XX11 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



March, 1913 



NOW READY 



The Scientific American 

 Handbook of Travel 



With Hints for the Ocean Voyage for European 

 Tours :-; A Practical Guide to London and Paris 



By ALBERT A. HOPKINS 



Editor of Scientific American Reference Book. 500 Pages. 500 Illus- 

 trations. Flexible cover, $2.00, net. Full leather, $2.50, net, postpaid. 



At last the ideal guide, the result of twenty years of study and 

 travel, is completed. It is endorsed by every steamship and rail- 

 road company in Europe. To those who are not planning a trip it is 

 equally informing. Send for illustrated circular containing 1 00 questions 

 out of 2,500 this book will answer. Itis mailed free and will give some kind of idea of the contents of 

 this unique book, which should be in the hands of all readers of ihe^lmerican Homes and Gardens, 

 as it tells you exactly what you have wanted to know about a trip abroad and the ocean voyage. 



WHAT THE BOOK CONTAINS— 500 Illustrations, 6 Color Plates, 9 Maps in Pocket, 

 Names 2,000 Hotels, with price; All About Ships, "A Safer Sea," Automobiling in Europe, 

 The Sea and its Navigation, Statistical Information, Ocean Records, 400 Tours With 

 Prices, The Passion Plays, Practical Guide to London, Practical Guide to Paris. 



MUNN & CO., Inc., Publishers, 361 Broadway, New York 



<I 



less arbitrarily chosen monuments, as a his 

 tory of groups of monuments, of styles. 

 He has not hesitated to devote much space 

 to the discussion of the formation, the de- 

 velopment, the culmination of these styles 

 considered in their broadest terms ; to their 

 mutual interrelations, and to the effect on 

 architecture of the social and economic 

 peculiarities of the age. It has long been 

 recognized in the field of political history 

 that the historian who would convey a true 

 understanding of a period must go far be- 

 yond a mere catalogue of kings, battles and 

 dates. Similarly in architectural history 

 there has been a decided tendency of late 

 years to lay greater emphasis on the broader 

 significance of events to see in the general 

 course of development something far 

 deeper, more vital than the individual 

 building, its peculiarities and its date. Mr. 

 Porter has succeeded admirably in the im- 

 portant work he has undertaken. 



WATER WITH MEALS 



UNTIL very recently, says the New 

 York Times, nobody thought of doubt- 

 ing that it was injurious to drink water at 

 meals. That highest of authorities, "every- 

 body," said so and had highly plausible 

 reasons with which to support the state- 

 ment. Water taken with food made 

 dangerously easy abstention from proper 

 chewing, it weakened by dilution the ef- 

 ficacy of the various digestive secretions, 

 and it did half a dozen obnoxious things 

 which in confidential moments were 

 minutely described for the edification of 

 the wise and the scaring of the foolish. 



What everybody said, nobody thought to 

 test, and though we all, as soon as we grew 

 up, did take water about when and as 

 thirst demanded, the indulgence in it at 

 meals was a matter of compunction more 

 or less keen, and children, poor things, were 

 almost always forced to go without a drink 

 at the time when they wanted it most. Re- 

 cently some real investigation of this ques- 

 tion has been made, and The Journal of the 

 American Medical Association reviews the 

 result. 



It is that the joy so long forbidden is 

 not only harmless and innocent, but 

 actually beneficial. In this, of course, as 

 in everything else, there should be modera- 

 tion, but there seems to be less than no 

 excuse at all either for banishing water 

 from the table or for limiting the consump- 

 tion of it there to a few stingy, uncon- 

 tenting sips. 



Foreigners, who have always affected a 

 sad wonder at the American liking for ice 

 water, just as, for a like unconfessed rea- 

 son — disinclination to spend money for 

 comfort — they have criticised the American 

 habit of keeping houses decently warm in 

 Winter, will be pleased to learn that when 

 the water taken at meals is too cold it 

 delays the process of digestion. It is per- 

 missible to suspect, however, that even this 

 accusation will be refuted or qualified by 

 further examination of the subject. The 

 pleasure that ice water gives — its ability 

 to "touch the spot" as tepid water never 

 does — simply cannot be without logical ex- 

 planation and justification. It presumably 

 has several good effects as well as one bad 

 consequence — if the mere delaying of 

 digestion be a bad consequence. 



Instinct and appetite, when not patho- 

 logically perverted, are pretty safe guides, 

 and they deserve to be trusted far more 

 than they are, especially in a land like this, 

 where there still lingers something of the 

 old Puritan idea that anything pleasurable 

 is vicious. 



