Abergavenny Chronicle

MEN WHO HATE ROSES. A case is related of a monk who would faint on seeing a rose and who nevei quitted his eell at the monastery while that flower was blooming. Another authority tells us of how Vincent, the great painter, would swoon upon going suddenly into a room where roses were blooming. Valtaid tells us of an Army officer who was fre- quently thrown into violent convulsions by coming in contact with the little llowei known as the pink, while the same autho- rity also tells of the case of a lady who, if present when linseed was being boiled for any purpose, would be seized with violent fits of coughing, swelling of the face, and partial loss of reason for the ensuing twenty four hours. Writing of these -oeculiar antipathies and aversions, Monta- gue remarks that he has known men of un- doubted courage who would much rather face a shower 0 of cannon balls than look at an apple. In Zimmermann's writings there ie an account of a lady who could not bear to touch either silk or satin, and would almost faint if by accident she should hap- pen to tondh the velvety skin of a peach.

a I OTHER MEN'S MINDS. We are really fighting to satisfy our own consciences.—THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. I THE FLAT-FOOTERS. We are to have new British regiments: the Fiat-Footed Brigade, the Hernia Lan. cers, the Hammer loed Fusiliers, and the Bronchitis Bronchoi.VR. HOGGE. I A HOHENZOLLERN PEACE. No peace we can make with the Hohenzol- lern can ever be a real peace; it will be mere-ly a cessation of military operations for five or ten or twenty years. The "war after the war" will begin straight away. The war of economic tricks and tariffs and the syste- matic poisonous war of propagandists and mischief-makers will be resuined.-MR. H. G. WELLS. I THE DECIDING FACTORS. I do not believe the war is going to be settled by come pitched battle; victory will go to the Powers who have the last sack of wheat and the last stone of meat.-MB. PROTHERO. PEOPLE AS WELL AS STOCK. Unless the lands of this country are "utilised for producing people as well aa stock the Dominions will have to fill up their spaces with the people who are now at war with us. This is a matter of great con- cern to the Dominions, which can only re- main British bv drawing settlers from this c,ountry.-MR. AERBERT EASTON. I THE LIFE OF DEMOCRACY. No democracy has over-long survived the failure of its adherent to be ready to die for it.-Mia. LLOYD GEORGE. THE CRUCIAL MOMENT, Every soldier knows that the moment the effort and the exhaustion of the conflict are felt is the moment when one more resolute step, one more vehement attempt, will give all that was desircd.-MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL. DEMOCRACY AND THE PARTY MACHINE. I am one of those who believe that de- mocracy could not be worked without the party machine.—EARL OF SELBORNE. i THE ONLY WAY. If Germany and her allies are not willing 1 to accept the principles which the Allies have now published to the world, then we must fight on. No other course will be pos- sible if we value our honour as a nation, and our pledged word to Belgium, Serbia, tad Franoe.-MR. W. F. PüRDY. TRYING IT ON THE DOG. I Speaking generally of opinion in the House of Commons, it is true to say that it ts only those who are not to be subjected to it who are in favour of trying proportional representation on the dog.-VISCOUNT HAB- COURT. LAND AND LABOUR. I am confident the three milUon acres of new land whose cultivation we have been told is so very necessary will Dot be culti- vated because there is an insufficiency of laoour.-MR. G. LAMBERT, M.P. NOT SO SIMPLE. I Many people think that the whole question of supply, price, and distribution would be easily solved by commandeering all food and distributing it equally on a family basis, but there are difficulties, and. I believe, impossi- bilities in the way of giving effect to such a system.—MR. CLTNES, M.P. THE WAY OF THE BOLSHEVIK. ] Perhaps the Bolshevik may have found a I way to strike at the heart of the evil thing in Berlin less costly and less tedious than even the expedients our brilliant cavalry generals and our imperturbable Navy have discovered.—MR. H. G. WELLS. PATRIOTS ALL. I I believe that ail classes in this country in the main are acting patriotically, and that those who come after us will be proud of the part we have taken in this battle for freedom and civilisation.—Loan KHONDDA. GERMAN WAR AIMS. ø I We know by the mere statement or oui war aims and by the relusal of our enemies even to consider those war aims, what it is they are fighting for. They are fighting for the converse of that which we are fighting for. You have only got, therefore, to look through the list of British war aims to understand what the German war aims are. -MR. BALFOUR. FOR HUMANITY'S SAKE. I We are going on with this war: we must win for the sake of humanity, and we will I win.—Ma. LANSING. THE FOOD SHORTAGE, I We cannot at this stage of the war, and in its later stages, expect food in the same quantity and variety as in times of peace. We have to share the world's shortage, and we may count ourselves as lucky that so far we have suffered not only less than other combatant nations apart from America, but even less than some of the "neutral nations, where shortage and rationing have existed for a considerable time.—Ma. J. R. CLYNES, M.P. THE FARMERS' WAY. I I come from a race ol larmers. iney don't like being told from outside how they are to cultivate their farms. They like to go on in their own way, and naturally they think they know very much better than people in Whitehall, who will tell you how you are to do everythmg.MR. LLOYD GEORGE. LAW WILL DISPLACE WAR. I After all, war is a relic or barbarism, aDU, just as law has succeeded violence as the means of settling disputes between indi- viduals, so we believe that it is destined ultimately to take the place of war in the settlement of controversies between nations. —MR. LLOYD GEORGE. U:\LESS- I The Channel ports are not so far from the fighting line, and unless we are prepared to stand up to the whole might of the people who are dominating Germany now, and will dominate the world to-morrow if we allow them, you will find that Britain and British democracy and French democracy and the democracy of Europe will be at the mercy of the cruellest military autocracy that the world has ever,seen.—MR. LLOYD GEORGE.

DOUBLE SUICIDE. ] Returning to his home at Fulkenham, near Felixstowe, John Barham found his wife hanging from the banisters, dead. Later the man was found dead at the bottom of a well. Their only son, John, was killed in France recently. The verdict in each case was "Suicide during temporary insanity."

AUSTRIAN FINED £ 50. At Bow-street Police-court, an Austrian named Solo Kleinberg was firied C-50 and recommended for expulsion on a charge of obtaining fr use otherwise than AS currency eight sovereigns. The magistrate snxl that Kleinberg was one of the aiw-iw wL. hhl the good fortune not to be interned.

I IN LIGHTER VEIN BT THOMAS JAY. ILLUSTRATED BY J. H. LUNN. I have always had a warm corner in my heart for Sir Thomas Beecham, and, whether in opera or pills, I often think nothing of ordering a couple of boxes of both. But, in my opinion, Sir Thomas ought to ring a bell or something before he tells us that "oboe-players are difficult to find." Speak- ing of bands generally, I always seem to find them just when they do me least good. Now a gentleman writes to a London even- ing paper to say that if Sir Thomas Beecham advertised for an oboe-player he would get more than he wanted. I have no doubt. One oboe-player can be more than enough. I have never tried half a player, but I am willing to take a hack-saw and ex- periment. I have been p-eaeut when a band has been doing its best. I have seen the big bassoon, the picoolo, a cornet in D flat, another cor- net a little more D flat, violins, and other instruments—or weapons. I have seen the conductor making rude grimaces at the players, and then I have seen him call up the big brasses, and after a smart run up the orchestra he drags in the drums and the woods and the wood-winds, and also the thunders and cyclones, and the trombone- players pull out their slides and pump up "Home, Sweet Home until they blew my hair straight up, and all joined hands in making so much noise that you didn't know it was "Home, Sweet Home" because you hardly knew the old place any more. I confess right away that I do not know an oboe to speak to. I have some sort of notion that it is a wind instrument, but we have never been introduced—at least, not on purpose. You may think that my musical train i n g has been neglected, and I will agree with you. You may be all for grand opera and Strauss, but you will find me among the Jew's- harpists and the mouth organists. You have no idea of the furore when I am in- vited out to din- ner and, later, pull out my Jew's ha r p or mouth organ. For one thing, A LITTLE MUSIC. 1 I these instruments -do not bulge the pockets like a bass fiddle, and you don't have to go out on the lariding or into a long street before you can stretch out a top note, as is the case with the trombone. It has been observed by a contemporary, and supported by a distinguished authority on sport (myself), that while the radio-ac- tive games such as yachting, spillikins, draughts, soccer, and margarine-trundling are all very well in their places, too little attention has been paid to the sedentary games of boxing, baseball, billiards, and other examples of modern warfare, to say nothing of the exciting sport of calling your near and dear friend a wanderer from the path of truth without provocation or a re- volver. Before anyone has time to butt in with any remarks about bowls, calculated to put me off my subject, I will pass hur- riedly on, merely remarking that the dis- tinction, already valuable, would be more so if it were true, or providing it were true, if it could, by any stretch of imagination, be held to prove anything. Perhaps you had better go over that last paragraph again. I didn't understand it myself at first. But to continue. A Scotch critic once muttered through his porridge that "Paradise Lost proved nothing; so that if I fail in detail I shall fail in good company-to wit, that of the late Mr. Milton. Just at the moment the air is full of boxing. The air, in fact, is always full of something if only you know where to look for it. However, the young man's fancy now lightly turns to thoughts of gloves, and boxing is said to be undergoing a boom of great magnitude. To tell the truth, I forget what a magnitude is, but the figures are said to be heavy. In some parts boxing promoters are turning away thou- sands, while only a few weeks ago a Chicago boxing promoter diverted several thousand dollars, and has not been heard of since. For myself, I confess I have no desire to For m3 boxing ring against a man with a look so formidable that it would knock the slide out of a trombone. I am very funny that way. I have a deeply-rooted objection to appearing in public in a bathing-dress inscribed with the college crest of a Welsh Rarebit rampant, and a bruiser ex- pectant, and nothing else to speak of. General Grant may have made a deep dent in history by smoking a big cigar, but I have not the same powers. If I stepped into a tastefully-decorated ring thus attired, strong hands would, I know, lead me away to a nice quiet place and there drape me in a strait-jacket and .end a postcard to my folk. It will not be long, I think, before it will be proved that boxing is a fairly modern pastime. It could not have been a sport in Tudor times, UNEQUALLY MATCHED. when men went about in armour, for six ounce gloves were no matc h against British armour- plate. You had to get at those knights with a can-opener, for it would be easier for a rolling stone to pass through the eye of a camel than to make an im- pression on ar- mour plate. Some d a v W R Khali pay homage to our boxers by including them in honours lists, when the newspapers will give us such items as the following-- "Mr. Edward Tomkins, known as Cauli- flower Ted, the famous heavy-weight, who has been creat-ed a peer, has taken the name of Earl Basham. Ted carries a punch in each hand." "Mr. Noah Bosheki, the well-known middle-weight, has been knighted. sTr Noah, whose nom-de-boxe is The Claret- Tapper, is known from pole to pole."

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. A thunderstorm rarely succeeds wet weather; the electric fluid being carried by the rain gradually to the earth. The danger spots in a thunderstorm are: near a tree, a lofty building, a river, any running water, or in a crowd. When lightning strikes a tree it runs between the bark and the wood, and if resisted by knots, strips the former off. Lightning is a great sanitary agent; it produces nitric-acid in the air, which de- stroys putrid exhalations from the earth. Lighting is the rush of one kind of elec- tricity from a cloud to unite itself with another kind, in a cloud or in the earth. An iron bedstead is not dangerous in a thunderstorm. The electric current would choose it in preference to the human body. Summer lightning "without thunder is because the disturbance is so far distant that the thunder sound is lost before it reaches us. It is safer* to be wet than dry during a thunderstorm. Wet clothes would conduct the electricity harmlessly over the surface of the body.

AN APPEAL TO FARMERS. I Mr. Prothero, addressing a meeting of 1,000 farmers at Newcastle, said, although the farmer disliked parting with his grass land, it was his duty to ask nim to do it. From the point of view of increased quan- tities of food, ihepe fanners who were. op- posed to ploughing up grass land had not a toff Ao «t«nd OIL

TEA TABLE TALK. Madame Clara Butt, the world-famed contralto, has great faith in modern women. Some while ago she said: "The woman of the future will be more sensible, but not less sentimental, than the woman of yester- day. There will be a greater degree of candour between the sexes. Sex-antagonism and sex-consciousness will have departed. The danger and mischief of mock modesty and mystery will be no more, and 20 it is safe to say that unhappy marriages will decrease." Miss Madge Lessing, who made kr name in musical comedy, is a Londoner, married to an American; she is one of the few Englishwomen who have successfully taken the journey (to Berlin and back since the wa.r began. A good story is told conoerning Miss Lily Elsie, the well-known comedy actress. It appears that shortly after her marriage to Mr. Ian Bullough she attended a certain society function at which Mr. Justice Dar- ling was also present. The eminent judge, however, evidently did not recognise the famous actress, for, after regarding her tn- tently for a few moments, he turned to a friend who was with him and, in a tone of inquiry, remarked: "What a lovely woman!" Miss Elsie heard him, turned, recognised him, and said: "What an ex cellent judge!" Mrs. Burleigh Leach, Controller of In- spection and Head of the Cookery Section of the W.A.A.C., has earned her delightful pseudonym of "The Lady of the Frying- pan" this was due to an amusing error concerning the figure on her badge, a figure of Victory with a laurel wreath in her hand -not the useful cooking implement as at first supposed! Mrs. Leach, however, has handled the pan to some purpose herself, first as a voluntary Army cook, when she wished to get an insight into the business, and now as organiser of a cookery training centre, for women. Miss Clarice Mayne tells the following very funny story: "Just after I began to arrive,' as we say in Theatreland, I felt very proud one week at Margate. of the fact that they had printed my name in quite big type and put it at the bottom of the posters. This, as you probably know, is the next best thing to being at the top. So, in high glee, I said to a girl friend: Whatever do you think? They've actually put my name at the bottom of the bill.' 'Never mind, dear,' she replied gently, you'll get your salary all the same, won't you?'" < Madame Adelina Patti, the most famous prima donna of the past generation, once said that when visiting New York she spent' X200 on buying a parrot, called "Jumbo," and said to be a marvellous talker. But when once in her possession Jumbo, to her intense disappointment, would not say a word. One day Patti was taken ill with a sore throat, and, as she had to sing in opera that night, sent hurriedly for a doctor. As the door opened to admit the doctor, the speechless one looked up with his head on one side. "Oh, doctor!" he croaked. "I'm so sick." That was the first and only time that Jumbo ever spoke. Madame Sarah Bernhardt, the incom- parable, the irresistible, the astonishing Sarah—in writing of the brilliant French ictress the dramatic critic apparently keeps » dictionary by his side for fear he should run short of adjectives-is only another lame for Madame Damala. Years ago Madame Bernhardt married a Monsieur Jacques Damala, who left her a widow, but ihe remains "Bernhardt," and everyone calls ier Sarah. Lady Mackworth, the clever daughter of Lord Rhondda, is of the opinion, that every irl, whatever her position in society, and whatever her means, should take up some useful work on a wage-earning basis as soon is she leaves school or college. "It is often :ontend-ed," she said in an interview, "that the well-to-do girl who earns wages takes the t)read and butter out of the mouth of the girl who has to be self-supporting. Not a bit of it! The more we produce, the more we have to divide, and there is work for all who can work efficiently and well. The real danger, of course, is that the girls who do not depend upon what they make will con- asnt to work for lower wages. In doing this they wrong their fellow-women, for their action must ultimately result in the lower- ing of the scale of wages for their particular work. In a world where men and women are mostly taken at their own valuation, a Woman owes it to her sister women never to work for less than she has the right to earn. The idea that a woman should give up her work when she marries is fast disappearing. Marriage is no longer deemed to be a bar to business where the home is properly organised." • t • Miss Ella Retford, the actress, tells the following pantomime story: "When I was playing in a pantomime in a big provincial city I was hurrying to the theatre one wet night, and had to pass a long string of people waiting for the earlv doors. As 1 was nearly at the stage door I slipped suddenly on the wet pavement, and fell. A soldier racing towards me caught my arm, jerked me to my feet, and without even looking at me at all said, breathlessly: 'Hope you're all right, miss Sorry I can't stay to talk to you-but I'm dashing to get iyn at the early doors to see Ella Retford! Whereat he raced on, leaving Ella Retford grateful- and extremely amused In Norway, Sweden, and Finland women are frequently shipped as sailors without any demur being made, and do their work excellently; while in Denmark large numbers of women are employed by the State as pilots. They go far out to sea in their tiny boats to meet incoming vessels, and having nimbly climbed on board and shown their official diplomas they take charge of the ship in the usual affably-overbearing manner affected by pilots the world over, and skil- fully steer her into port. Miss Florence B. Jack, Administrator of the Unit of the Scottish Women's Hospital attached to the Serbian Army, relates how when visiting the island of Milo (or Mel(6) she came across an old woman who claims to be a granddaughter of the man who origin- ally unearthed the famoys Venus of Milo, which was found on the island in the early part of the nineteenth century. According to her, when the statue was found its arms were found. with it, though they broke off upon the unearthing of the figure. At first they were carefully preserved, but a dispute arose between her grandfather and some Greeks and Frenchmen in regard to the pos- session of the Venus, and as a result of the quarrel he.took away the arms at dead of night and threw them into the sea. What- ever may be the truth of this story, theories as to the correct position of the missing arms have given rise to much speculation and controversy between artists and sculp- tors since that day, and there are no Tecorda in existence to give any definite enlighten- ment in this respect.

NO ENGLISH SPOKEN. A special "census," undertaken in Ireland ny the Gaelic League, has revealed that there are some seventeen thousand persons there to whom English is as much a foreign tongue as it would be, say, to a dweller in the remote interior of China. They speak and understand no language but Irish. Wales, again, has a population of nearly two hundred thousand men, women, and children, not one of whom can pronounce a sentence in English. In Scotland there are over eighteen thousand Highlanders who are dumb in every speech but Gaelic. Then, too, there are whole streets in the East-End of London where no word of Eng- lish is ever spoken, Yiddish being practi- cally the sole means of inter-communication amongst the polyglot population that in- habits them. Scattered up and down in Mona's Isle are more than four thousand people who speak the ancient Manx language, while in the oolliery districts of Lanarkshire there are districts where Polish is the prevailing tongue, the colliers there mostly nailing from that country.

HUMOUR OF Tiiii WiifiS. WHAT HOE! Motto for the land-girls: "What hoel She's trumps!" THE PRICE OF TEARS. A boy summoned at Highgate cried tc some purpose. The Magistrate (in a compasaionate tone) All right, sonny; you need pay only Is. The boy's tears turned to a smile as he produced the money. The Clerk: Your master didn't give you the shilling, did he? » Boy: Oh, yes. He gave me 12s. in all. The Court smiled then. èI THE REASON. Why did Sir Arthur Yapp? Because he ;aw a Q after T.Books of To-day aurde rl"oe morrow. NOT HER FAULT. I Ethel used to play *a good deal in Sunday 3chool, but one day she had been so gocd that the teacher said in praise: "Ethel, my dear, you have been a very good girl to-day." "Yeth'm," responded Ethel; "I couldn't help it. I dot a 'tiff neck." HARD LUCK. The man and woman had seated them- selves in the restaurant, and the former asked the waiter to bring two plates of mut- ton. "Sorry, sir," answered the knight of the napkin, "but, owing to the meat shortage, we have only one chop left in the place." "Then," remarked the would-be diner, "what on earth is my wife to do for a dinner?" POETS, BE WARNED! I Minor poets have received a nasty rebuff during the past week. An Australian soldier who wrote all his love letters in the form of poetry has been ordered to pay damages in a breach-of-promise action. LOGICAL. A German general's book is called De- ductions from the World War." A logical one is that, "after the world war, there will be "deductions" from Germany. PLENTY OF THESE. I Imported potatoes, even from the Chan- I nel Islands, will be scarcer than ever this year; but (says "Cassell's Saturday Jour- nal ") we are sure to have a goodly supply I of home groans! COULDN'T DO IT. Doctor (to little boy): "Put your tongue out, please." The youngster protruded the tip of his tongue. Doctor: "No. no; put it right out." "I can't, doctor," was the distressed reply; "it's fastened on to me." BASY. I "But, Madge," queried a cluster of wide- eyed girls, "weren't you dreadfully fright- ened when that soldier tried to put his arm.i around you? What in the world did you do?" "Oh, that was easy. I just yelled At- tention and he was perfectly helpless. "Gargoyle." JUDICIAL CORRECTION. I Unfortunately we've mislaid the judge's name, but his court-room is in New Bedford, Mass. Before him appeared a defendant who, hoping for leniency, pleaded: "Judge, I'm down and out." Whereupon said the wise judge: "You're down, prisoner, but you're not out. Not for the next six months. Philadelphia Evening Ledger." —— PICKINGS FROM PUNCH." J A Russian youth appealed to the Law Society Tribunal last week for exemption on the ground that he is an anarchist. The occasion when he calls the Sergeant-Major "comrade" is eagerly looked forward to. The latest news from Brest-Litovsk seems to indicate that the Kaiser desires peace, at any rate for the duration of the war. The prioo of skinned rabbits has been fixed at one shilling and ninepenoe; un- skinned, they may be sold at two shillings per musquash. « The contagion of the queue habit is spreading in unexpected directions. At Stoke Newington there were' three hundred and fifty applications for a baby offered for adoption. Visitor (at Girls' Club): "Of course you know, dear girls, ladies never talk to gentle- men unless they have been properly intro- duced. Head Girl: "We knows it, mum, and we feels sorry for yer." From "The Black Man's Part in, the War," by Sir Harry H. Johnston: "The Nilotic race is remarkable for the disproportion a tedy long legs of their men and women. They extend on the eastern side of the Nile right down into the Uganda Protectorate." What a pity that this remarkable tribe should not have been brought to the Wes- tern Front, when they could so easily take barbed-wire entanglements in their stride. QUIPS FROM "LONDON OPINION." I And why not standard war suits? We have long known hostili-ties. Instead of "Buy, Buy, Buy," the butchers' cry now is, "Buy by-and-by." A forthcoming drama is called "The Little Brother." From the title, many elder si-oters will regard it as "another of thos-e spy plays." "A combination of onion juice and rum is a tonic for falling hair," declares a writer Vn "beauty." But it makes you consider would you rather keep your hair, or your friends? Thoughtful folks are asking whether it is politic to let the blacks decide the fate of the German Colonies. May not the native Food Controllers consider that German mis- sionaries are generally the fattest? There are said to be no lesa than seven thousand food-eubatitutes in uso ia Ger- many. All's fare in war. The capture of the German dye weretg has been called a romance. It's more like a comedye. ■

NOVEL WAYS OF COOKING. I Scane of the Eastern shepherds who cannot always make a fire, especially if they tencf their flocks on the fringe of a desert, "cook" an egg by putting it in a small sling and whirling it round and round till the heat generated by the rapid motion has cooked it.

Rabbits for fattening are supplied at six weeks old by a newly formed rabbit asso- ciation at Birmingham, which is run on co-operative lines and in which every mem- ber takes one half-crown share. Ambrose Donovan, who stole confidential dispatches from the overcoat of an Ameri- can naval messenger at the Euston Hotel, was at London Sessions given twelve months' hard labour as an incorrigible rogue.

Carefully wash all eggs, then use the shells for clearing coffee. Dry cheese may be used in making a cheese omelet, a souffle, or cheese ball. D A small quantity of jam or jelly will serve fu flavour a pudding sauce. To make a low room took higher let the curtains hang to the floor. Short curtains make the room look lower than it ii. Before baking potatoes, let them stand in hot water for fifteen minutes. They will only require half the time to bake, and if a. gas oven is used. the saving is considerable. Before scrubbing a floor remember that it must be swept perfectly clean Never leave milk in a tin can. but empty it at once into a jug. To prevent squeaking pedals of piano, rub powdered blacklead on the part where fric- tion exists. This will at once stop the squeaking. Apples that are to be baked should be pricked with a fork before being plaoed in the oven, and they will not break while cooking. To prevent mustard from drying and caking in the mustard-pot, add a little salt when making it. If a tin kettle is put on the fire sideways, with the spout at the right hand, and other times at the left, it will last much longer. The greatest heat is at the back of the stove, and the usual way of putting on the kettle causes it to wear out at the back before the sides. [ STALE FISH. When meat or fish from long keeping is likely to become tainted a good plan is to put three or four pieces of charcoal, each the size of an egg. into the saucepan wherein the fish or flesh is to be cooked. I SUGAR ECONOMY. If a good pinoh of salt is used in milk pud- dings and all kinds of fruit it will make a great saving in sugar. And also if used in hot starch will keep the iron from sticking. I HINTS ABOUT MILK. j To scald milk, set it in a jug or basin in a pan of cold water over the fire; when the water boils the milk is scalded. Milk easily absorbs lfavours, so it should be kept away from strongly-smelling or lfavoured foods, and from game. All vessels used for milk should be scalded with boiling water. Be- fore boiling" milk, rinse out the pan with 1 cold water; this will prevent its burning. A NOVEL KITCHEN CARPET. I Take anv old carpet that is whole but too I shabby for use, clean thoroughly, and tack down smoothly on the kitchen floor. Then make a thick-boiled starch of flour and water, rub a coat of this starch in the car- pet with a whitewash brush, and in about twenty-four hours give it a coat of paint, any colour desired. When the paint is dry ■ give a second coat, and you will have a 1 cheap and durable floor covering, equal to linoleum, at about one-fourth the cost. By giving it a coat of paint once a year it will last for years. One great thing to recom- mend this carpet is that it is so easily kept clean. KEEP YOUR OLD BRUSHES. Do not ithrow away an old blacklead brush. Nail a piece of black velvet over the bristles, and it will polish the stove better than it did when new. Replace the velvet when worn out. The same can be done with boot brushes. A hand sweeping- brush should have the end sawn off to the third row of bristles and rounded off. I Tack black velvet round the sawn-off part, and a good, serviceable brush is the result. To CLEAN PAINT. To clean paint, provide a plate with some best whiting; have ready some clean warm water and a piece of flannel, which dip into the water and sqeeze nearly dry; then take as much whiting as will adhere to it, and apply it to the painted surface, when a little rubbing will instantly remove any dirt or grease. After which, wash the part well with clean water, rubbing it dry with a soft chamois. Paint thus cleaned looks as well as when first laid on, without aay injury to the most delicate colours. -— —— SOME USEFUL RECIPES. BROWNED Ricp,When you want a new and cheap dish, try browned rice, either as a cereal with cream or as a vegetable with butter or tomato sauce. Brown the dry kernels in the oven until they are the colour of ripe wheat, and put them away to cook when convenient. A cupful of these with two cupfuls of hot water and half a teaspoonful of salt can be steamed in the top of a double boiler in forty minutes. Then the rice should be dry and light, although the kernels will not remain whole. MAIZE MEAL BATTER.—One cupful of white maize meal, one and a half cupfuls of boil- ing water, one cupful of buttermilk, one- half teaspoonful of baking powder, one egg. Scald the meal with the boiling water, and stir until well blended. When cool, add the buttermilk and soda, baking-powder, and salt, then the egg well beaten. Put two tablespoonfuls of vegetable fat in a bakmg- dish, and let it get smoking hot. Pour the batter in, and bake in a quick oven. AN INEXPENSIVE Disff.-Boil some sausages in their skins for about twenty minutes, just covered with water; when done, the skins will come off easily. Line the bottom of a piedish with mashed potatoes, put in a layer of sausage-meat, then a layer of sliced tomatoes seasoned with salt. and pepper. Repeat until the dish is full; the top layer should consist of potato. Mark with a fork, and bake in a hot oven until golden brown. This is an economical dinner or supper. CAULIFLOWER CUTLETS.-Wash a cauli- flower in salted water, then boil it, and, when nearly done, take it out and drain it. Place on a dish with salt, pepper, and vinegar, and heat this thoroughly over the fire. Make a batter of three table-spoonfuls of flour, an egg, a little salad oil, and a seasoning of salt. Make this into a thin paste. Dip each piece of cauliflower into this paste and fry a light brown. Serve quite hot with a squeeze of lemon. POTTED LENTILS.—Wash and pick over half a pound of lentils. Place t?,lm in a email muslin bag and simmer till tender. When soft, turn into a basin and beat to a pulp. While still hot, add a lump of mar. garine the size of a walnut, a pinch of powdered sago, a heaped up tablespoonful of fine breadcrumbs, pepper and salt to taste. Beat all together and put into a email buttered dish. Bake slowly for half an hour. They can be eaten hot or cold. Save the water in which they were boiled— it will make excellent soup. |

A QUEUE TRAGEDY. I At Ilkeston an inquest was held on Mary Alice Towey, aged twenty-eight, the wife of a. miner, who stood in a queue for three and a half hours, caught a cold which developed into influenza, and afterwards committed suicide by jumping into a canal. It was stated that the woman had four small children and that she worried about them. The jury returned a verdict of "Suicide while temporarily insane."

P Mr. G. E. Chadwyck-Healey has been ap- pointed vice-chairman of the Shipbuilding Council and assistant to the Controller. Mr. E. P. Wilson, at one time a famous jockey, has died at Stratford-on-Avon, aged seventy-one. He won the National Hunt Steeplechase five times.