546 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
qualmish delicate invalid when almost everything else is 
rejected. Select eight fresh Oysters, and chop them fine 
on a chopping board; then turn them into a saucepan with 
a cup of cold water; set the saucepan on the fire, and let 
the water come slowly to the boiling point; then simmer for 
five minutes; strain the liquid into a basin, flavour it with 
half a saltspoonful of salt, and serve it hot, with, or without 
a small piece of dry toast, or a rusk. An old,fable runs to the 
effect that Oysters rise to the surface of the water at the time 
of full moon, and open their shells to receive the falling dew-drops, 
which presently harden into pearls. For the “ Prairie Oyster,” 
put a teaspoonful of vinegar into a wineglass, and break an egg 
thereinto, with, or without the white; a dessertspoontful of 
Harvey sauce, a pinch of salt, and a dust of pepper should be 
added. Oysters were more common, and cheaper in England 
sixty or seventy years ago, than they have now become. Mr. 
Pickwick, in his journey to Ipswich on the Stage-coach, while 
passing through Whitechapel, noticed the crowded, and filthy 
street through which they were being driven. ‘It’s a very 
remarkable circumstance, Sir,” said Sam Weller, his servant, 
“that poverty, and Oysters, always seem to go together; the 
poorer a place is the greater call there seems to be for Oysters. 
Look here, Sir! blest if I don’t think that ven a man’s wery 
poor he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats Oysters for regular 
desperation.” “To be sure he do,” said Mr. Weller, senior ; 
“and it’s just the same with pickled salmon.” Again, when 
on Christmas morning Ben Allen, and Bob Sawyer, two medical 
students, began the day, “ One on ’em,” reported Sam to Mr. 
Pickwick, “one on ’em’s got his legs on the table, and is a 
drinking brandy neat ; while t’other one, him in the barnacles, 
’as got a barrel o’ Oysters atween his knees, vich he’s a openin’ 
like steam, and as fast as he eats em he takes a aim vith the 
shells at young dropsy (the fat boy) who’s a sittin’ down fast 
asleep in the chimbley corner.” Further on, at Bob’s supper 
party in Lant Street, the Borough, ‘‘ the man to whom the order 
for Oysters had been sent had not been told to cpen them. It’s 
a very difficult thing to open an Oyster with a limp knife, or a 
two-pronged fork, and very little was done in this way. Very 
little of the beef was done either; and the ham (which was 
also from the German sausage shop round the corner) was 
in a similar predicament. However, there was plenty of porter 
