MISCELLANY. 



123 



ner, makes his cheap butter: To 50 kilo- 

 grammes of melted oleo-magarine in a churn 

 he adds about 25 litres (26 quarts) of cow's 

 milk and 25 kilogrammes of water contain- 

 ing the soluble parts of 100 grains of the 

 mammary gland of the cow. The churn is 

 then set in motion, and in fifteen minutes 

 the grease and water become transformed 

 into a thick cream, which in turn is changed 

 into butter. The churning being ended, 

 water is poured in and the butter separates, 

 containing buttermilk, which must be re- 

 moved. The product is then placed in a 

 sort of kneading-machine composed of two 

 cylindrical crushers, and placed under a 

 stream of water. There it is worked in a 

 way to change it " into well-washed butter 

 of fine and homogeneous appearance." 



The Todas. A traveler in Southern 

 India, Colonel Wm. Marshall, in a work re- 

 cently published, makes the world acquaint- 

 ed with a very singular tribe of men, the To- 

 das, who inhabit the plateau of the Nilghiri 

 Hills. The Todas live in very small village 

 communities of from twenty to thirty per- 

 sons. Attached to every village is a cattle- 

 pen, and a separate building, which consti- 

 tutes the dairy and the dairyman's abode. 

 Their life is purely pastoral, and their sole 

 dependence the buffalo. Though the land 

 is fertile and the climate delightful, they do 

 not practise agriculture at all ; and though 

 their hills abound in game, they neither 

 hunt nor trap any living thing. Their only 

 domestic animals are the buffalo and the 

 cat. They eat no flesh, living wholly on 

 milk and butter, with rice and other vege- 

 table food obtained in exchange from the 

 surrounding population. Though on all sides 

 they are hemmed in by strong and often 

 quarrelsome tribes, they possess no weapon 

 of offense ; they never fight among them- 

 selves or with their neighbors. They have 

 no manufactures. Two men in every vil- 

 lage are set apart for the dairy-work, leav- 

 ing all the rest to lead an almost absolutely 

 idle life. The Todas are quiet and digni- 

 fied in their manners, amiable in disposi- 

 tion, and very good-looking. Their abso- 

 lute dependence on the buffalo has led them 

 to form a religion in which this animal is 

 the central figure. The dairy is sacred, and 

 no one except the dairyman and his assist- 



ant is permitted to enter it. During the 

 term of office these two men have to pass 

 absolutely retired and celibate lives, they 

 and their implements being touched by no 

 human being. They keep in the dairy cer- 

 tain relics old cow-bells, knives, and axes 

 which are in the highest degree holy, and 

 these the dairyman-priest salutes every 

 morning with certain ceremonies. The peo- 

 ple in general also salute the setting sun, 

 and have some vague notions of a future 

 state. 



The Todas number at present only about 

 seven huudred souls. Formerly they prac- 

 tised infanticide, but for some years this 

 has ceased, and the tribe is now increasing 

 in number. The primitive custom was to 

 kill all female children of a family except 

 one or two. The result was of course an 

 excess of males, and hence sprung the cus- 

 tom of one woman having many husbands. 

 This practice still continues. The census 

 tables seem to show that considerably more 

 male than female children are born. It is 

 worthy of note that, although from time im- 

 memorial consanguineous marriage has been 

 the rule among the Todas, still not more 

 than one per cent, are malformed. 



Tea -Adulterations. One of the usual 

 ways of adulterating tea is by the admixt- 

 ure of leaves other than those of the tea- 

 plant. For the detection of these foreign 

 leaves, but little aid can be given by chem- 

 istry, and it is best to study their botanical 

 and microscopical characters. Prof. Al- 

 fred H. Allen gives, in the Chemical News, 

 the following method for detecting adultera- 

 tions of this kind : " Some of the sample 

 to be examined," says he, " is to be put in 

 hot water, and when the leaves have un- 

 folded, they are spread out on a glass plate 

 and held up to the light, when the vena- 

 tion, serration, etc., are readily observed. 

 The primary venation of the tea-leaf forms 

 a series of well-defined loops, which are not 

 met with in most leaves used as adulterants. 

 The serrations are not mere saw-teeth on 

 the margin of the leaf, but actual hooks. 

 The serration stops short, somewhat ab- 

 ruptly, at some distance above the base. 

 The Assam tea-leaf is sometimes bi-serrate. 

 At the apex of the tea-leaf there is a dis- 

 tinct notch, instead of a point. If we ex- 



