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The Royal kitchen of King Edward VII. is a room of considerable size, much larger in fact than the kitchens of many of the leading London restaurants, and scores of meals are prepared there every day. It is fitted up throughout with black oak, for which George III. was responsible, he having expended $50,000 in this direction alone. Besides the kitchen proper, there are the confectionery room, the pastry room and the bakehouse. The clerk of the kitchen, who rejoices in a salary of $3,500 a year, is responsible for the conduct of these departments, and he has to deal with all the tradesmen who supply the royal household. But the potentate of the kitchen is the chef, who also receives $3,500 a year, and under him are four master cooks, each of whom has control of a small army of assistants, while the confectionery department is ruled by two yeomen with salaries of $1,500 and $1,250. Such a thing as unpunctuality is unknown in the king's kitchen. The most rigid economy is practiced, and such food as remains unconsumed is distributed among the poor, who apply at the castle gate every day. The king's kitchen hides something like $10,000 in copper and iron utensils and $9,000,000 in plate. Among the former should be mentioned the enormous meat screen of solid oak lined with metal, which is nearly 300 years old, and bears the imperial badge of the house of Tudor—the portcullis and arms. Connoisseurs have sighed in vain for this meat screen, for its worth is inestimable. Then, there are 4,000 knives, 3,000 forks and as many spoons, used for cooking and kitchen purposes. There are also 8,000 forks and spoons of massive silver for use at the royal table. There are 800 pots and pans, mostly of copper, and five scourers are solely employed to keep them brightly burnished. Not far away are the plate rooms, two in number, which, although they measure only 13 by 16 feet, hold treasures eighteen tons of sovereigns would not buy. The most valuable item in the storeroom is, of course, the famous service consisting of plates, dishes, tureens, epergnes and candelabra, all of solid gold, which were made by Roundelle & Bridge for George IV. This service is only used on state occasions. Equally famous is the emperor's service of silver gilt, the worth of which may be vaguely gleaned from the fact that each plate weighs a stone, and the epergnes two hundredweight apiece. There is one gold dish of surpassing loveliness which is supposed to have been used by Alexander the Great before the battle of Hydaspes, and for upward of six centuries it has reposed at Windsor. Another much-valued piece of plate is the silver gilt flagon three feet in height, which was recovered from an Armada wreck three centuries ago, while there is a table of solid silver, the surface of which measures nine feet square and is engraved with the four emblems of Great Britain. A FAMOUS ENGLISH LOCOMOTIVE |