404 



RECREATION. 



cost or improve its appearance. Those 

 used to cheapen the cost are usually 

 rye flour, corn (maize) flour, rice meal, 

 potato starch and meals from various 

 leguminous plants, such as peas or beans. 

 They are not harmful in the food and some- 

 times improve the color of the bread ; never- 

 theless, they are fraudulent because they 

 lower the quality of the flour without harm- 

 ing its appearance. The mixture is sold as 

 flour, and thus the purchaser secures an 

 adulterated article under a false name, and 

 often at the same price as pure goods. Min- 

 eral substances, such as alum, borax, chalk, 

 carbonate of magnesia, bone, etc., are oc- 

 casionally put into the flour to neutralize 

 its acidity, but these are more often used 

 by the baker than by the miller. 



NEVER EAT UNLESS HUNGRY. 



A prolific cause of chronic indigestion is 

 eating from habit, and simply because.it is 

 meal time and others are eating. To eat 

 when not hungry is to eat without relish, 

 and food taken without relish is not taken 

 wisely. Without relish the salivary glands 

 do not act normally, the gastric fluids are 

 not freely secreted and the best of foods 

 will not be digested so readily or so easily 

 as they should be. Many harmless dishes 

 are condemned for no other reason than 

 that they were eaten perfunctorily and 

 without relish due to insalivation. 



Hunger makes the plainest foods enjoy- 

 able. The ardent desire for food causes 

 vigorous secretion and outpouring of all the 

 digestive fluids, which are the sources of 

 ptyalin, pepsin, trypsin, etc., without a plenti- 

 ful supply of which no foods Can be perfect- 

 ly digested. 



The advice of a recent writer is to wait 

 for an appetite, if it takes a week. Fasting 

 is one of the saving graces. It has a spir- 

 itual significance only through its great 

 •physical importance. If breakfast is a bore 

 or lunch a matter of indifference, cut one 

 or both of them out. Wait for distinct and 

 unmistakable hunger, and then eat slowly. 

 If you do this you need ask few questions as 

 to the digestibilitv of what vou eat. 



STRAWBERRY JAM. 

 The newspapers report that the State 

 chemist of Nebraska has analyzed a sample 

 of commercial strawberry jam. and found 

 that it was no such thing. The account 

 states further that it was made chiefly of 

 pumpkin, tinted with coal tar dyes, pre- 

 served with benzoic acid and that the seeds 

 which were intended as evidence of the 

 presence of real berries were grass seeds. 

 This does not account for the flavor; but 

 everybody knows that flavors may be artifi- 

 cially simulated by chemical processes. Con- 

 fident reliance on the manufacturer and the 

 shopkeeper has induced many housewives, 



even those who know how, to forego the 

 trouble of making their own jam and pre- 

 serves. The factory prepared article is often 

 cheaper, as well as more conveniently ob- 

 tained. When it is compounded as this 

 alleged strawberry jam was. why shouldn't 

 it be cheaper? It is a great satisfaction, 

 when invited to dine to have the hostess 

 say, "I made these preserves myself." 



TINY TIM AND THE GOOSE. 



The story of Tiny Tim who ate the goose * 

 is a familiar one in stage circles. An Eng- 

 lish writer says, 



"When playing Bob Cratchit in The 

 Christmas Carol at the Adelphi, Mr. J. L. 

 Toole had each night to carve a real goose 

 and a practicable plum pudding during the 

 run of 40 nights. The little girl who played 

 Tiny Tim was a child of one of the scene 

 shifters. She always finished her portions 

 of goose and pudding with such amazing 

 celerity that Mr. Toole became alarmed on 

 her account. 



" 'I don't like it,' he writes in his Reminis- 

 cences ; T can't conceive where a poor, deli- 

 cate little thing like that puts the food. I 

 like the children to enjoy a treat, though 

 how they kept on enjoying it for 40 nights 

 was a mystery, for I got into such a condi- 

 tion that if I dined at a friend's house and 

 goose was on the table I regarded it as a 

 personal affront ; but I said, referring to 

 Tiny Tim. T don't like greediness, and it is~ 

 additionally repulsive in a refined looking, 

 delicate little thing like this ; besides, it de- 

 stroys the sentiment of the situation. When 

 I, as Bob, ought to feel most pathetic, I am 

 always wondering where the goose and the 

 pudding are, or whether anything serious 

 in the way of a fit will happen to Tiny Tim 

 before the audience in consequence of her 

 unnatural gorging.' 



" 'Mrs. Mellon laughed at me at first, but 

 eventually we decided to watch the child 

 together. The moment Tiny Tim was 

 seated and began to eat, we observed a cu- 

 rious shuffling movement at the stage fire- 

 place, and everything that I had given her, 

 goose, potatoes and apple sauce, disappeared 

 behind the sham stove, the child pretending 

 to eat as heartily as ever from the empty 

 plate. When the performance was over 

 Mrs. Mellon and I asked the little girl what 

 became of the food she did not eat. After 

 some hesitation she confessed that her little 

 sister waited on the other side of the fire- 

 place for the supplies, and then the whole 

 family of the scene shifter enjoyed a hearty 

 supper every night. 



" 'Dickens was much interested in the in- 

 cident. When I had finished he smiled, a 

 little sadly I thought, and then, shaking me 

 by the hand, he said, "Ah! you ought to 

 have given her the whole goose." ' " 



