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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 



Good Breaxfast Rolls. — A hot roll for break- 

 fast is a most toothsome article of diet, when made 

 right, otherwise they are only fit for the pigs. I 

 make mine as follows, and I think them har(J to 

 beat : — Take two quarts of flour, make a hole in it 

 and pour in one pint of curd milk that has been 

 boiled with one cup of butter melted in it, and 

 half a cup of good yeast. Let it stand without 

 mixing two or three hours ; then salt and knead 

 it and let it rise again in the pans before baking. 

 Bake in a quick oven about fifteen minutes. — Ger- 

 manfown Telegraph. 



Stewed Oysters. — We take from an exchange 

 the following, which is worthy of trial : 



Wc suppose that nine out of ten housekeepers 

 will contradict us point blank in a statement that 

 nine out of ten of them do not know how to stew a 

 dish of oysters. By the ordinary routine that near- 

 ly every one follows, either the oysters are stewed 

 and shriveled out of all semblance of themselves 

 in shape, size and flavor, or else the soup and 

 "thickening" has a raw taste that spoils it. Here 

 is the right method. Try it once, and we'll war- 

 rant you won't need telling the second time. Pick 

 the oysters out of the juice with a fork, as dry as 

 possible ; stew the juice, thickening milk or water, 

 of which the soup is to be made, until thoroughly 

 cooked; then drop the oysters in, and just as the 

 cooled soup begins to show signs of simmering, 

 empty out altogether, and you will have rich soup 

 and plump oysters, luscious enough to make you 

 think you never tasted real oysters before. 



PUTS. 



In the thorn, Nature has provided man with the 

 pattern and the first idea of the pin. When- Adam 

 and Eve, after their fall, but before their expul- 

 sion from Eden, made themselves aprons of fig- 

 trees, they doubtless used the thorn in the con- 

 struction of their first garments. In the days of 

 innocence there was no use for pins ; and it was 

 probably this fact which caused Byron to describe 

 Juan when, metamorphosed into Juanna, he or 

 she is unrobing in the seraglio, as 



"Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins, 

 "Which surely wtre invented for our sins, 

 Making a woman like a porcupine — 

 Not to be rashly touched." 



The pins thus anathematized by the poet are, 

 however, comparatively a modern invention. In 

 all the records which we have of man's past his- 

 tory we find evidence that articles for fastening 

 clothes always existed, but very unlike the pres- 

 ent. In the museums which have been formed 

 out of the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, or 

 Uriconium in England, we find skewers of bone, 

 of brass, of silver, of gold, which were used for 

 this purpose. In the representations of the life of 

 the people found in the Egyptian hieroglyphics 

 we discern the means which they employed for 

 like necessary purpose ; but nowhere do we meet 

 with a modern pin. In Strutt's illustrations we 

 find ribbons, loop-holes, laces with points and 

 tags, clasps, hooks and eyes, of every form, size 

 and varely of use, and often turned to very extra- 

 ordinary and surprising account in completing the 

 toilette of the ancient belle and adornment of the 

 ancient beau. The modern pin would have been 

 of little use in sustaining that towering head-dress, 

 in fastening that wonderful cloak, in keeping up 

 those curiously slashed tunics, or in retaining the 

 stiff uprightness of that extraordinary rutf. After 

 pins came into use these eccentricities of costume 

 and fashion were destined to give place to other 

 fashions, in which, perhaps, the modern pin has 

 played tricks as fantastic as its many substitutes 

 in the olden time. 



History tells us that iron-wire pins were first 

 introduced into England in the year 1460. The 

 finer examples of brass manufacture required a 

 queen to procure them. They were brought from 

 France by the beautiful Catharine Howard, one 

 of his wives whom the "great" Henry VIII. be- 

 headed. But though introduced by a queen, and 

 doubtless at first an article exclusively applied to 

 aristocratic uses, they soon became a measure of 

 value for things not valued at all. "Not worth a 

 pin" is a proverb which we find in use soon after 

 their introduction. Thomas Tusser, who wrote 

 about 1.550, writing of a not very reputable char- 

 acter, says: 



"His ft tch is to flatter, to get what he can, 

 His purpose once gotten, a pin for thee then." 



And Shakespeare makes Hamlet show his utter 

 indifiference to life by saying : 



"I do not set my life at a pin's fee." 



At the present time millions of these useful 

 articles are wasted in a year. 



We find pins first mentioned as an article of 

 commerce in a statute of 1483. From a law 

 passed in the reign of Henry VIII. we meet with 

 some specific description oi the kind of pins made 

 — at least, of what they ought to have been. For 

 instance, it is declared to be the will of the Legis- 

 lature that "no person should put to sale any pins 

 but only such as shall be di)uble-headed, and have 

 the heads soldered fast to the shanks of the pins, 

 well smoothed, the shanks well shapen, the points 

 well and round filed, canted and sharpened." A 

 pin possessing these qualities would not be a bad 

 pin even now. 



■WOMAN. 



In a recent speech Mr. Gladstone drew a 

 distinction between the word womanly and 

 womanish. Womanly is almost a reverefttial 

 epithet. It implies goodness, tenderness, 

 fidelity. "Unwomanly rags" was the strong- 

 est phrase Hood could find for expressing a 

 garb which unsexed its wearer. An un- 

 womanly woman ' means a monstrosity ; while 

 true womanly pity, or real womanly sympathy, 

 is a something which goes straight to the 

 heart of all who have suffered, or are suffer- 

 ing. To be womanly is consistent with talent 

 and genius, though there are many clever 

 women whose womanliness is not preeminent. 

 In short, to be womanly should be the first 

 grace of woman ; and the epithet, if applied 

 to men, as it is in rare instances, and under 

 circumstances which are exceptional, conveys 

 an impression of goodness of heart, of a na- 

 ture unspotted by the world, and of trust- 

 worthiness unsullied and complete. Woman- 

 ish is the reverse of all this. It conveys the 

 Oriental or brute notion of women : puppets, 

 coy, frightened, useless, and without soul or 

 brain — creatures to be used as playthings by 

 the superior animal, and to be thrown aside — 

 beings whose humanity is devoid of all that 

 makes humanity hcly ; such are the womanish 

 women of the sensualists of the East — such is 

 the contemptuous meaning the adjective bears 

 here. To speak of an Englishman as woman- 

 ish is to hold him up to the bitterest contempt. 



