There is no direction in which a woman more needs both scientific knowledge and moral force than in using her influence to control her family in regard to stimulating beverages.

It is a point fully established by experience that the full development of the human body and the vigorous exercise of all its functions can be secured without the use of stimulating drinks. It is, therefore, perfectly safe to bring up children never to use them, no hazard being incurred by such a course.

It is also found by experience that there are two evils incurred by the use of stimulating drinks. The first is, their positive effect on the human system. Their peculiarity consists in so exciting the nervous system that all the functions of the body are accelerated, and the fluids are caused to move quicker than at their natural speed. This increased motion of the animal fluids always produces an agreeable effect on the mind. The intellect is invigorated, the imagination is excited, the spirits are enlivened; and these effects are so agreeable that all mankind, after having once experienced them, feel a great desire for their repetition.

But this temporary invigoration of the system is always followed by a diminution of the powers of the stimulated organs; so that, though in all cases this reaction may not be perceptible, it is invariably the result. It may be set down as the unchangeable rule of physiology, that stimulating drinks deduct from the powers of the constitution in exactly the proportion in which they operate to produce temporary invigoration.

The second evil is the temptation which always attends the use of stimulants. Their effect on the system is so agreeable, and the evils resulting are so imperceptible and distant, that there is a constant tendency to increase such excitement both in frequency and power. And the more the system is thus reduced in strength, the more craving is the desire for that which imparts a temporary invigoration. This process of increasing debility and increasing craving for the stimulus that removes it, often goes to such an extreme that the passion is perfectly uncontrollable, and mind and body perish under this baleful habit.

In this country there are three forms in which the use of such stimulants is common; namely, alcoholic drinks, opium mixtures, and tobacco. These are all alike in the main peculiarity of imparting that extra stimulus to the system which tends to exhaust its powers.

Multitudes in this nation are in the habitual use of some one of these stimulants; and each person defends the indulgence by certain arguments:

First, that the desire for stimulants is a natural propensity implanted in man's nature, as is manifest from the universal tendency to such indulgences in every nation. From this, it is inferred that it is an innocent desire, which ought to be gratified to some extent, and that the aim should be to keep it within the limits of temperance, instead of attempting to exterminate a natural propensity.

This is an argument which, if true, makes it equally proper for not only men, but women and children, to use opium, brandy, or tobacco as stimulating principles, provided they are used temperately. But if it be granted that perfect health and strength can be gained and secured without these stimulants, and that their peculiar effect is to diminish the power of the system in exactly the same proportion as they stimulate it, then there is no such thing as a temperate use, unless they are so diluted as to destroy any stimulating power; and in this form they are seldom desired.

The other argument for their use is, that they are among the good things provided by the Creator for our gratification; that, like all other blessings, they are exposed to abuse and excess; and that we should rather seek to regulate their use than to banish them entirely.

This argument is based on the assumption that they are, like healthful foods and drinks, necessary to life and health, and injurious only by excess. But this is not true; for whenever they are used in any such strength as to be a gratification, they operate to a greater or less extent as stimulants; and to just such extent they wear out the powers of the constitution; and it is abundantly proved that they are not, like food and drink, necessary to health. Such articles are designed for medicine and not for common use. There can be no argument framed to defend the use of one of them which will not justify women and children in most dangerous indulgences.

There are some facts recently revealed by the microscope in regard to alcoholic drinks, which every woman should understand and regard. It has been shown in a previous chapter that every act of mind, either by thought, feeling, or choice, causes the destruction of certain cells in the brain and nerves. It now is proved by microscopic science [Footnote: For those statements the writer is indebted to Maudsley, a recent writer on Microscopic Physiology.] that the kind of nutrition furnished to the brain by the blood to a certain extent decides future feelings, thoughts, and volitions. The cells of the brain not only abstract from the blood the healthful nutrition, but also are affected in shape, size, color, and action by unsuitable elements in the blood. This is especially the case when alcohol is taken into the stomach, from whence it is always carried to the brain. The consequence is, that it affects the nature and action of the brain-cells, until a habit is formed which is automatic; that is, the mind loses the power of controlling the brain, in its development of thoughts, feelings, and choices as it would in the natural state, and is itself controlled by the brain. In this condition a real disease of the brain is created, called oino-mania, (see Glossary,) and the only remedy is total abstinence, and that for a long period, from the alcoholic poison. And what makes the danger more fearful is, that the brain-cells never are so renewed but that this pernicious stimulus will bring back the disease in full force, so that a man once subject to it is never safe except by maintaining perpetual and total abstinence from every kind of alcoholic drink. Dr. Day, who for many years has had charge of an inebriate asylum, states that he witnessed the dissection of the brain of a man once an inebriate, but for many years in practice of total abstinence, and found its cells still in the weak and unnatural state produced by earlier indulgences.

There has unfortunately been a difference of opinion among medical men as to the use of alcohol. Liebig, the celebrated writer on animal chemistry, having found that both sugar and alcohol were heat-producing articles of food, framed a theory that alcohol is burnt in the lungs, giving off carbonic acid and water, and thus serving to warm the body. But modern science has proved that it is in the capillaries that animal heat is generated, and it is believed that alcohol lessens instead of increasing the power of the body to bear the cold. Sir John Koss, in his Arctic voyage, proved by his own experience and that of his men that cold-water drinkers could bear cold longer and were stronger than any who used alcohol.

Carpenter, a standard writer on physiology, says the objection to a habitual use of even small quantities of alcoholic drinks is, that "they are universally admitted to possess a poisonous character," and "tend to produce a morbid condition of body;" while "the capacity for enduring extremes of heat and cold, or of mental or bodily labor, is diminished rather than increased by their habitual employment."

Prof. J. Bigelow, of Harvard University, says, "Alcohol is highly stimulating, heating, and intoxicating, and its effects are so fascinating that when once experienced there is danger that the desire for them may be perpetuated."

Dr. Bell and Dr. Churchill, both high medical authorities, especially in lung disease, for which whisky is often recommended, come to the conclusion that "the opinion that alcoholic liquors have influence in preventing the deposition of tubercle is destitute of any foundation; on the contrary, their use predisposes to tubercular deposition." And "where tubercle exists, alcohol has no effect in modifying the usual course, neither does it modify the morbid effects on the system."

Prof. Youmans, of New-York, says: "It has been demonstrated that alcoholic drinks prevent the natural changes in the blood, and obstruct the nutritive and reparative functions." He adds, "Chemical experiments have demonstrated that the action of alcohol on the digestive fluid is to destroy its active principle, the pepsin, thus confirming the observations of physiologists, that its use gives rise to serious disorders of the stomach and malignant aberration of the whole economy."

We are now prepared to consider the great principles of science, common sense, and religion, which should guide every woman who has any kind of influence or responsibility on this subject. It is allowed by all medical men that pure water is perfectly healthful and supplies all the liquid needed by the body; and also that by proper means, which ordinarily are in the reach of all, water can be made sufficiently pure.

It is allowed by all that milk, and the juices of fruits, when taken into the stomach, furnish water that is always pure, and that our bread and vegetable food also supply it in large quantities. There are besides a great variety of agreeable and healthful beverages, made from the juices of fruit, containing no alcohol, and agreeable drinks, such as milk, cocoa, and chocolate, that contain no stimulating principles, and which are nourishing and healthful.

As one course, then, is perfectly safe and another involves great danger, it is wrong and sinful to choose the path of danger. There is no peril in drinking pure water, milk, the juices of fruits, and infusions that are nourishing and harmless. But there is great danger to the young, and to the commonwealth, in patronizing the sale and use of alcoholic drinks. The religion of Christ, in its distinctive feature, involves generous self-denial for the good of others, especially for the weaker members of society. It is on this principle that St. Paul sets forth his own example, "If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." And again he teaches, "We, then, that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."

This Christian principle also applies to the common drinks of the family, tea and coffee.

It has been shown that the great end for which Jesus Christ came, and for which he instituted the family state, is the training of our whole race to virtue and happiness, with chief reference to an immortal existence. In this mission, of which woman is chief minister, as before stated, the distinctive feature is self-sacrifice of the wiser and stronger members to save and to elevate the weaker ones. The children and the servants are these weaker members, who by ignorance and want of habits of self-control are in most danger. It is in this aspect that we are to consider the expediency of using tea and coffee in a family.

These drinks are a most extensive cause of much of the nervous debility and suffering endured by American women; and relinquishing them, would save an immense amount of such suffering. Moreover, all housekeepers will allow that they can not regulate these drinks in their kitchens, where the ignorant use them to excess. There is little probability that the present generation will make so decided a change in their habits as to give up these beverages; but the subject is presented rather in reference to forming the habits of children.

It is a fact that tea and coffee are at first seldom or never agreeable to children. It is the mixture of milk, sugar, and water, that reconciles them to a taste, which in this manner gradually becomes agreeable. Now suppose that those who provide for a family conclude that it is not their duty to give up entirely the use of stimulating drinks, may not the case appear different in regard to teaching their children to love such drinks? Let the matter be regarded thus: The experiments of physiologists all prove that stimulants are not needful to health, and that, as the general rule, they tend to debilitate the constitution. Is it right, then, for a parent to tempt a child to drink what is not needful, when there is a probability that it will prove, to some extent, an undermining drain on the constitution? Some constitutions can bear much less excitement than others; and in every family of children, there is usually one or more of delicate organization, and consequently peculiarly exposed to dangers from this source. It is this child who ordinarily becomes the victim to stimulating drinks. The tea and coffee which the parents and the healthier children can use without immediate injury, gradually sap the energies of the feebler child, who proves either an early victim or a living martyr to all the sufferings that debilitated nerves inflict. Can it be right to lead children where all allow that there is some danger, and where in many cases disease and death are met, when, another path is known to be perfectly safe?

The impression common in this country, that warm drinks, especially in winter, are more healthful than cold, is not warranted by any experience, nor by the laws of the physical system. At dinner, cold drinks are universal, and no one deems them injurious. It is only at the other two meals that they are supposed to be hurtful.

There is no doubt that warm drinks are healthful, and more agreeable than cold, at certain times and seasons; but it is equally true that drinks above blood-heat are not healthful. If a person should bathe in warm water every day, debility would inevitably follow; for the frequent application of the stimulus of heat, like all other stimulants, eventually causes relaxation and weakness. If, therefore, a person is in the habit of drinking hot drinks twice a day, the teeth, throat, and stomach are gradually debilitated. This, most probably, is one of the causes of an early decay of the teeth, which is observed to be much more common among American ladies, than among those in European countries.

It has been stated to the writer, by an intelligent traveler who had visited Mexico, that it was rare to meet an individual with even a tolerable set of teeth, and that almost every grown person he met in the street had merely remnants of teeth. On inquiry into the customs of the country, it was found that it was the universal practice to take their usual beverage at almost the boiling-point; and this doubtless was the chief cause of the almost entire want of teeth in that country. In the United States, it can not be doubted that much evil is done in this way by hot drinks. Most tea-drinkers consider tea as ruined if it stands until it reaches the healthful temperature for drink.

The following extract, from Dr. Andrew Combe, presents the opinion of most intelligent medical men on this subject. [Footnote: The writer would here remark, in reference to extracts made from various authors, that, for the sake of abridging, she has often left out parts of a paragraph, but never so as to modify the meaning of the author. Some ideas, not connected with the subject in hand, are omitted, but none are altered.]

"Water is a safe drink for all constitutions, provided it be resorted to in obedience to the dictates of natural thirst only, and not of habit. Unless the desire for it is felt, there is no occasion for its use during a meal."

"The primary effect of all distilled and fermented liquors is to stimulate the nervous system and quicken the circulation. In infancy and childhood, the circulation is rapid and easily excited; and the nervous system is strongly acted upon even by the slightest external impressions. Hence, slight causes of irritation readily excite febrile and convulsive disorders. In youth, the natural tendency of the constitution is still to excitement, and consequently, as a general rule, the stimulus of fermented liquors is injurious."

These remarks show that parents, who find that stimulating drinks are not injurious to themselves, may mistake in inferring from this that they will not be injurious to their children.

Dr. Combe continues thus: "In mature age, when digestion is good, and the system in full vigor, if the mode of life be not too exhausting, the nervous functions and general circulation are in their best condition, and require no stimulus for their support. The bodily energy is then easily sustained by nutritious food and a regular regimen, and consequently artificial excitement only increases the wasting of the natural strength."

It may be asked, in this connection, why the stimulus of animal food is not to be regarded in the same light as that of stimulating drinks. In reply, a very essential difference may he pointed out. Animal food furnishes nutriment to the organs which it stimulates, but stimulating drinks excite the organs to quickened action without affording any nourishment.

It has been supposed by some that tea and coffee have, at least, a degree of nourishing power. But it is proved that it is the milk and sugar, and not the main portion of the drink, which imparts the nourishment. Tea has not one particle of nourishing properties; and what little exists in the coffee-berry is lost by roasting it in the usual mode. All that these articles do, is simply to stimulate without nourishing.

Although there is little hope of banishing these drinks, there is still a chance that something may be gained in attempts to regulate their use by the rules of temperance. If, then, a housekeeper can not banish tea and coffee entirely, she may use her influence to prevent excess, both by her instructions, and by the power of control committed more or less to her hands.

It is important for every housekeeper to know that the health of a family very much depends on the purity of water used for cooking and drinking. There are three causes of impure and unhealthful water. One is, the existence in it of vegetable or animal matter, which can be remedied by filtering through sand and charcoal. Another cause is, the existence of mineral matter, especially in limestone countries, producing diseases of the bladder. This is remedied in a measure by boiling, which secures a deposit of the lime on the vessel used. The third cause is, the corroding of zinc and lead used in pipes and reservoirs, producing oxides that are slow poisons. The only remedy is prevention, by having supply-pipes made of iron, like gas-pipe, instead of zinc and lead; or the lately invented lead pipe lined with tin, which metal is not corrosive. The obstacle to this is, that the trade of the plumbers would be greatly diminished by the use of reliable pipes. When water must be used from supply-pipes of lead or zinc, it is well to let the water run some time before drinking it and to use as little as possible, taking milk instead; and being further satisfied for inner necessities by the water supplied by fruits and vegetables. The water in these is always pure. But in using milk as a drink, it must be remembered that it is also rich food, and that less of other food must be taken when milk is thus used, or bilious troubles will result from excess of food.

The use of opium, especially by women, is usually caused at first by medical prescriptions containing it. All that has been stated as to the effect of alcohol in the brain is true of opium; while, to break a habit thus induced is almost hopeless, Every woman who takes or who administers this drug, is dealing as with poisoned arrows, whose wounds are without cure.

The use of tobacco in this country, and especially among young boys, is increasing at a fearful rate. On this subject, we have the unanimous opinion of all medical men; the following being specimens.

A distinguished medical writer thus states the case: "Every physician knows that the agreeable sensations that tempt to the use of tobacco are caused by nicotine, which is a rank poison, as much so as prussic acid or arsenic. When smoked, the poison is absorbed by the blood of the mouth, and carried to the brain. When chewed, the nicotine passes to the blood through the mouth and stomach. In both cases, the whole nervous system is thrown, into abnormal excitement to expel the poison, and it is this excitement that causes agreeable sensations. The excitement thus caused is invariably followed by a diminution of nervous power, in exact proportion to the preceding excitement to expel the evil from the system."

Few will dispute the general truth and effect of the above statement, so that the question is one to be settled on the same principle as applies to the use of alcoholic drinks. Is it, then, according to the generous principles of Christ's religion, for those who are strong and able to bear this poison, to tempt the young, the ignorant, and the weak to a practice not needful to any healthful enjoyment, and which leads multitudes to disease, and often to vice? For the use of tobacco tends always to lessen nerve-power, and probably every one out of five that indulges in its use awakens a morbid craving for increased stimulus, lessens the power of self-control, diminishes the strength of the constitution, and sets an example that influences the weak to the path of danger and of frequent ruin.

The great danger of this age is an increasing, intense worldliness, and disbelief in the foundation principle of the religion of Christ, that we are to reap through everlasting ages the consequences of habits formed in this life. In the light of his word, they only who are truly wise "shall shine as the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars, forever and ever."

It is increased faith or belief in the teachings of Christ's religion, as to the influence of this life upon the life to come, which alone can save our country and the world from that inrushing tide of sensualism and worldliness, now seeming to threaten the best hopes and prospects of our race.

And woman, as the chief educator of our race, and the prime minister of the family state, is bound in the use of meats and drinks to employ the powerful and distinctive motives of the religion of Christ in forming habits of temperance and benevolent self-sacrifice for the good of others.

Both the health and comfort of a family depend, to a great extent, on cleanliness of the person and the family surroundings. True cleanliness of person involves the scientific treatment of the skin. This is the most complicated organ of the body, and one through which the health is affected more than through any other; and no persons can or will he be so likely to take proper care of it as those by whom its construction and functions are understood.

[Illustration: Fig. 57.]

Fig. 57 is a very highly magnified portion of the skin. The layer marked 1 is the outside, very thin skin, called the cuticle or scarf skin. This consists of transparent layers of minute cells, which are constantly decaying and being renewed, and the white scurf that passes from the skin to the clothing is a decayed portion of these cells. This part of the skin has neither nerves nor blood-vessels.

The dark layer, marked 2, 7, 8, is that portion of the true skin which gives the external color marking diverse races. In the portion of the dark layer marked 3, 4, is seen a network of nerves which run from two branches of the nervous trunks coming from the spinal marrow. These arc nerves of sensation, by which the sense of touch or feeling is performed. Fig. 58 represents the blood-vessels, (intermingled with the nerves of the skin,) which divide into minute capillaries that act like the capillaries of the lungs, taking oxygen from the air, and giving out carbonic acid. At a, and b are seen the roots of two hairs, which abound in certain parts of the skin, and are nourished by the blood of the capillaries.

[Illustration: Fig. 58.]
[Illustration: Fig. 59.]

At Fig. 59 is a magnified view of another set of vessels, called the lymphatics or absorbents. These are extremely minute vessels that interlace with the nerves and blood-vessels of the skin. Their office is to aid in collecting the useless, injurious, or decayed matter, and carry it to certain reservoirs, from which it passes into some of the large veins, to be thrown out through the lungs, bowels, kidneys, or skin. These absorbent or lymphatic; vessels have mouths opening on the surface of the true skin, and, though covered by the cuticle, they can absorb both liquids and solids that are placed in close contact with the skin. In proof of this, one of the main trunks of the lymphatics in the hand can be cut off from all communication with other portions, and tied up: and if the hand is immersed in milk a given time, it will be found that the milk has been, absorbed through the cuticle and fills the lymphatics. In this way, long-continued blisters on the skin will introduce the blistering matter into the blood through the absorbents, and then the kidneys will take it up from the blood passing through them to carry it out of the body, and thus become irritated and inflamed by it.

[Illustration: Fig. 60]

There are also oil-tubes, imbedded in the skin, that draw off oil from the blood. This issues on the surface and spreads over the cuticle to keep it soft and moist. But the most curious part of the skin is the system of innumerable minute perspiration-tubes. Fig. 60 is a drawing of one very greatly magnified. These tubes open on the cuticle, and the openings are called pores of the skin. They descend into the true skin, and there form a coil, as is seen in the drawing. These tubes are hollow, like a pipe-stem, and their inner surface consists of wonderfully minute capillaries filled with the impure venous blood. And in these small tubes the same process is going on as takes places when the carbonic acid and water of the blood are exhaled from the lungs. The capillaries of these tubes through the whole skin of the body are thus constantly exhaling the noxious and decayed particles of the body, just as the lungs pour them out through the mouth and nose.

It has been shown that the perspiration-tubes are coiled up into a ball at their base. The number and extent of these tubes are astonishing. In a square inch on the palm of the hand have been counted, through a microscope, thirty-five hundred of these tubes. Each one of them is about a quarter of an inch in length, including its coils. This makes the united lengths of these little tubes to be seventy-three feet to a square inch. Their united length, over the whole body is thus calculated to be equal to twenty-eight miles. What a wonderful apparatus this! And what mischiefs must ensue when the drainage from the body of such an extent as this becomes obstructed!

But the inside of the body also has a skin, as have all its organs. The interior of the head, the throat, the gullet, the lungs, the stomach, and all the intestines, are lined with a skin. This is called the mucous membrane, because it is constantly secreting from the blood a slimy substance called mucus. When it accumulates in the lungs, it is called phlegm. This inner skin also has nerves, blood-vessels, and lymphatics. The outer skin joins to the inner at the month, the nose, and other openings of the body, and there is a constant sympathy between the two skins, and thus between the inner organs and the surface of the body.

SECRETING ORGANS.

Those vessels of the body which draw off certain portions of the blood and change it into a new form, to be employed for service or to be thrown out of the body, are called secreting organs. The skin in this sense is a secreting organ, as its perspiration-tubes secrete or separate the bad portions of the blood, and send them off.

Of the internal secreting organs, the liver is the largest. Its chief office is to secrete from the blood all matter not properly supplied with oxygen. For this purpose, a set of veins carries the blood of all the lower intestines to the liver, where the imperfectly oxidized matter is drawn off in the form of bile, and accumulated in a reservoir called the gall-bladder. Thence it passes to the place where the smaller intestines receive the food from the stomach, and there it mixes with this food. Then it passes through the long intestines, and is thrown out of the body through the rectum. This shows how it is, that want of pure and cool air and exercise causes excess of bile, from lack of oxygen. The liver also has arterial blood sent to nourish it, and corresponding veins to return this blood to the heart. So there are two sets of blood-vessels for the liver--one to secrete the bile, and the other to nourish the organ itself.

The kidneys secrete from the arteries that pass, through them all excess of water in the blood, and certain injurious substances. These are carried through small tubes to the bladder, and thence thrown out of the body.

The pancreas, a whitish gland, situated in the abdomen below the stomach, secretes from the arteries that pass through it the pancreatic juice, which unites with the bile from the liver, in preparing the food for nourishing the body.

There are certain little glands near the eyes that secrete the tears, and others near the mouth that secrete the saliva, or spittle.

These organs all have arteries sent to them to nourish them, and also veins to carry away the impure blood. At the same time, they secrete from the arterial blood the peculiar fluid which it is their office to supply.

All the food that passes through the lower intestines which is not drawn off by the lacteals or by some of these secreting organs, passes from the body through a passage called the rectum.

Learned men have made very curious experiments; to ascertain how much the several organs throw out of the body, It is found that the skin throws off five out of eight pounds of the food and drink, or probably about three or four pounds a day. The lungs throw off one quarter as much as the skin, or about a pound a day. The remainder is carried off by the kidneys and lower intestines.

There is such a sympathy and connection between all the organs of the body, that when one of them is unable to work, the others perform the office of the feeble one. Thus, if the skin has its perspiration-tubes closed up by a chill, then all the poisonous matter that would have been thrown out through them must be emptied out either by the lungs, kidneys, or bowels.

When all these organs are strong and healthy, they can bear this increased labor without injury. But if the lungs are weak, the blood sent from the skin by the chill engorges the weak blood-vessels, and produces an inflammation of the lungs. Or it increases the discharge of a slimy mucous substance, that exudes from the skin of the lungs. This fills up the air-vessels, and would very soon end life, were it not for the spasms of the lungs, called coughing, which throw off this substance.

If, on the other hand, the bowels are weak, a chill of the skin sends the blood into all the blood-vessels of the intestines, and produces inflammation there, or else an excessive secretion of the mucous substance, which is called a diarrhea. Or if the kidneys are weak, there is an increased secretion and discharge from them, to an unhealthy and injurious extent.

This connection between the skin and internal organs is shown, not only by the internal effects of a chill on the skin; but by the sympathetic effect on the skin when these internal organs suffer. For example, there are some kinds of food that will irritate and influence the stomach or the bowels; and this, by sympathy, will produce an immediate eruption on the skin. Some persons, on eating strawberries, will immediately be affected with a nettle-rash. Others can not eat certain shell-fish without being affected in this way. Many humors on the face are caused by a diseased state of the internal organs with which the skin sympathizes.

This short account of the construction of the skin, and of its intimate connection with the internal organs, shows the philosophy of those modes of medical treatment that are addressed to this portion of the body.

It is on this powerful agency that the steam-doctors rely, when, by moisture and heat, they stimulate all the innumerable perspiration-tubes and lymphatics to force out from the body a flood of unnaturally excited secretions; while it is "kill or cure," just as the chance may meet or oppose the demands of the case. It is the skin also that is the chief basis of medical treatment in the Water Cure, whose slow processes are as much safer as they are slower.

At the same time it is the ill-treatment or neglect of the skin which, probably, is the cause of disease and decay to an incredible extent. The various particulars in which this may be seen will now be pointed out. In the management and care of this wonderful and complex part of the body, many mistakes have been made.

The most common one is the misuse of the bath, especially since cold water cures have come into use. This mode of medical treatment originated with an ignorant peasant, amid a population where outdoor labor had strengthened nerves and muscles and imparted rugged powers to every part of the body. It was then introduced into England and America without due consideration or knowledge of the diseases habits, or real condition of patients, especially of women. The consequence was a mode of treatment too severe and exhausting; and many practices were spread abroad not warranted by true medical science.

But in spite of these mistakes and abuses, the treatment of the skin for disease by the use of cold water has become an accepted doctrine of the most learned medical practitioners. It is now held by all such that fevers can be detected in their distinctive features by the thermometer, and that all fevers can be reduced by cold baths and packing in the wet sheet, in the mode employed in all water-cures. Directions for using this method will be given in another place.

It has been supposed that large bath-tubs for immersing the whole person are indispensable to the proper cleaning of the skin. This is not so. A wet towel, applied every morning to the skin, followed by friction in pure air, is all that is absolutely needed; although a full bath is a great luxury. Access of air to every part of the skin when its perspiratory tubes are cleared and its blood-vessels are filled by friction is the best ordinary bath.

In early life, children should be washed all over, every night or morning, to remove impurities from the skin. But in this process, careful regard should be paid to the peculiar constitution of a child. Very nervous children sometimes revolt from cold water, and like a tepid bath. Others prefer a cold bath; and nature should be the guide. It must be remembered that the skin is the great organ of sensation, and in close connection with brain, spine, and nerve-centres: so that what a strong nervous system can bear with advantage is too powerful and exhausting for another. As age advances, or as disease debilitates the body, great care should be taken not to overtax the nervous system by sudden shocks, or to diminish its powers by withdrawing animal heat to excess. Persons lacking robustness should bathe or use friction in a warm room; and if very delicate, should expose only a portion of the body at once to cold air.

Johnson, a celebrated writer on agricultural chemistry, tells of an experiment by friction on the skin of pigs, whose skins are like that of the human race. He treated six of these animals with a curry-comb seven weeks, and left three other pigs untouched. The result was a gain of thirty-three pounds more of weight, with the use of five bushels less of food for those curried, than for the neglected ones. This result was owing to the fact that all the functions of the body were more perfectly performed when, by friction, the skin was kept free from filth and the blood in it exposed to the air. The same will be true of the human skin. A calculation has been made on this fact, by which it is estimated that a man, by proper care of his skin, would save over thirty-one dollars in food yearly, which is the interest on over five hundred dollars. If men will give as much care to their own skin, as they give to currying a horse, they will gain both health and wealth.

There is no duty of those persons having control of a family where principle and practice are more at variance than in regulating the dress of young girls, especially at the most important and critical period of life. It is a difficult duty for parents and teachers to contend with the power of fashion, which at this time of a young girl's life is frequently the ruling thought, and when to be out of the fashion, to be odd and not dress as all her companions do, is a mortification and grief that no argument or instructions can relieve. The mother is often so overborne that, in spite of her better wishes, the daughter adopts modes of dress alike ruinous to health and to beauty.

The greatest protection against such an emergency is to train a child to understand the construction of her own body and to impress upon her, in early days, her obligations to the invisible Friend and Guardian of her life, the "Former of her body and the Father of her spirit," who has committed to her care so precious and beautiful a casket. And the more she can be made to realize the skill and beauty of construction shown in her earthly frame, the more will she feel the obligation to protect it from injury and abuse.

It is a singular fact that the war of fashion has attacked most fatally what seems to be the strongest foundation, and defense of the body, the bones. For this reason, the construction and functions of this part of the body will now receive attention.

The bones are composed of two substances, one animal, and the other mineral. The animal part is a very fine network, called cellular membrane. In this are deposited the harder mineral substances, which are composed principally of carbonate and phosphate of lime. In very early life, the bones consist chiefly of the animal part, and are then soft and pliant. As the child advances in age, the bones grow harder, by the gradual deposition of the phosphate of lime, which is supplied by the food, and carried to the bones by the blood. In old age, the hardest material preponderates; malting the bones more brittle than in earlier life.

The bones are covered with a thin skin or membrane, filled with small blood-vessels which convey nourishment to them,

Where the hones unite with others to form joints, they are covered with cartilage, which is a smooth, white, elastic substance. This enables the joints to move smoothly, while its elasticity prevents injuries from sudden jars.

The joints are bound together by strong, elastic bands called ligaments, which hold them firmly and prevent dislocation.

Between the ends of the bones that unite to form joints are small sacks or bags, that contain a soft lubricating fluid. This answers the same purpose fur the joints as oil in making machinery work smoothly, while the supply is constant and always in exact proportion to the demand.

If you will examine the leg of some fowl, you can see the cartilage that covers the ends of the bones at the joints, and the strong white ligaments that bind the joints together.

The health, of the bones depends on the proper nourishment and exercise of the body as much as that of any other part. When a child is feeble and unhealthy, or when it grows up without exercise, the bones do not become firm and hard as they are when the body is healthfully developed by exercise. The size as well as the strength of the bones, to a certain extent, also depend upon exercise and good health.

[Illustration: Fig. 61]

The chief supporter of the body is the spine, which consists of twenty-four small bones, interlocked or hooked into each other, while between them are elastic cushions of cartilage which aid in preserving the upright, natural position. Fig. 61 shows three of the spinal bones, hooked into each other, the dark spaces showing the disks or flat circular plates of cartilage between them.

The spine is held in its proper position, partly by the ribs, partly by muscles, partly by aid of the elastic disks, and partly by the close packing of the intestines in front of it.

The upper part of the spine is often thrown out of its proper position by constant stooping of the head over books or work. This affects the elastic disks so that they grow thick at the back side and thinner at the front side by such constant pressure. The result is the awkward projection of the head forward which is often seen in schools and colleges.

Another distortion of the spine is produced by tight dress around the waist. The liver occupies the right side of the body and is a solid mass, while on the other side is the larger part of the stomach, which is often empty. The consequence of tight dress around the waist is a constant pressure of the spine toward the unsupported part where the stomach lies. Thus the elastic dials again are compressed; till they become thinner on one side than the other, and harden into that condition. This produces what is called the lateral curvature of the spine, making one shoulder higher than the other.

The compression of the lower part of the waist is especially dangerous at the time young girls first enter society and are tempted to dress according to the fashion. Many a school-girl, whose waist was originally of a proper and healthful size, has gradually pressed the soft bones of youth until the lower ribs that should rise and fall with every breath, become entirely unused. Then the abdominal breathing, performed by the lower part of the lungs, ceases; the whole system becomes reduced in strength; the abdominal muscles that hold up the interior organs become weak, and the upper ones gradually sink upon the lower. This pressure of the upper interior organs upon the lower ones, by tight dress, is increased by the weight of clothing resting on the hips and abdomen. Corsets, as usually worn, have no support from the shoulders, and consequently all the weight of dress resting upon or above them presses upon the hips and abdomen, and this in such a way as to throw out of use and thus weaken the most important supporting muscles of the abdomen, and impede abdominal breathing.

The diaphragm is a kind of muscular floor, extending across the centre of the body, on which the heart and lungs rest. Beneath it are the liver, stomach, and the abdominal viscera, or intestines, which are supported by the abdominal muscles, running upward, downward, and crosswise. When these muscles are thrown out of use, they lose their power, the whole system of organs mainly resting on them for support can not continue in their naturally snug, compact, and rounded form, but become separated, elongated, and unsupported. The stomach begins to draw from above instead of resting on the viscera beneath. This in some cases causes dull and wandering pains, a sense of pulling at the centre of the chest, and a drawing downward at the pit of the stomach. Then as the support beneath is really gone, there is what is often called "a feeling of goneness." This is sometimes relieved by food, which, so long as it remains in a solid form, helps to hold up the falling superstructure. This displacement of the stomach, liver, and spleen interrupts their healthful functions, and dyspepsia and biliary difficulties not unfrequently are the result.

As the stomach and its appendages fall downward, the diaphragm, which holds up the heart and lungs, must descend also. In this state of things, the inflation of the lungs is less and less aided by the abdominal muscles, and is confined chiefly to their upper portion. Breathing sometimes thus becomes quicker and shorter on account of the elongated or debilitated condition of the assisting organs. Consumption not unfrequently results from this cause.

The heart also feels the evil. "Palpitations," "flutterings," "sinking feelings," all show that, in the language of Scripture, "the heart trembleth, and is moved out of its place."

But the lower intestines are the greatest sufferers from this dreadful abuse of nature. Having the weight of all the unsupported organs above pressing them into unnatural and distorted positions, the passage of the food is interrupted, and inflammations, indurations, and constipation, are the frequent result. Dreadful ulcers and cancers may be traced in some instances to this cause.

Although these internal displacements are most common among women, some foolish members of the other sex are adopting customs of dress, in girding the central portion of the body, that tend to similar results.

But this distortion brings upon woman peculiar distresses. The pressure of the whole superincumbent mass on the pelvic or lower organs induces sufferings proportioned in acuteness to the extreme delicacy and sensitiveness of the parts thus crushed. And the intimate connection of these organs with the brain and whole nervous system renders injuries thus inflicted the causes of the most extreme anguish, both of body and mind. This evil is becoming so common, not only among married women, but among young girls, as to be a just cause for universal alarm.

How very common these sufferings are, few but the medical profession can realize, because they are troubles that must be concealed. Many a woman is moving about in uncomplaining agony who, with any other trouble involving equal suffering, would be on her bed surrounded by sympathizing friends.

The terrible sufferings that are sometimes thus induced can never be conceived of, or at all appreciated from, any use of language. Nothing that the public can be made to believe on this subject will ever equal the reality. Not only mature persons and mothers, but fair young girls sometimes, are shut up for months and years as helpless and suffering invalids from this cause. This may be found all over the land. And there frequently is a horrible extremity of suffering in certain forms of this evil, which no woman of feeble constitution can ever be certain may not be her doom. Not that in all cases this extremity is involved, but none can say who will escape it.

In regard to this, if one must choose for a friend or a child, on the one hand, the horrible torments inflicted by savage Indians or cruel inquisitors on their victims, or, on the other, the protracted agonies that result from such deformities and displacements, sometimes the former would be a merciful exchange.

And yet this is the fate that is coming to meet the young as well as the mature in every direction. And tender parents are unconsciously leading their lovely and hapless daughters to this awful doom.

There is no excitement of the imagination in what is here indicated. If the facts and details could be presented, they would send a groan of terror all over the land. For it is not one class, or one section, that is endangered. In every part of our country the evil is progressing.

And, as if these dreadful ills were not enough, there have been added methods of medical treatment at once useless, torturing to the mind, and involving great liability to immoralities.

[Illustration: Fig. 62.]

In hope of abating these evils, drawings are given (Fig. 62 and Fig. 63) of the front and back of a jacket that will preserve the advantages of the corset without its evils. This jacket may at first be fitted to the figure with corsets underneath it, just like the waist of a dress. Then, delicate whalebones can be used to stiffen the jacket, so that it will take the proper shape, when the corset may be dispensed with. The buttons below are to hold all articles of dress below the waist by button-holes. By this method, the bust is supported as well as by corsets, while the shoulders support from above, as they should do, the weight of the dress below. No stiff bone should be allowed to press in front, and the jacket should be so loose that a full breath can be inspired with ease, while in a sitting position.

[Illustration: Fig. 63.]

The proper way to dress a young girl is to have a cotton or flannel close-fitting jacket next the body, to which the drawers should be buttoned. Over this, place the chemise; and over that, such a jacket as the one here drawn, to which should be buttoned the hoops and other skirts. Thus every article of dress will be supported by the shoulders. The sleeves of the jacket can be omitted, and in that ease a strong lining, and also a tape binding, must surround the arm-hole, which should be loose.

It is hoped that increase of intelligence and moral power among mothers, and a combination among them to regulate fashions, may banish the pernicious practices that have prevailed. If a school-girl dress without corsets and without tight belts could be established as a fashion, it would be one step gained in the right direction. Then if mothers could secure daily domestic exercise in chambers, eating-rooms and parlors in loose dresses, a still farther advance would be secured.

A friend of the writer informs her that her daughter had her wedding outfit made up by a fashionable milliner in Paris, and every dress was beautifully fitted to the form, and yet was not compressing to any part. This was done too without the use of corsets, the stiffening being delicate and yielding whalebones.

Not only parents but all having the care of young girls, especially those at boarding-schools, have a fearful responsibility resting upon them in regard to this important duty.

In regard to the dressing of young children, much discretion is needed to adapt dress to circumstances and peculiar constitutions. The leading fact must be borne in mind that the skin is made strong and healthful by exposure to light and pure air, while cold air, if not excessive, has a tonic influence. If the skin of infants is rubbed with the hand till red with blood, and then exposed naked to sun and air in a well-ventilated room, it will be favorable to health.

There is a constitutional difference in the skin of different children in regard to retaining the animal heat manufactured within, so that some need more clothing than others for comfort. Nature is a safe guide to a careful nurse and mother, and will indicate by the looks and actions of a child when more clothing is needful. As a general rule, it is safe for a healthful child to wear as little clothing as suffices to keep it from complaining of cold. Fifty years ago, it was not common for children to wear as much under-clothing as they now do. The writer well remembers how even girls, though not of strong constitutions, used to play for hours in the snow-drifts without the protection of drawers, kept warm by exercise and occasional runs to an open fire. And multitudes of children grew to vigorous maturity through similar exposures to cold air-baths, and without the frequent, colds and sicknesses so common among children of the present day, who are more carefully housed and warmly dressed. But care was taken that the feet should be kept dry and warmly clad, because, circulation being feebler in the extremities, this precaution was important.

It must also be considered that age brings with it decrease in vigor of circulation, and the consequent generation of heat, so that more warmth of air and clothing is needed at an advanced period of life than is suitable for the young.

These are the general principles which must be applied with modification to each individual case. A child of delicate constitution must have more careful protection from cold air than is desirable for one more vigorous, while the leading general principle is retained that cold air is a healthful tonic for the skin whenever it does not produce an uncomfortable chilliness.

There are but a few things on which health, and happiness depend more than on the manner in which food is cooked. You may make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; but if the stomach is fed with sour bread and burnt meats, it will raise such rebellions that the eyes will see no beauty anywhere. The abundance of splendid material we have in America is in great contrast with the style of cooking most prevalent in our country. How often, in journeys, do we sit down to tables loaded with material, originally of the very best kind, winch has been so spoiled in the treatment that there is really nothing to eat! Green biscuits with acrid spots of alkali; sour yeast-bread; meat slowly simmered in fat till it seemed like grease itself, and slowly congealing in cold grease; and above all, that unpardonable enormity, strong butter! How one longs to show people what might have been done with the raw material out of which all these monstrosities were concocted!

There is no country where an ample, well-furnished table is more easily spread, and for that reason, perhaps, none where the bounties of Providence are more generally neglected. Considering that our resources are greater than those of any other civilized people, our results are comparatively poorer.

It is said that a list of the summer vegetables which are exhibited on New-York hotel-tables being shown to a French artiste, he declared that to serve such a dinner properly would take till midnight. A traveler can not but be struck with our national plenteousness, on returning from a Continental tour, and going directly from the ship to a New-York hotel, in the bounteous season of autumn. For months habituated to neat little bits of chop or poultry, garnished with the inevitable cauliflower or potato, which seemed to be the sole possibility after the reign of green peas was over; to sit down all at once to such a carnival! to such ripe, juicy tomatoes, raw or cooked; cucumbers in brittle slices; rich, yellow sweet-potatoes; broad lima-beans, and beans of other and various names; tempting ears of Indian-corn steaming in enormous piles; great smoking tureens of the savory succotash, an Indian gift to the table for which civilization need not blush; sliced egg-plant in delicate fritters; and marrow- squashes, of creamy pulp and sweetness; a rich variety, embarrassing to the appetite, and perplexing to the choice.

Verily, the thought must often occur that the vegetarian doctrine preached in America leaves a man quite as much as he has capacity to eat or enjoy, and that in the midst of such tantalizing abundance he has really lost the apology, which elsewhere bears him out in preying upon his less gifted and accomplished animal neighbors.

But with all this, the American table, taken as a whole, is inferior to that of England or France. It presents a fine abundance of material, carelessly and poorly treated. The management of food is nowhere in the world, perhaps, more slovenly and wasteful. Every thing betokens that want of care that waits on abundance; there are great capabilities and poor execution. A tourist through England can seldom fail, at the quietest country-inn, of finding himself served with the essentials of English table-comfort--his mutton-chop done to a turn, his steaming little private apparatus for concocting his own tea, his choice pot of marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate rolls and creamy butter, all served with care and neatness. In France, one never asks in vain for delicious cafe-au-lait, good bread and butter, a nice omelet, or some savory little portion of meat with a French name. But to a tourist taking like chance in American country-fare, what is the prospect? What is the coffee? what the tea? and the meat? and above all, the butter?

In writing on cooking, the main topics should be first, bread; second, butter; third, meat; fourth, vegetables; and fifth, tea--by which last is meant, generally, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in tea-cups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not.

If these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned. There exists another department, which is often regarded by culinary amateurs and young aspirants as the higher branch and very collegiate course of practical cookery; to wit, confectionery, by which is designated all pleasing and complicated compounds of sweets and spices, devised not for health and nourishment, and strongly suspected of interfering with both--mere tolerated gratifications of the palate, which we eat, not with the expectation of being benefited, but only with the hope of not being injured by them. In this large department rank all sorts of cakes, pies, preserves, etc., whose excellence is often attained by treading under foot and disregarding the five grand essentials.

There is many a table garnished with three or four kinds of well-made cake, compounded with citron and spices and all imaginable good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, the bread some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, and acid, and the butter unutterably detestable, where, if the mistress of the feast had given the care, time, and labor to preparing the simple items of bread, butter, and meat, that she evidently had given to the preparation of these extras, the lot of her guests and family might be much more comfortable. But she does not think of these common articles as constituting a good table. So long as she has puff pastry, rich black cake, clear jelly and preserves, she considers that such unimportant matters as bread, butter, and meat may take care of themselves. It is the same inattention to common things as that which leads people to build houses with stone fronts, and window-caps and expensive front-door trimmings, without bathing-rooms or fireplaces, or ventilators.

Those who go into the country looking for summer board in farm-houses know perfectly well that a table where the butter is always fresh, the tea and coffee of the best kinds and well made, and the meats properly kept, dressed, and served, is the one table of a hundred, the fabulous enchanted island. It seems impossible to get the idea into the minds of many people that what is called common food, carefully prepared, becomes, in virtue of that very care and attention, a delicacy, superseding the necessity of artificially compounded dainties. To begin, then, with the very foundation of a good table:

--Bread: What ought it to be?

It should be light, sweet, and tender. This matter of lightness is the distinctive line between savage and civilized bread. The savage mixes simple flour and water into balls of paste, which he throws into boiling water, and which come out solid, glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, "Man eat dis, he no die," which a facetious traveler who was obliged to subsist on it interpreted to mean, "Dis no kill you, nothing will." In short, it requires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage to digest this primitive form of bread, and of course more or less attention in all civilized modes of bread-making is given to producing lightness. By lightness is meant simply that in order to facilitate digestion the particles are to be separated from each other by little holes or air-cells; and all the different methods of making light bread are neither more nor less than the formation of bread with these air-cells.

So far as we know, there are four practicable methods of aerating bread; namely, by fermentation; by effervescence of an acid and an alkali; by aerated egg, or egg which has been filled with air by the process of beating; and lastly, by pressure of some gaseous substance into the paste, by a process much resembling the impregnation of water in a soda-fountain. All those have one and the same object--to give us the cooked particles of our flour separated by such permanent air-cells as will enable the stomach more readily to digest them.

A very common mode of aerating bread in America is by the effervescence of an acid and an alkali in the flour. The carbonic acid gas time formed products minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook says, makes it light. When this process is performed with exact attention to chemical laws, so that the acid and alkali completely neutralize each other, leaving no overplus of either, the result is often very palatable. The difficulty is, that this is a happy conjunction of circumstances which seldom occurs. The acid most commonly employed is that of sour milk, and, as milk has many degrees of sourness, the rule of a certain quantity of alkali to the pint must necessarily produce very different results at different times. As an actual fact where this mode of making bread prevails, as we lament to say it does to a great extent in this country, one finds five cases of failure to one of success.

It is a woeful thing that the daughters of our land have abandoned the old respectable mode of yeast-brewing and bread-raising for this specious substitute, so easily made, and so seldom well made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called biscuit, which many of our worthy republicans are obliged to eat in these days, is wholly unworthy of the men and women of the republic. Good patriots ought not to be put off in that way--they deserve better fare.

As an occasional variety, as a household convenience for obtaining bread or biscuit at a moment's notice, the process of effervescence may be retained; but, we earnestly entreat American housekeepers, in scriptural language, to stand in the way and ask for the old paths, and return to the good yeast-bread of their sainted grandmothers.

If acid and alkali must be used, by all means let them be mixed in due proportions. No cook should be left to guess and judge for herself about this matter. There are articles made by chemical rule which produce very perfect results, and the use of them obviates the worst dangers in making bread by effervescence.

Of all processes of aeration in bread-making, the oldest and most time-honored mode is by fermentation. That this was known in the days of our Saviour is evident from the forcible simile in which he compares the silent permeating force of truth in human, society to the very familiar household process of raising bread by a little yeast.

There is, however, one species of yeast, much used in some parts of the country, against which protest should be made. It is called salt-risings, or milk-risings, and is made by mixing flour, milk, and a little salt together, and leaving them to ferment. The bread thus produced is often, very attractive, when new and made with great care. It is white and delicate, with fine, even air-cells. It has, however, when kept, some characteristics which remind us of the terms in which our old English Bible describes the effect of keeping the manna of the ancient Israelites, which we are informed, in words more explicit than agreeable, "stank, and bred worms." If salt-rising bread does not fulfill the whole of this unpleasant description, it certainly does emphatically a part of it. The smell which it has in baking, and when more than a day old, suggests the inquiry, whether it is the saccharine or the putrid fermentation with which it is raised. Whoever breaks a piece of it after a day or two, will often see minute filaments or clammy strings drawing out from the fragments, which, with the unmistakable smell, will cause him to pause before consummating a nearer acquaintance.

The fermentation of flour by means of brewer's or distiller's yeast produces, if rightly managed, results far more palatable and wholesome. The only requisites for success in it are, first, good materials, and, second, great care in small things. There are certain low-priced or damaged kinds of flour which can never by any kind of domestic chemistry be made into good broad; and to those persons whose stomachs forbid them to eat gummy, glutinous paste, under the name of bread, there is no economy in buying these poor brands, even at half the price of good flour.

But good flour and good yeast being supposed, with a temperature favorable to the development of fermentation, the whole success of the process depends on the thorough diffusion of the proper proportion of yeast through the whole mass, and on stopping the subsequent fermentation at the precise and fortunate point. The true housewife makes her bread the sovereign of her kitchen--its behests must be attended to in all critical points and moments, no matter what else be postponed.

She who attends to her bread only when she has done this, and arranged that, and performed the other, very often finds that the forces of nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, perfectly mixed, kneaded with care and strength, rises in its beautiful perfection till the moment comes for filling the air-cells by baking. A few minutes now, and the acetous fermentation will begin, and the whole result be spoiled. Many bread-makers pass in utter carelessness over this sacred and mysterious boundary. Their oven has cake in it, or they are skimming jelly, or attending to some other of the so-called higher branches of cookery, while the bread is quickly passing into the acetous stage. At last, when they are ready to attend to it, they find that it has been going its own way,--it is so sour that the pungent smell is plainly perceptible. Now the saleratus-bottle is handed down, and a quantity of the dissolved alkali mixed with the paste--an expedient sometimes making itself too manifest by greenish streaks or small acrid spots in the bread. As the result, we have a beautiful article spoiled--bread without sweetness, if not absolutely sour.

In the view of many, lightness is the only property required in this article. The delicate refined sweetness which exists in carefully kneaded bread, baked just before it passes to the extreme point of fermentation, is something, of which they have no conception; and thus they will even regard this process of spoiling the paste by the acetous fermentation, and then rectifying that acid by effervescence with an alkali, as something positively meritorious. How else can they value and relish bakers' loaves, such as some are, drugged with ammonia and other disagreeable things; light indeed, so light that they seem to have neither weight nor substance, but with no more sweetness or taste than so much cotton wool?

Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in the mass, without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to rise there. The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; the bread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is well kneaded as a raw servant to a perfectly educated and refined lady. The process of kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute air-cells, a fineness of texture, and a tenderness and pliability to the whole substance, that can be gained in no other way.

The divine principle of beauty has its reign over bread as well as over all other things; it has its laws of aesthetics; and that bread which is so prepared that it can be formed into separate and well-proportioned loaves, each one carefully worked and moulded, will develop the most beautiful results. After being moulded, the loaves should stand usually not over ten minutes, just long enough to allow the fermentation going on in them to expand each little air-cell to the point at which it stood before it was worked down, and then they should be immediately put into the oven.

Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. We can not but regret, for the sake of bread, that our old steady brick ovens have been almost universally superseded by those of ranges and cooking-stoves, which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid all general rules. One thing, however, may be borne in mind as a principle--that the excellence of bread in all its varieties, plain or sweetened, depends on the perfection of its air-cells, whether produced by yeast, egg, or effervescence; that one of the objects of baking is to fix these air-cells, and that the quicker this can be done through the whole mass, the better will the result be. When cake or bread is made heavy by baking too quickly, it is because the immediate formation of the top crust hinders the exhaling of the moisture in the centre, and prevents the air-cells from cooking. The weight also of the crust pressing down on the doughy air-cells below destroys them, producing that horror of good cooks, a heavy streak. The problem in baking, then, is the quick application of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its steady continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly dried into permanent consistency. Every housewife must watch her own oven to know how this can be best accomplished.

Bread-making can be cultivated to any extent as a fine art--and the various kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, twists, rolls, into which bread may be made, are much better worth a housekeeper's ambition than the getting-up of rich and expensive cake or confections. There are also varieties of material which are rich in good effects. Unbolted flour, altogether more wholesome than the fine wheat, and when properly prepared more palatable--rye-flour and corn-meal, each affording a thousand attractive possibilities--all of these come under the general laws of bread-stuffs, and are worth a careful attention.

A peculiarity of our American table, particularly in the Southern and Western States, is the constant exhibition of various preparations of hot bread. In many families of the South and West, bread in loaves to be eaten cold is an article quite unknown. The effect of this kind of diet upon the health has formed a frequent subject of remark among travelers; but only those know the full mischiefs of it who have been compelled to sojourn for a length of time in families where it is maintained. The unknown horrors of dyspepsia from bad bread are a topic over which we willingly draw a veil.

Next to Bread comes Butter--on which we have to say, that, when we remember what butter is in civilized Europe, and compare it with what it is in America, we wonder at the forbearance and lenity of travelers in their strictures on our national commissariat.

Butter, in England, France, and Italy, is simply solidified cream, with all the sweetness of the cream in its taste, freshly churned each day, and unadulterated by salt. At the present moment, when salt is five cents a pound and butter fifty, we Americans are paying, at high prices, for about one pound of salt to every ten of butter, and those of us who have eaten the butter of France and England do this with rueful recollections.

There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the American style with salt, which, in its own kind and way, has a merit not inferior to that of England and France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes a rank equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, and worked so perfectly free from every particle of buttermilk that it might make the voyage of the world without spoiling. It is salted, but salted with care and delicacy, so that it may be a question whether even a fastidious Englishman might not prefer its golden solidity to the white, creamy freshness of his own. But it is to be regretted that this article is the exception, and not the rule, on our tables.

America must have the credit of manufacturing and putting into market more bad butter than all that is made in all the rest of the world together. The varieties of bad tastes and smells which prevail in it are quite a study. This has a cheesy taste, that a mouldy, this is flavored with cabbage, and that again with turnip, and another has the strong, sharp savor of rancid animal fat. These varieties probably come from the practice of churning only at long intervals, and keeping the cream meanwhile in unventilated cellars or dairies, the air of which is loaded with the effluvia of vegetable substances. No domestic articles are so sympathetic as those of the milk tribe: they readily take on the smell and taste of any neighboring substance, and hence the infinite variety of flavors on which one mournfully muses who has late in autumn to taste twenty firkins of butter in hopes of finding one which will simply not be intolerable on his winter table.

A matter for despair as regards bad butter is, that at the tables where it is used it stands sentinel at the door to bar your way to every other kind of food. You turn from your dreadful half-slice of bread, which fills your mouth with bitterness, to-your beef-steak, which proves virulent with the same poison; you think to take refuge in vegetable diet, and find the butter in the string-beans, and polluting the innocence of early peas; it is in the corn, hi the succotash, in the squash; the beets swim in it, the onions have it poured over them. Hungry and miserable, you think to solace yourself at the dessert; but the pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with the same plague. You are ready to howl with despair, and your misery is great upon you--especially if this is a table where you have taken board for three months with your delicate wife and four small children. Your case is dreadful, and it is hopeless, because long usage and habit have rendered your host perfectly incapable of discovering what is the matter. "Don't like the butter, sir? I assure you I paid an extra price for it, and it's the very best in the market. I looked over as many as a hundred tubs, and picked out this one." You are dumb, but not less despairing.

Yet the process of making good butter is a very simple one. To keep the cream in a perfectly pure, cool atmosphere, to churn while it is yet sweet, to work out the buttermilk thoroughly, and to add salt with such discretion as not to ruin the fine, delicate flavor of the fresh cream--all this is quite simple, so simple that one wonders at thousands and millions of pounds of butter yearly manufactured which are merely a hobgoblin bewitchment of cream into foul and loathsome poisons.

The third head of my discourse is that of Meat, of which America furnishes, in the gross material, enough to spread our tables royally, were it well cared for and served.

The faults in the meat generally furnished to us are, first, that it is too new. A beef steak, which three or four days of keeping might render palatable, is served up to us palpitating with freshness, with all the toughness of animal muscle yet warm.

In the next place, there is a woeful lack of nicety in the butcher's work of cutting and preparing meat. Who that remembers the neatly trimmed mutton-chop of an English inn, or the artistic little circle of lamb-chop fried in bread-crumbs coiled around a tempting centre of spinach which may always be found in France, can recognize any family resemblance to those dapper, civilized preparations, in these coarse, roughly-hacked strips of bone, gristle, and meat which are commonly called mutton-chop in America? There seems to be a large dish of something resembling meat, in which each fragment has about two or three edible morsels, the rest being composed of dry and burnt skin, fat, and ragged bone.

Is it not time that civilization should learn to demand somewhat more care and nicety in the modes of preparing what is to be cooked and eaten? Might not some of the refinement and trimness which characterize the preparations of the European market be with advantage introduced into our own? The housekeeper who wishes to garnish her table with some of those nice things is stopped in the outset by the butcher. Except in our large cities, where some foreign travel may have created the demand, it seems impossible to get much in this line that is properly prepared.

If this is urged on the score of aesthetics, the ready reply will be, "Oh! we can't give time here in America to go into niceties and French whim-whams!" But the French mode of doing almost all practical things is based on that true philosophy and utilitarian good sense which characterize that seemingly thoughtless people. Nowhere is economy a more careful study, and their market is artistically arranged to this end. The rule is so to cut their meats that no portion designed to be cooked in a certain manner shall have wasteful appendages which that mode of cooking will spoil. The French soup-kettle stands ever ready to receive the bones, the thin fibrous flaps, the sinewy and gristly portions, which are so often included in our roasts or broilings, which fill our plates with unsightly debris, and finally make an amount of blank waste for which we pay our butcher the same price that we pay for what we have eaten.

The dead waste of our clumsy, coarse way of cutting meats is immense. For example, at the beginning of the season, the part of a lamb denominated leg and loin, or hind-quarter, may sell for thirty cents a pound. Now this includes, besides the thick, fleshy portions, a quantity of bone, sinew, and thin fibrous substance, constituting full one third of the whole weight. If we put it into the oven entire, in the usual manner, we have the thin parts over-done, and the skinny and fibrous parts utterly dried up, by the application of the amount of heat necessary to cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint to weigh six pounds, at thirty cents, and that one third of the weight is so treated as to become perfectly useless, we throw away sixty cents. Of a piece of beef at twenty-five cents a pound, fifty cents' worth is often lost in bone, fat, and burnt skin.

The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat in large, gross portions is of English origin, and belongs to a country where all the customs of society spring from a class who have no particular occasion for economy. The practice of minute and delicate division comes from a nation which acknowledges the need of economy, and has made it a study. A quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be sold in three nicely prepared portions. The thick part would be sold by itself, for a neat, compact little roast; the rib-bones would be artistically separated, and all the edible matter would form those delicate dishes of lamb-chop, which, fried in bread-crumbs to a golden brown, are so ornamental and palatable a side-dish; the trimmings which remain after this division would be destined to the soup-kettle or stew-pan.

In a French market is a little portion for every purse, and the far-famed and delicately flavored soups and stews which have arisen out of French economy are a study worth a housekeeper's attention. Not one atom of food is wasted in the French modes of preparation; even tough animal cartilages and sinews, instead of appearing burned and blackened in company with the roast meat to which they happen to be related, are treated according to their own laws, and come out either in savory soups, or those fine, clear meat-jellies which form a garnish no less agreeable to the eye than palatable to the taste.

Whether this careful, economical, practical style of meat-cooking can ever to any great extent be introduced into our kitchens now is a question. Our butchers are against it; our servants are wedded to the old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them easier because they are accustomed to them. A cook who will keep and properly tend a soup-kettle which shall receive and utilize all that the coarse preparations of the butcher would require her to trim away, who understands the art of making the most of all these remains, is a treasure scarcely to be hoped for. If such things are to be done, it must be primarily through the educated brain of cultivated women who do not scorn to turn their culture and refinement upon domestic problems.

When meats have been properly divided, so that each portion can receive its own appropriate style of treatment, next comes the consideration of the modes of cooking. These may be divided into two great general classes: those where it is desired to keep the juices within the meat, as in baking, broiling, and frying--and those whose object is to extract the juice and dissolve the fibre, as in the making of soups and stews. In the first class of operations, the process must be as rapid as may consist with the thorough cooking of all the particles. In this branch of cookery, doing quickly is doing well. The fire must be brisk, the attention alert. The introduction of cooking-stoves offers to careless domestics facilities for gradually drying-up meats, and despoiling them of all flavor and nutriment--facilities which appear to be very generally accepted. They have almost banished the genuine, old-fashioned roast-meat from our tables, and left in its stead dried meats with their most precious and nutritive juices evaporated. How few cooks, unassisted, are competent to the simple process of broiling a beefsteak or mutton-chop! how very generally one has to choose between these meats gradually dried away, or burned on the outside and raw within! Yet in England these articles never come on the table done amiss; their perfect cooking is as absolute a certainty as the rising of the sun.

No one of these rapid processes of cooking, however, is so generally abused as frying. The frying-pan has awful sins to answer for. What untold horrors of dyspepsia have arisen from its smoky depths, like the ghost from witches' caldrons! The fizzle of frying meat is a warning knell on many an ear, saying, "Touch not, taste not, if you would not burn and writhe!"

Yet those who have traveled abroad remember that some of the lightest, most palatable, and most digestible preparations of meat have come from this dangerous source. But we fancy quite other rites and ceremonies inaugurated the process, and quite other hands performed its offices, than those known to our kitchens. Probably the delicate cotelettes of France are not flopped down into half-melted grease, there gradually to warm and soak and fizzle, while Biddy goes in and out on her other ministrations, till finally, when they are thoroughly saturated, and dinner-hour impends, she bethinks herself, and crowds the fire below to a roaring heat, and finishes the process by a smart burn, involving the kitchen and surrounding precincts in volumes of Stygian gloom. From such preparations has arisen the very current medical opinion that fried meats are indigestible. They are indigestible, if they are greasy; but French cooks have taught us that a thing has no more need to be greasy because emerging from grease than Venus had to be salt because she rose from the sea.

There are two ways of frying employed by the French cook. One is, to immerse the article to be cooked in boiling fat, with an emphasis on the present participle--and the philosophical principle is, so immediately to crisp every pore, at the first moment or two of immersion, as effectually to seal the interior against the intrusion of greasy particles; it can then remain as long as may be necessary thoroughly to cook it, without imbibing any more of the boiling fluid than if it were inclosed in an egg-shell. The other method is to rub a perfectly smooth iron surface with just enough of some oily substance to prevent the meat from adhering, and cook it with a quick heat, as cakes are baked, on a griddle. In both these cases there must be the most rapid application of heat that can be made without burning, and by the adroitness shown in working out this problem the skill of the cook is tested. Any one whose cook attains this important secret will find fried things quite as digestible, and often more palatable, than any other.

In the second department of meat-cookery, to wit, the slow and gradual application of heat for the softening and dissolution of its fibre and the extraction of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. Where is the so-called cook who understands how to prepare soups and stews? These are precisely the articles in which a French kitchen excels. The soup-kettle, made with a double bottom, to prevent burning, is a permanent, ever-present institution, and the coarsest and most impracticable meats distilled through that alembic come out again in soups, jellies, or savory stews. The toughest cartilage, even the bones, being first cracked, are here made to give forth their hidden virtues, and to rise in delicate and appetizing forms.

One great law governs all these preparations: the application of heat must be gradual, steady, long protracted, never reaching the point of active boiling. Hours of quiet simmering dissolve all dissoluble parts, soften the sternest fibre, and unlock every minute cell in which Nature has stored away her treasures of nourishment. This careful and protracted application of heat and the skillful use of flavors constitute the two main points in all those nice preparations of meat for which the French have so many names--processes by which a delicacy can be imparted to the coarsest and cheapest food superior to that of the finest articles under less philosophic treatment.

French soups and stews are a study, and they would not be an unprofitable one to any person who wishes to live with comfort and even elegance on small means.

There is no animal fibre that will not yield itself up to long- continued, steady heat. But the difficulty with almost any of the common servants who call themselves cooks is, that they have not the smallest notion of the philosophy of the application of heat. Such a one will complacently tell you concerning certain meats, that the harder you boil them the harder they grow--an obvious fact which, under her mode of treatment by an indiscriminate galloping boil, has frequently come under her personal observation. If you tell her that such meat must stand for six hours in a heat just below the boiling point, she will probably answer, "Yes, ma'am," and go on her own way. Or she will let it stand till it burns to the bottom of the kettle--a most common termination of the experiment.

The only way to make sure of the matter is, either to obtain a French kettle, or to fit into an ordinary kettle a false bottom, such as any tinman may make, that shall leave a space of an inch or two between the meat and the fire. This kettle may be maintained in a constant position on the range, and into it the cook maybe instructed to throw all the fibrous trimmings of meat, all the gristle, tendons, and bones, having previously broken up these last with a mallet. Such a kettle, the regular occupant of a French cooking-stove, which they call the pot au feu, will furnish the basis for clear, rich soups, or other palatable dishes. This is ordinarily called "stock."

Clear soup consists of the dissolved juices of the meat and gelatine of the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrous portions by straining. The grease, which rises to the top of the fluid, may be easily removed when cold.

English and American soups are often heavy and hot with spices. There are appreciable tastes in them. They burn your mouth with cayenne, or clove, or allspice. You can tell at once what is in them, oftentimes to your sorrow. But a French soup has a flavor which one recognizes at once as delicious, yet not to be characterized as due to any single condiment; it is the just blending of many things. The same remark applies to all their stews; ragouts, and other delicate preparations. No cook will ever study these flavors; but perhaps many cooks' mistresses may, and thus, be able to impart delicacy and comfort to economy.

As to those things called hashes, commonly manufactured by unwatched, untaught cooks out of the remains of yesterday's meal, let us not dwell too closely on their memory--compounds of meat, gristle, skin, fat, and burnt fibre, with a handful of pepper and salt flung at them, dredged with lumpy flour, watered from the spout of the tea-kettle, and left to simmer at the cook's convenience while she is otherwise occupied. Such are the best performances a housekeeper can hope for from an untrained cook.

But the cunningly devised minces, the artful preparations choicely flavored, which may be made of yesterday's repast--by these is the true domestic artist known. No cook untaught by an educated brain ever makes these, and yet economy is a great gainer by them.

As regards the department of Vegetables, their number and variety in America are so great that a table might almost be furnished by these alone. Generally speaking, their cooking is a more simple art, and therefore more likely to be found satisfactorily performed, than that of meats. If only they are not drenched with rancid butter, their own native excellence makes itself known in most of the ordinary modes of preparation.

There is, however, one exception. Our staunch old friend, the potato, is to other vegetables what bread is on the table. Like bread, it is held as a sort of sine-qua-non; like that, it may be made invariably palatable by a little care in a few plain particulars, through neglect of which it often becomes intolerable. The soggy, waxy, indigestible viand that often appears in the potato-dish is a downright sacrifice of the better nature of this vegetable.

The potato, nutritive and harmless as it appears, belongs to a family suspected of very dangerous traits. It is a family connection of the deadly-nightshade and other ill-reputed gentry, and sometimes shows strange proclivities to evil--now breaking out uproariously, as in the noted potato-rot, and now more covertly, in various evil affections. For this reason scientific directors bid us beware of the water in which potatoes are boiled-into which, it appears, the evil principle is drawn off; and they caution us not to shred them into stews without previously suffering the slices to lie for an hour or so in salt and water. These cautions are worth attention.

The most usual modes of preparing the potato for the table are by roasting or boiling. These processes are so simple that it is commonly supposed every cook understands them without special directions; and yet there is scarcely an uninstructed cook who can boil or roast a potato.

A good roasted potato is a delicacy worth a dozen compositions of the cook-book; yet when we ask for it, what burnt, shriveled abortions are presented to us! Biddy rushes to her potato-basket and pours out two dozen of different sizes, some having in them three times the amount of matter of others. These being washed, she tumbles them into her oven at a leisure interval, and there lets them lie till it is time to serve breakfast, whenever that may be. As a result, if the largest are cooked, the smallest are presented in cinders, and the intermediate sizes are withered and watery. Nothing is so utterly ruined by a few moments of overdoing. That which at the right moment was plump with mealy richness, a quarter of an hour later shrivels and becomes watery-- and it is in this state that roast potatoes are most frequently served.

In the same manner we have seen boiled potatoes from an untaught cook coming upon the table like lumps of yellow wax--and the same article, under the directions of a skillful mistress, appearing in snowy balls of powdery whiteness. In the one case, they were thrown in their skins into water, and suffered to soak or boil, as the case might be, at the cook's leisure, and after they were boiled to stand in the water till she was ready to peel them. In the other case, the potatoes being first peeled were boiled as quickly as possible in salted water, which the moment they were done was drained off, and then they were gently shaken for a moment or two over the fire to dry them still more thoroughly. We have never yet seen the potato so depraved and given over to evil that it could not be reclaimed by this mode of treatment.

As to fried potatoes, who that remembers the crisp, golden slices of the French restaurant, thin as wafers and light as snow-flakes, does not speak respectfully of them? What cousinship with these have those coarse, greasy masses of sliced potato, wholly soggy and partly burnt, to which we are treated under the name of fried potatoes in America? In our cities the restaurants are introducing the French article to great acceptance, and to the vindication of the fair fame of this queen of vegetables.

Finally, we arrive at the last great head of our subject, to wit-- Tea--meaning thereby, as before observed, what our Hibernian friend did in the inquiry, "Will y'r honor take 'tay tay' or coffee tay?"

We are not about to enter into the merits of the great tea-and-coffee controversy, further than in our general caution concerning them in the chapter on Healthful Drinks; but we now proceed to treat of them as actual existences, and speak only of the modes of making the best of them. The French coffee is reputed the best in the world; and a thousand voices have asked, What is it about the French coffee?

In the first place, then, the French coffee is coffee, and not chickory, or rye, or beans, or peas. In the second place, it is freshly roasted, whenever made--roasted with great care and evenness in a little revolving cylinder which makes part of the furniture of every kitchen, and which keeps in the aroma of the berry. It is never overdone, so as to destroy the coffee-flavor, which is in nine cases out of tent the fault of the coffee we meet with. Then it is ground, and placed in a coffee-pot with a filter through which, when it has yielded up its life to the boiling water poured upon it, the delicious extract percolates in clear drops, the coffee-pot standing on a heated stove to maintain the temperature. The nose of the coffee-pot is stopped up to prevent the escape of the aroma during this process. The extract thus obtained is a perfectly clear, dark fluid, known as caf noir, or black coffee. It is black only because of its strength, being in fact almost the very essential oil of coffee. A table-spoonful of this in boiled milk would make what is ordinarily called a strong cup of coffee. The boiled milk is prepared with no less care. It must be fresh and new, not merely warmed or even brought to the boiling-point, but slowly simmered till it attains a thick, creamy richness. The coffee mixed with this, and sweetened with that sparkling beet-root sugar which ornaments a French table, is the celebrated cafe-au-lait, the name of which has gone round the world.

As we look to France for the best coffee, so we must look to England for the perfection of tea. The tea-kettle is as much an English institution as aristocracy or the Prayer-Book; and when one wants to know exactly how tea should he made, one has only to ask how a fine old English house-keeper makes it.

The first article of her faith is, that the water must not merely be hot, not merely have boiled a few moments since, but be actually boiling at the moment it touches the tea. Hence, though servants in England are vastly better trained than with us, this delicate mystery is seldom left to their hands. Tea-making belongs to the drawing-room, and high-born ladies preside at "the bubbling and loud hissing urn," and see that all due rites and solemnities are properly performed--that the cups are hot, and that the infused tea waits the exact time before the libations commence.

Of late, the introduction of English breakfast-tea has raised a new sect among the tea-drinkers, reversing some of the old canons. Breakfast-tea must be boiled! Unlike the delicate article of olden time, which required only a momentary infusion to develop its richness, this requires a longer and severer treatment to bring out its strength--thus confusing all the established usages, and throwing the work into the hands of the cook in the kitchen. The faults of tea, as too commonly found at our hotels and boarding-houses, are, that it is made in every way the reverse of what it should be. The water is hot, perhaps, but not boiling; the tea has a general flat, stale, smoky taste, devoid of life or spirit; and it is served usually with thin milk, instead of cream. Cream is an essential to the richness of tea as of coffee. Lacking cream, boiled milk is better than cold.

Chocolate is a French and Spanish article, and one seldom served on American tables. We in America, however, make an article every way equal to any which can be imported from Paris, and he who buys the best vanilla-chocolate may rest assured that no foreign land can furnish any thing better. A very rich and delicious beverage may be made by dissolving this in milk, slowly boiled down after the French fashion.

A word now under the head of Confectionery, meaning by this the whole range of ornamental cookery--or pastry, ices, jellies, preserves, etc. The art of making all these very perfectly is far better understood in America than the art of common cooking. There are more women who know how to make good cake than good bread--more who can furnish you with a good ice-cream than a well-cooked mutton-chop; a fair charlotte-russe is easier to gain than a perfect cup of coffee; and you shall find a sparkling jelly to your dessert where you sighed in vain for so simple a luxury as a well-cooked potato.

Our fair countrywomen might rest upon their laurels in these higher fields, and turn their great energy and ingenuity to the study of essentials. To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans in many things as yet have been a little inclined to begin making our shirt at the ruffle; but, nevertheless, when we set about it, we can make the shirt as nicely as any body; it needs only that we turn our attention to it, resolved that, ruffle or no ruffle, the shirt we will have.

A few words as to the prevalent ideas in respect to French cookery. Having heard much of it, with no very distinct idea of what it is, our people have somehow fallen into the notion that its forte lies in high spicing--and so when our cooks put a great abundance of clove, mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon into their preparations, they fancy that they are growing up to be French cooks. But the fact is, that the Americans and English are far more given to spicing than the French. Spices in our made dishes are abundant, and their taste is strongly pronounced. Living a year in France one forgets the taste of nutmeg, clove, and allspice, which abounds in so many dishes in America. The English and Americans deal in spices, the French in flavors--flavors many and flue, imitating often in their delicacy those subtle blendings which nature produces in high-flavored fruits. The recipes of our cookery-books are most of them of English origin, coming down from the times of our phlegmatic ancestors, when the solid, burly, beefy growth of the foggy island required the heat of fiery condiments, and could digest heavy sweets. Witness the national recipe for plum-pudding: which may be rendered: Take a pound of every indigestible substance you can think of, boil into a cannon-ball, and serve in flaming brandy. So of the Christmas mince-pie, and many other national dishes. But in America, owing to our brighter skies and more fervid climate, we have developed an acute, nervous delicacy of temperament far more akin to that of France than of England.

Half of the recipes in our cook-books are mere murder to such constitutions and stomachs as we grow here. We require to ponder these things, and think how we, in our climate and under our circumstances, ought to live; and in doing so, we may, without accusation of foreign foppery, take some leaves from many foreign books.