The same dinners are furnished to the public to be eaten at their homes for nine and seven cents respectively, and usually contain enough food for two or three women, although Norwegians have stalwart appetites.  The outdoor service is conducted in another part of the building, upon another street.  The patrons procure tickets at an office and then form in line—­men, women and children, each with a bucket or a basket, or both, in hand.  Many tickets are given gratuitously, but it is impossible to distinguish the paying from the charity customers.  Benevolent people throughout the city purchase bunches of tickets, which they give to the poor, and sometimes in lieu of wages.  If you hire a man to clean up the yard, you can give him so much cash and so many meal tickets, or if a person appeals to you for relief, it is always better to give a ticket to the “Steam Kitchen” rather than money.  Many customers buy two portions which they take home and warm up at meal time for the whole family.

In the center of a large room are rows of immense caldrons with coils of steam pipe embracing them.  The air is filled with pungent odors from the bubbling soup, and clouds of steam rise from the other cook-pots.  On a long table are pyramids of bread, cut into cubes three or four inches square, usually rye or black bread, such as the natives of Norway prefer.  Along the walls are deep cupboards containing the linens, the culinary supplies and utensils.  In an adjoining but detached building is a furnace and boiler-room which furnishes the steam, and beside it a laundry and dish-washing establishment.  It requires a good many dishes to serve three thousand people even in a simple way.  In an annex the finer qualities of beef, mutton, and other meats are cut off and sold to the public, thus utilizing all the supplies which are bought in large quantities, the beef by the carcass and the vegetables by the carload.  The sausage of the “Steam Kitchen” is said to be the best to be found in Christiania.  All kinds of prepared meats are also sold in this annex butcher shop.  During the fruit season the company runs a canning department upstairs, preserving all kinds of fruits, jellies, pickles, and that sort of thing.  At the baking department bread is sold to the general public at wholesale or retail, and small retail establishments are supplied with all kinds of groceries as well as meats and other edibles.  Thus the restaurant is only part of this large business from which the company derives its profits.  There is naturally a good deal of jealousy among the competing small dealers against the “Steam Kitchen,” but it serves a benevolent purpose, and there is no disposition among its customers to question its business methods or reduce its profits.  It has succeeded in abolishing the cheap restaurants such as are found in all large cities, at which wretched food, generally the scrapings from high-class hotels and eating-houses, is worked over and sold to the poor.