582 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 20 
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♦ Woman and | 
| The Home, t 
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FROM DAY TO DAY. 
The equality of the sexes has been 
demonstrated by a Philadelphia magis¬ 
trate, who recently held a man under 
bond upon the charge of being a com¬ 
mon scold ! His counsel asserted that 
no man was ever held upon this charge, 
but the magistrate has established a 
precedent. The offender was in the 
habit of nagging the neighbors when¬ 
ever their conduct did not meet his 
views, until they all united to prosecute 
him Last year, a woman in New Jersey 
was convicted as a scold under the old 
law, still unrepealed ; however, she 
escaped with a fine, instead of the duck¬ 
ing-stool and scold’s bridle. 
* 
Most hotels display, fastened inside 
the door of each room, a card, giving 
rates, hours for meals, and general rules 
of the house. Instead of this useful but 
unhomelike placard, the landlord of one 
hotel at the Isle of Shoals put these 
charming lines in each guest chamber : 
Sleep sweetly in this <juiet room, 
Oh thou, whoe’er thou art, 
And let no mournful yesterdays 
Disturb thy peaceful heart, 
Nor let to-morrow scare thy rest 
With dreams of coming: ill; 
Thy Maker is thy changeless friend, 
His love surrounds thee still. 
Forget thyself and all the world, 
Put out each glaring light, 
The stars are watching over thee; 
•Sleep sweetly, then, good night. 
* 
The newspapers have had much to 
say, since the outbreak of war, about 
various young women of social promin¬ 
ence who have cast aside their luxury to 
go to the front, as aides to the Red 
Cross Society. As a matter of fact, the 
Red Cross Society does not accept any 
nurses except those professionally 
trained, and though these young women 
may find some duties which would add 
to the comfort of the soldiers, they could 
not go to the actual scene of war, or 
act as regular nurses. They are, no 
doubt, often actuated by the worthiest 
motives, but we would reserve our en¬ 
thusiasm for the patient nurses to whom 
hard work and hard living are a matter 
of constant duty, rather than a tem¬ 
porary excitement and change. 
* 
Cooking lectures to demonstrate the 
value of gas stoves are now a feature 
in all the large stores, and are invariably 
well attended. Most of the women pres¬ 
ent ask questions freely, and make ample 
use of their note-books. It seems rather 
odd to see a number of men present; we 
wonder whether they go home and tell 
their wives how the cooking-teacher 
does things ! Most of the demonstrations 
given are of practical every-day cooking. 
According to our experience, the average 
woman needs more instruction in the 
fundamentals of cookery than in elabor¬ 
ate dishes. During some recent journey- 
ings, we came to the conclusion that the 
cook in a small hotel knows more ways 
in which potatoes ought not to be cooked 
than Mrs. Rorer could think up in a 
month ! Among the recipes given by 
Mrs. Mackenzie Hill, of the Boston Cook¬ 
ing School, at one of the gas-stove demon¬ 
strations, was baked-bean soup, a good 
way to use left-over beans. The recipe 
called for one pint of cold baked beans, 
which were put in a saucepan with one 
quart of water, two slices of onion, and 
one stalk of celery. This material was 
allowed to come to a boil, and one-half 
pint of tomato added, the whole boiling 
for 20 minutes. The soup was then 
strained through a sieve, and thickened 
with one tablespoonful of flour, rolled in 
one tablespoon ful of butter. Season to 
taste with salt and pepper. 
The hideous Cuban land crabs have 
been mentioned frequently since the 
campaign opened. The Red Cross nurses 
say that these creatures were their 
special horror; they would come scut¬ 
tling across a wooden floor with distract¬ 
ing racket, and they make sleep un¬ 
pleasant for the wounded soldiers, lying 
upon straw, by insisting upon sharin<g 
their blankets. One night one of the Red 
Cross nurses was on duty alone in the 
temporary hospital, when a giganticcrab 
hoisted himself on the doorstep and 
marched across the floor, waving his 
claws at the nurse. She could not call 
for help without waking her charges, so 
she had to stand still and tremble until 
a passing soldier came to-her aid and 
with a broom chased the crab under a 
cot, whence he refused to move. Lest 
it be inferred that this nurse was 
lacking in courage, we may state that 
she was Miss Jennings, the heroine of 
the transport Seneca. 
DOMESTIC SCIENCE AT THE OHIO 
STATE UNIVERSITY. 
In 1896, the Ohio State University 
established a chair of domestic science 
and a four years’ course leading to the 
degree of Bachelor of Science. It was 
felt that women require something more 
than the ordinary literary and scientific 
course, to be equipped for their special 
work in the world. Says Prof. Bowman, 
the associate professor of domestic science 
at the above college : 
There can be no education too broad or too com¬ 
prehensive for the preparation of home life; yet 
the connecting link between the school and the 
family seems to have been lost, or better, perhaps, 
is just being forged. It is this link that domestic 
science seeks to put in place. It is believed that 
such a training for young women will not only 
make all life fuller and more useful, but will 
help to bridge the time between school and the 
serious assumption of responsibility. The return 
of a young woman from college ought not to be, 
as is now so often the case, the entrance into a 
strange realm: but the new environment ought 
to appeal to her at once, urging her to activity 
because she is already interested, not alone in 
political economy, but in domestic science—not 
alone in the history of the past, but in making 
the home history of the present and future. In 
these new surroundings, she will find problems 
as difficult of solution, and questions as vital, as 
any which have before this claimed her atten¬ 
tion. It is a psychological fact that we become in¬ 
terested in and learn to love that which we know 
most about; yet many young women of our 
generation are permitted, even expected, to know 
more of almost everything than of home and its 
duties and privileges. This may be so because 
many are sent away to school when very young; 
but those at home, in the stress of school life, 
with music or art to occupy every moment not 
actually required for recreation, have little 
energy or opportunity for home duties. Such 
duties to daughters of the wealthy are often 
almost mythical; while to the poor these duties 
are so real as to be a terrible bui'den. In neither 
position is the young woman able to realize their 
true import. The small knowledge of the one is 
all theoretical, of the other all practical, and 
both breed dislike of home work—with the first 
because she has no conception of its importance 
or meaning, with the second because she has 
been wrongly worked and overworked. 
Fig. 272 shows the domestic science 
laboratory at the Ohio University. We 
like the term “domestic science labora¬ 
tory”; it dignifies the kitchen with its 
true position. The course given includes 
agricultural chemistry, zoology, ento¬ 
mology, botany, horticulture and flori¬ 
culture, hygiene and physical training, 
physiology, drawing and house design¬ 
ing, in addition to literature and lan¬ 
guages. The aim is extremely broad; 
not a narrow course of technical train¬ 
ing, but a study of the underlying prin¬ 
ciples of economics. The scientific study 
of home life and work will tend to offset 
the disposition, on the part of educated 
women, to crowd into business or pro¬ 
fessional life, irrespective of actual need. 
We believe that there is a greater need 
for broadly-educated, well-balanced wo¬ 
men in the home than in business life. 
The school of domestic science offers one 
answer to the vexed question as to what 
we shall do with our daughters. 
OUR NATIVE PLUMS. 
GOOD WAYS IN WHICH THEY MAY BE USED. 
Prof. E. S. Goff, horticulturist at the 
University of Wisconsin, is making a 
praiseworthy endeavor to secure a wider 
use and consequently a more general 
cultivation of the “native plum”, by 
which he means those cultivated plums 
that have been derived from the wild 
plums of this country. To enable those 
unfamiliar with the qualities of the 
native plums to make the best use of 
them, Prof. Goff submits recipes for 
various preparations to which they are 
adapted. 
As a rule, more sugar is required for 
the native plums, but the preparations 
are richer in proportion. The harshness 
in the skin and stone of some native 
plums is readily removed by steaming 
them in an ordinary cooking steamer 
until the skin cracks ; or pour over them 
boiling water to which has been added 
common baking soda in the proportion 
of one-half teaspoonful to a quart. The 
thicker-skinned varieties may be readily 
peeled by placing them in boiling water 
two to three minutes. 
Canning. —Pick the fruit when well 
colored but a little hard, steam or cook 
in a porcelain-lined kettle until tender, 
put in cans that have first been treated 
to boiling water, and cover with boiling 
syrup made of equal parts granulated 
sugar and water, filling the can to the 
top ; then run a silver knife around the 
can inside to let out the air, and seal at 
once. Plums cooked in the syrup are 
likely to be tough. Canned plums may 
be used for pies and for mixing with or 
flavoring other fruits. Plums are often 
canned without sugar to be used in 
Winter for making fresh plum butter. 
The juice of canned plums makes excel¬ 
lent jelly. 
Buying. —De Soto, Wyant and, doubt¬ 
less, other varieties may be pared, pitted, 
spread on plates, lightly sprinkled with 
sugar and dried, first in the oven and 
later in the sun. Cook like dried peaches. 
Plum .Telly. —The fruit should be 
gathered when only partly ripe—about 
half colored. This point is very essen¬ 
tial. Put plums in a large granite or 
porcelain kettle—the latter is best— 
with barely enough water to cover them. 
Cook until tender but not until they are 
in a pulpy mass. Having previously 
covered a large jar with a cloth, strain 
the fruit in and let the juice drip 
through, but do not squeeze. When all 
has drained through, strain once or 
twice more through another cloth, until 
the juice is perfectly clear. To one 
measure of juice provide one measure of 
granulated sugar, but do not put to¬ 
gether at once. A very important point 
in the making of all jelly is that only 
a small quantity should be cooked at 
one time. Into a medium-sized kettle 
put, say four tumblers of juice; let it 
boil briskly 15 or 20 minutes, then add 
the four tumblers of sugar, and in a very 
short time—usually from three to 10 
minutes—the jelly will be finished, light, 
clear and delicious. To test the jelly, 
dip a spoon into the boiling juice and 
sugar and hold it up ; when the jelly 
clings to the spoon in thick drops, take 
it off quickly and put it into jelly glasses. 
The plum pulp which is left can be put 
through a colander and used for plum- 
butter. 
The following point is regarded as im¬ 
portant by one contributor : The earlier 
in the morning and the clearer the day, 
the better will be your jelly. A cloudy 
day makes dark jelly, and if not made 
early in the day the juice requires boil¬ 
ing so much longer that the jelly is dark, 
and sometimes it is almost impossible to 
get it to jelly. 
Another correspondent writes: “It 
is well to begin to test it after boiling 
15 minutes, taking a teaspoonful at a 
time on a saucer and standing in a cool 
place for a moment; scrape it to one 
side with a spoon, and if it is done, the 
surface will be partly solid ; then roll 
the tumblers in boiling water quickly 
and fill them with the jelly. On the 
top of each, while it is still hot, drop a 
lump of clean paraffin, which will melt 
and cover the top tightly, preventing all 
molding. If prepared in this way, it 
will not need to be tied with braudied 
paper or other special care taken.” 
Plum Butter.—To make very nice 
plum butter out of De Soto, Wyant or 
any other freestone plums, pare and take 
out the pits, put in granite kettle or pan, 
sprinkle heavily with sugar and let 
stand over night. In the morning, 
there will be juice enough to cook them. 
Stir constantly while cooking, and add 
more sugar if not sweet enough. This 
Overproduction 
Silt, 
$2.00 AXMINSTER 
CARPET, 
In our fifty yeais’ experience as 
manufacturers. Carpets never have 
been as low as during “This Special 
Sale,” and an opportunity like this is 
not likely to present itself again. Our 
offer-sew Carpets free, furnish wad¬ 
ded lining and pay freight on orders 
of $9 and over received during this 
month. Our Lithog.aphed Carpet 
Catalogue showing goods in hand, 
painted eoiors; also, new 160-page 
catalouge of Furniture and every¬ 
thing necessary for housefurnish¬ 
ing are mailed free to any address. 
Amnsttr^ 
kgi, |g 
$1.49 fi 
Best qualify Axminste>- Moquette 
Bug. It measures 27x60 inches, and 
the colorings are in those delicate 
tints and shades for which these 
carpets are famous. 
Address (exactlv) as below. 
JULIUS HINKS & SON, 
Dept. 320 Baltimore, M«l. 
