48 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
January 21 
• ▼T ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼▼▼T T T T T T TT TT< 
[ Woman and Home \ 
FROM DAY TO DAY. 
The daily papers report the pathetic 
case of a Kansas man, who took out a 
license to marry a girl of his acquaint¬ 
ance, before going through the formal¬ 
ity of asking the girl. The young woman 
not only refused the over-confident 
young man, but threatens a damage suit 
against him, and it is reasonable to 
imagine that, if his thoughts are ever 
again turned in the direction of matri¬ 
mony, he will decide that the girl has 
something to say about it first. 
* 
A German clergyman has developed a 
new curative system, which consists of 
keeping in contact with the earth. The 
sick must sleep on the ground, and must 
coat themselves with mud, allowing it to 
dry on. The advocate of this system de¬ 
clares that, as man was created from 
mud, so he must resort to mud for re¬ 
creation when ill. Mud-baths have long 
been resorted to as a cure for various 
Ills, but we should imagine that even 
those who are quite willing to try a mud- 
bath would draw the line at coating 
themselves with dry mud. Besides, it 
would be rather difficult to distinguish 
between a person who was taking the 
mud cure, and one who was merely dirty. 
* 
Among the victims of the recent grip 
epidemic in New York was Mrs. Isabel 
Allardice Mallon, better known to women 
all over the country as “ Bab ” and “Ruth 
Ashmore.” It is doubtful whether any 
other woman writer in the United States 
was so widely known among women as 
Ruth Ashmore, and her writings were 
impressed with such a kindly person¬ 
ality, that many a woman in some lonely 
home looked upon her as a personal 
friend. Her newspaper letters, signed 
Bab, appealed to a different audience 
from the Ruth Ashmore series. Mrs. 
Mallon was a widow, and was 36 years 
old. She had suffered a severe shock in 
the recent death of her mother and, be¬ 
coming affected with the grip, the dis¬ 
ease soon passed into pneumonia, with 
fatal results. 
* 
This is a season of the year when 
many women in the country suffer from 
the lack of fresh air. This statement 
sounds rather absurd, but it is very easy 
to acquire the habit of staying indoors, 
when roads are bad, neighbors are dis¬ 
tant, and weather is uninviting. At a 
recent gathering of physicians, during a 
discussion on the value of Maine’s climate 
in cases of consumption, one of the 
doctors referred to the prevalence of pul¬ 
monary diseases among women in that 
section of the country. This was ex¬ 
plained on the ground that the women 
spent most of their time, during the 
Winter, shut up in the house, huddled 
over the stove whenever domestic voca¬ 
tions permitted it. Fishermen, exposed 
to all the rigors of the climate, were 
extraordinarily free from tuberculosis. 
This opinion is reflected in the most 
modern treatment for consumptives. 
Several of our ailing friends have spent 
not only the Summer, but the Winter, 
also, up in the Adirondack region, where 
the doctors keep them out of doors in the 
severest weather. Wrapped in furs, the 
frail consumptives are sent out of doors 
in crisp zero weather when, under the 
old dispensation, they would have been 
toasting over a fire. Fresh air and sun¬ 
light in a bracing latitude are now the 
doctor’s aids in fighting the “ white 
plague” that destroys so many in the 
temperate zone. If daily baths or out¬ 
side air are the best aid to the sick, they 
are certainly equally needed by the well. 
Naturally, one who has gone out only 
when compelled to do so, ever since cold 
weather began, will feel the effect of a 
sudden change in her habits. A woman 
who has always made a practice of get¬ 
ting out every day, in all save the most 
inclement weather, feels the benefit of 
her habits in both health and spirits. 
* 
Many people who visit the city but 
rarely do not like to stand looking at 
the shop windows because they fear that 
it looks countrified. In point of actual 
fact, the city man or woman is usually 
the first to look at any new arrange¬ 
ment, and a very small novelty will often 
attract a large crowd. Similarly, one 
meets people who try to disguise their 
lack of familiarity with fine clothes or 
beautiful surroundings by showing no 
admiration for them. As a rule, a wo¬ 
man who has always possessed pretty 
frocks and dainty accessories is most 
ready to show admiration for the belong¬ 
ings of others, whereas one to whom 
they are a novelty hesitates to admire, 
under the impression that she thus dis¬ 
guises her inexperience. 
* 
A very heated discussion concerning 
the danger of ptomaine poisoning from 
canned food, is now raging in England. 
In consequence of the suspicion thrown 
upon their products, the manufacturers 
of canned goods are inducing eminent 
physicians to testify as to the harmless¬ 
ness of their products, and the danger of 
poisoning from other articles. Some of 
these experts assert that cold rice pud¬ 
ding and cold potatoes are both suitable 
mediums for ptomaine poisoning. The 
news that we can’t hash or fry cold pota¬ 
toes without danger from deadly pto¬ 
maines, or that the left-over rice pud¬ 
ding is exposed to a similar suspicion, 
is enough to plunge any frugal house¬ 
wife into the deepest gloom. Is it pos¬ 
sible that those doctors are influenced 
by a deep-laid plot to discourage the re¬ 
appearance of left-over dishes ? 
V 
* 
A great fire recently occurred in a 
western city, and among the volunteers 
who aided in fighting the fire, was a 
young man well and popularly known. 
He mysteriously disappeared, and was 
never seen after the night of the fire 
Scandalous stories were related to ac¬ 
count for his disappearance, several per¬ 
sons declaring that he was seen after¬ 
wards in various disreputable resorts. 
More than two weeks elapsed, when 
workmen, pulling down the ruins of the 
burned building, discovered the young 
man’s remains. He had fallen into the 
fire while handling the hose, the acci¬ 
dent being overlooked in the confusion. 
This sad incident is surely an emphatic 
warning against the readiness to put an 
evil construction upon the actions of 
others, or to believe and repeat the worst 
thing about our neighbor. It is doubt¬ 
ful whether any other section of the 
Decalogue is so often or so lightly 
broken in word or spirit, as the ninth 
commandment. 
* 
Philadelphia now has eight public 
kitchens, under the Department of 
Public Instruction, where a course m 
cooking is given to girls in the grammar 
grades of the public schools. The course 
provides between 25 and 30 lessons, and 
is completed in a single year. It includes 
instruction in the care of the kitchen, 
and of the store or range, general lessons 
in the classification and nutritive values 
of foods, the cooking of vegetables, 
breakfast cereals, bread, eggs, soups, 
meats, simple cakes and desserts, lessons 
in invalid cookery, and in table setting 
and serving. Special attention is given 
to the preparation of nutritious and sav¬ 
ory dishes from inexpensive materials. 
About 2,000 pupils, or less than one-half 
of the number of girls of the sixth year 
now in the schools, are accommodated in 
the eight cookery schools. The pupils 
manifest an intelligent interest in the 
instruction, and spend the half day per 
week in the school kitchen without any 
appreciable loss in the other branches of 
study. 
* 
George Frederick Watts, a famous 
English artist, has erected in Postman’s 
Park, a little breathing place in a crowd¬ 
ed section of London, a beautiful pavil¬ 
ion, in which will be placed, from time 
to time, tablets commemorating deeds 
of heroism performed by persons in the 
humbler walks of life. It is suggested 
that this same idea might well be adopt¬ 
ed in some of our own cities. An exam¬ 
ple of the heroism such memorials might 
commemorate was shown in New York 
January 2. An old wooden building in 
a crowded tenement district took fire, 
and the teacher of a Jewish kindergar¬ 
ten, an elderly man, saved the lives of 
the little ones under his care by drop¬ 
ping them out of the window into the 
arms of rescuers below, after all other 
escape was cut off. The building was a 
mere firetrap, and the teacher himself 
finally escaped by a very narrow mar¬ 
gin. We have made so much of the 
heroes of war during 1898, that it is 
worth remembering that peace may call 
out even greater heroism, and the old 
man who stood amid flames and smoke 
to save little children surely deserves 
equal credit with the soldier who deals 
death while defying it. 
WHAT THEY EAT IN HAWAII. 
I shall not soon forget my first lunch¬ 
eon at the Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu, 
says a writer in the American Kitchen 
Magazine. During my entire Pacific 
voyage, I had been promising myself un¬ 
limited indulgence in all sorts of tropi¬ 
cal fruits when our island Mecca should 
be reached. Eagerly I scanned the menu 
“Alligator pear ” was the first new viand 
mentioned, and although the name had 
not a particularly attractive sound, I 
boldly gave the order, which was unhesi¬ 
tatingly repeated by each one at the 
table. 
When the queer-looking object, with 
its purplish-brown skin, was placed be¬ 
fore me, I tried to decide whether it was 
an overgrown pear or a dwarfed squash. 
Before my deliberations had ended, an 
Englishman at my right had seized upon 
the unfamiliar fruit (or vegetable ?), had 
pared it, and attempted to slice off a 
mouthful. A sudden grimace showed he 
had struck some unexpected impediment, 
and, surely, pears with stones as large 
as a goose egg, were a revelation to us all. 
As a gleam of fun shoived itself in the 
almond eyes of our Chinese waiter, I 
gave him my plate with an appealing 
look. 
“Meliean man no eat him right,” he 
said, as halving the object, he removed 
the stone, and using the heavy skin or 
rind as a salad dish, he added vinegar, 
salt, pepper, mustard and oil to the rich, 
butter-like pulp, mixing until smooth, 
when he presented me my first Avocado 
salad. 
“ How did I like it ? ” 
Well, the condiments tasted the same 
as usual, and the pear did not detract 
very much. 
“ Papaya ” proved another disappoint¬ 
ing fruit. About 10 inches long and 
half as broad, externally ribbed and of 
a dull orange color, with fleshy rind and 
numerous black seeds, it seemed more 
like a squash than anything else. It is 
sometimes eaten raw with pepper and 
sugar, but the only way I succeeded in 
disposing of it was in what I supposed 
at the time to be squash pie. 
Miss Bird admonishes all attempting 
to eat mangoes to experiment in pri¬ 
vate, if they desire to retain either their 
own self-respect or the admiration of 
their friends. Remembering this, I 
called for no mangoes at the hotel table, 
but procuring two or three, I retired to 
the solitude of my own apartment. The 
fruit resembles a golden Bartlett pear 
with a red cheek, only, by some freak of 
Nature, it is the big end of the pear 
which joins the branch. At all events, 
it is a very attractive-looking fruit seen 
against the rich, glossy foliage of the 
mango tree, and again my mouth watered 
with expectation of a feast. 
Fortunate was I in that no fun-loving 
artist was at hand to picture the descent 
from delighted anticipation to disgusted 
participation. A large stone occupied 
the center, and a great portion of the 
space between that and the skin was 
filled by coarse fibers attached to it after 
the manner of a clingstone peach. At 
first, I regretted the small quantity of 
pulp, but when I had fairly tasted it, 
the strong flavor of turpentine permeat¬ 
ing it made that little go a great way. I 
have, since then, heard the mango com¬ 
pared to a “mixture of tow and turpen¬ 
tine,” with no thought of finding fault 
with the comparison. 
When I found the ripe breadfruit 
tasted like clammy cake, and the green 
breadfruit must be eaten baked like 
potatoes ; that guavas smelt much better 
than they tasted, and figs were too sick- 
ish to be thought of, my opinion of tropi¬ 
cal fruits declined rapidly. Added to 
these, however, which, like olives, one 
must learn to eat, there are plenty of de¬ 
licious strawberries, bananas,little China 
oranges, and pineappes so luscious that 
I can find no words to describe them. 
Taro is the staff of life for the native 
Hawaiians. It has been said often that 
what rice is to a Chinaman, macaroni to 
an Italian, and potatoes to an Irishman, 
taro is to a Hawaiian. The taro patch is 
an indispensable adjunct to a native 
home, and so nutritious is the food pre¬ 
pared from it, that it is estimated a 
patch 40 feet square will support a man 
for a year. 
This plant, botanically known as Col- 
ocasia esculenta, has an ovate root as 
large as a California beet, and bright 
green arrow-shaped leaves. Each plant 
is placed in a little hillock of earth, and 
the intervening ditches are frequently 
inundated. The leaves are used as we 
use spinach, but the root furnishes the 
staple food. After being baked in an 
imu, or underground oven, the tough, 
fibrous skin is removed, and the steam¬ 
ing tubers are placed upon a slightly 
hollowed board, and, with a stone pestle, 
beaten into a paste called paiai. It is 
then placed in huge wooden calabashes, 
a little water is added, and it is set one 
side two or three days to ferment. When 
ready for use, it is a faint lilac color, 
and it then is termed poi. 
The dusky hostess who invites to a 
“ poi-feed,” has no need to count her 
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Philadelphia, Pa. 
