The Swansea Gazette and Daily Shipping Register

To Mothers. .—o— We are sure you would all like to have a nice hot dinner ready for the children when they come home from school, instead of giving them so much. Bread and Butter and Bread and Jam, and tea. You may have heard that children are not growing up as broad and strong as they used to do. Some people think that now they do so many lessons their brains take a great deal of the nourishment which used to go to their be dies, and they are wondering very much how we can get the children better fed. We nil know you cannot afford to spend a single penny more than you do in providing for your little ones, and that you cannot get them Milk and Meat and Suet Puddings, which we know grow- ing children ought to have. But if we tell you of something which will make them a nourish- ing and tasty dinner two or three times a week, without costing you a penny more than it does for bread, and without taking any more fireing than it does to boil a kettle, will you try it? Take two loaves less a week, and spend the money in buying some lentils; they are lid. per lb. A pound of lentils, cooked as we will show you, will make a good dinner for a family, and would cost lid while a loaf of bread costs at least 2id. Soak the lentils for 20 minutes, rinse them well, and put them in a saucepan with a little salt, and, if you can get it, some chopped onion. Boil these in just enough water to cover them, until they are tender and are like minced meat, stir as they thicken. The children wirl enjoy this as it it, but it is nicer still with potatoes, or a little boiled rioe put round it sometimes would make a change. Another day try a lentil pudding. This is like pease pudding, but it is more quickly cooked. Soak and rinse the lentils, tie them up in a cloth with a little salt, and boil well. Nothing makes nicer soup than lentils. Haif- a-pound of lentils and a few vegetables will make soup for four or five children. Another time you might try a potato pie. Prepare the lentils according to the first recipe, cover them with some mashed potato, and make brown. This it especially nice with plenty of onion, and a few scrape of bacon or meat. For Sunday's dinner get a few "pieces" from the butcher's, cook some lentils (first recipe), add them to the meat, and bake under a crust. If you can manage it, get a pennyworth of curry-powder one day; it will keep a long time if it is well covered. By adding a teaspoonful to half a pound of cooked lentils, a little more onion than usual and a very little sugar, you will have a nice supper dish (with a little rice round it) for yourself and your husband. The children might like a little curry occasionally. Try haricot beans sometimes for a change. They are very cheap, but want more soaking and cooking than lentils; they make nioo soup. Peas, too, are very nourishing. If you could give the childrer otOlJeà oats every day, or every other day, for breakfast instead of bread, it would be muoh better for them; they do not take so long to cook as oat- meal does, and are very cheap. It was all this kind of food which made Daniel and his companions "fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the King's meat" (Dan. I. If). In India and other parts lentils ere regarded as the beet food on which to take a leÐI jonraey, and they are much used abroad. They oon- tain more fleah-fovmmg and fat-forming pro- perties than beef and mutton. Add to all this that there is no cheaper food to be obtained, and we think you will be glad to hare had them brought to your notice, and will never be without some in the house. Tell your neigh- boars about them. A few more hints — Do not apre the children cheap jam and cheap piekles with their bread; good margarine and drippwj (which you can boy at the butchers) are the right things to get if you cannot afford batter. Skim milk is much better than no milk at all, so even without the cream it has things is it which children require, bat whatever milk yam use don't forget to boil it. CooewnpUon, scarlet fever and diphtheria are less likely to attack families where the milk is boiled. lb. member that boiled rice alone is not a xvih ciently nourishing dinner for children in a cold climate, and that bread and butter and tea is no dinner at all for YOU. Do not take tea more than twice a day, and never after H has stood more than llT8 minutee or 80. M.B

If you want a, neat typewritsn circular printed on your own note headigs, you can get it at Vaughan's Printing Works.

FISH WHICH FISH SOH Ornwn FiM. Fish, as a rule are not supposed to be ffMfc admirers of fishing. With them it is generally a matter of being at the wrong en4 'J the liae. But there are some curious-looking fish which do a great deal of fishing themselves. They be long to the silurus faulty. and their distinguish- tag features are thb fiafttacle appendages of the mouth. For a long time, say* Science Sifting* th., precise object of these* tentacle* wss not aa- derstood There did not seem to be aafr possible use for them. Close observation, how- ever, in a tank with numerous other small flak ^■ow the sly silurus ising th«ir tentacle* at da ooys, like the fin ral! of the fishing frog, to entice unwary little fish within reach of the mouth. The long silvery tentacles were waved to and fro until some unwise little fish would approach, either fascinated by the display et consumed by curiosity. When the littl* fish as* dose enough there was a wild rush, a gobble and it was all over. The silurus also uses iti tentacles as hands. The fish has been seen to approach some object in the water, and then, in. stead of getting any closer, it wOIIM project, the points of its tentacles to the object and feel it very gingerly, as if satisfying itself that there was no dinger before making any closet ac- quaintance. — »

TIm QUAKER AND HIS WATCH. The following quaint letter was addressed by a Doncaster Quaker to his watchmaker over a hundred years ago: Friend John,-Once more I send my erro- neous watch which requires tlqy friendly care and correction. The last time he was at thy school he was by no means benefited by thy. in- etruction, as I fino oy the index of his tongue hf is a liar, und his movements are wavering and unsettled. This make- me think he is not right in the inner man. 1 mean the mainspring. Teach him to speak the truth and the equa- tion table, and when thou finds him conformable ko these, send him home with a bill in modern- lion, which will fussu redly be paid by thy true 'riend,—OBADIAH PRtNcj!. ♦

PROVHRBS ABOUT WOMEN. The Germans eay: Listen to a woman's brsA opinion, but not her second." This p' embodies the world-old theory that a wo«..»n'» ^tuition is better than her reason. The French say: "A wife is a perpetual tor. Bent," and A man of straw is worth a woman tf gold." The absurd French cynicism th. t'renoh distrust of womankind, is as well por- trayed in those two proverbs as in one of Guy de Maupassant's storiea. The Spanish leve their women, but in a light and jesting way. Thus their Droverbs_ make •port of her. For instance: '• Women," wind, and fortune are changeable." "If you have any- thing to proclaim in the open market you need only whisper it, to a woman." "Be on your guard against a bad woman and never trust a good one." 44 There is only One bad wife, bu every b 'island thinkshe1.s got ht-r." Bitter and contemptuo is the Italian's idea of woman. They say in taly as they suck des- perately on their miaerably-made Government •igars: "He who loses his wife ani a brass farthing has only lost the latter." The Chinese objeotion to women ia that ebt talks too much. f' A Woman's tongue is her lword, and she never permits it to rust." The American proverbs are kinder" Women oan keep a secret, Dut it takes a lot oi them to ft," and" Women paint to hide their blushes ♦

JAPANESE LACQUER THIS. Japanese lacquer is a very curious substance. A tfmple tree sap, like maple gap, it is, yet, when applied to wood or metal quite indestructible A coat of lacquer is proof against alcohol against boiling water, against almost all known agencies. The lacquer tree of Japan is verj large. It is always cut down at the age of forty years, ae thereafter it begins to dry up. Each |ne yields on its demolition about six barrels of taoquer eap. The Japanese are very careful no* to let foreigners into the secrets of lacquering-

—e QTJSBR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS a—(ha queer instruments in the Metro- politan Museum of Art, New York are a case violin and a Ane flute. The former is a peculiar, Barrow instrument of small siae, but perfect is •very detail, made tn imitation of a walking- gtiok and furnished with an ornamental kno handle. TVi gtkngs are held by email iron piav, and are taned by a key. When not in use a small bow slips within the stiek, aad a roaad cover, held by metal beads, conceals the elevet little instrument The length of the violin is 8ft Hin., and its ftutest width w ljin. It is a German coaoeit, and dates ROB the nineteenth eentorv. Like the eaae rielta, the MUM fate is also of Oeraaa make, hot it dates fron early m the eighteenth eeatarjr. The lute is iaC, aad is made of light wood, ovaaaaeiited wrth taod bands oI the taay.'yhM^yd 7* » knob. The lower jomt is aatti Jl has as holes and one fla* brass tap. hsteeme# ft yowii at tha lido, likt Ibi toMmva nkt» up h) M exoellent sounder. -->