AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN HOMES. 55 



and I found it made a great deal of difference in the amount 

 used whether I bought by the cord or the pound. The thought 

 of buying a cord of wood was never entertained by a Roman. 

 I don't suppose the Pope himself, if he had wanted to warm all 

 the four tliousand rooms of his imperial residence, would have 

 bought a cord of wood. It would have been extravagant. All 

 the cuttings of the grape-vines were saved, tied up into bundles 

 and sold. Sawdust and tan-bark were pressed into delicate 

 little cakes and sold for fuel, and very excellent fuel they were. 

 Nothing of vegetable matter was allowed to l^e wasted. 



I saw the necessity which is felt for economy of fuel carried 

 to a sad extreme. In the city of Alexandria I went to see 

 Pompey's pillar, as it is called, the most beautiful shaft I ever 

 saw. Near by I saw a squad of women at work. I crossed 

 over to see what they were doing. I saw that some were bring- 

 ing from the city in baskets on their heads the manure of the 

 streets which they had carefully saved. They dumped it down 

 in a pile, and several women were busy working it up in their 

 hands into little round cakes, a foot in diameter and an inch 

 thick, and spreading them out to dry. That was the fuel of a 

 great part of the population of the city. May it be long before 

 we find the necessity for such economy. 



The table is set with a lavish profusion in our country which 

 is witnessed nowhere else. We eat more meat and more rich 

 pastry than other nations. 



They make more account of fresh fruit than we do, and eat 

 it with the first meal of the day, which is the time to eat it. I 

 confess to a preference for our cooking over the made-up dishes 

 of France and Germany, where you can hardly tell whether it 

 is beef or horse on which you are making your dinner. But 

 when our housekeepers learn to dispense with hot bread, with 

 saleratus, with fried meats, with green tea, which is made only 

 for the American market, with mince pies and that frightful 

 compound called wedding cake, and adopt plainer and simpler 

 fare, tliere will be far less dyspeptics and far less weak and 

 disordered nerves. 



Upon one topic more intimately connected with my subject, I 

 want to add a few words. I refer to the employment of women 

 in out-door pursuits. Womeif are engaged in all kinds of out- 

 door labors abroad. In England they work in the fields chiefly 



