TAKING THE TASTE OUT. 11f 
many hours a day for five or six dollars a week, living in an atmosphere surcharg- 
ed with dust and fumes that would iaake the most inveterate smoker sick. Part 
of the work is done in factories, but most of it is done in the dwellings of the op- 
eratives, and in neither is any attention paid to ventilation or cleanliness. Grow- 
ing girls at the verge of womanhood suffer in many ways, and are as much under 
the influence of tobacco as a constant smoker. Their faces are pale, and their 
eyes are dead; a stupor comes over them; their nerves are unsettled, and their 
lungs are diseased in nearly every case.—Harper’s Magazine for June. 
[CAVATUN GIVER EAS pO edie? 
Almost everybody knows that a globule of castor oil may-be so folded by a 
deft and quick hand between two tea-spoonfuls of lemon juice that only the acid 
is recognized in the taking, and that where acids may not be used, the same 
effect may be secured by wine or spirit. But everyone does not know that any 
powerfully pungent substance, masticated for a moment and rejected, will pre- 
vent the necessity of acid or of spirit, neither of which, of course, it is always 
best to give. Thus, a bit of lemon peel or of orange peel, if chewed half a min- 
ute, will render castor oil as innocent as water, and it will do the same for the 
quite as vile taste of balsam copaiba. A little bitter almond, too, has the same 
power, if not more of it; and a peach kernel is not quite useless in that way. 
Indeed, one drop of the essential oil of almonds will neutralize the disgusting 
quality of a whole ounce of castor oil, we are told, without detracting from its 
virtues, and less than a tea-spoonful of the oil of orange will work the same 
magic on an ounce of balsam copaiba. If, however, not any of these articles is 
at hand, some strong peppermint is very effectual. Even licorice will prevent 
the taste of anything that is very bitter from being perceived, and, strange to 
say, is the only sweet substance known that is capable of doing that. A pinch 
of the leaves of sage, either dried or green, of pennyroyal, and even of catnip, 
if not quite so strong, is yet very efficient. Something as good as all the rest, 
although to the child probably not quite as agreeable, is the scattering of a few 
grains of Cayenne pepper on the tongue, after whose biting sting neither aloes, 
nor salts and senna, nor colchicum, nor thoroughwort, nor soda, nor bromide of 
ammonia, nor anything else, in fact, however disgusting otherwise, will make 
the slightest impression. If children, as it is very likely, should prefer the taste 
of the medicine pure and unadulterated to the smarting of the Cayenne, there 
are some grown people, and among them especially those gentlemen who, sel- 
dom needing to take medicine, make a great fuss about it when they do, and to 
whom Cayenne is so pleasant and necessary that some of them always carry it 
about them, may be glad to avail themselves of the knowledge in any case of 
need.— Harper's Bazar. 
