour.  Nevertheless, in a plan of life which devotes the eight or nine hours after breakfast either to business or to out-door amusements, it is needless to think of reviving the old meridian dinner for any but ladies and other stay-at-home people; nor even for them, seeing that they must be mainly determined in their arrangements by those leading members of the family who have to spend that part of the day away from home.

There is a need for some reform which would at once accommodate the busy, and save the multitude from the disadvantages of heavy six-and-seven-o’clock dinners.  This might be effected by arranging for only a supper at six or seven o’clock—­that is, some lighter meal than dinner—­leaving every one to take such a lunch in the middle of the day as he could find an opportunity of eating.  Let this supper be the meal of family reunions—­the meal of society.  Composed of a few light tasteful dishes, accompanied by other indulgences, according to taste or inclination, and followed by coffee, it would be a cheerful and not necessarily unhealthful affair.  As a meal to which to invite friends, being cheaper, it would allow of more society being indulged in than is compatible with the monstrous presentments of meat and drink which constitute the modern company dinner.  It would be practically a revival of those nice supper-parties which our grandfathers indulged in after the hours of business, and of the pleasantness of which we have such glowing accounts.