December 1, 1909 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
39 
For the Ladies. 
Christmas Boxes. 
Christmas boxes are no new thing. 
Gay alludes to them thus: 
‘When time comes round, a Christmas 
box they bear, 
And one day makes them rich for all the 
year.’ 
Brand says, in his ‘ Popular Anti- 
Quities °:—‘ The bnicher and the baker 
8ent their journeymen and apprentices to 
levy contributions on their customers, 
who were paid back again in fees to the 
Servants of the different families. The 
the tradesman had in consequence, a 
pretence to lengthen out his bill, and the 
Master and the mistress to lower the 
Wages on account of the vails.’ 
Christmas boxes used to be levied, 
blackmail fashion, in the city of Exeter 
quite as late as 1737, and the practice is 
thus alluded to in the ‘ Mobiad; or 
Battle of the Voice,’ a political satire 
published in the year 1770: 
‘The Christmas Day morning is most 
scandalously abused here, and there is 
a hellish variety of other wickedness and 
Outrage. Meanwhile some accompanied 
With fiddles, others without them, rove 
about the city, and under windows sing 
carols, and make them in deeds the songs 
of drunkards, And for such impudent 
profaneness they are rewarded, having 
not only Chriatmas drink, but demanding 
box-money to be more drunk with. 
Beauty Sleep. 
A young woman—otherwise in every 
Way attractive—was growing round- 
shouldered. 
‘She banished the tendency to bend 
undesirably by grasping the fact, too 
often lost sight of, that beauty may be in 
the making whilst we sleep. 
Remembering that she passed 
Something like a third of her life in 
Slumber, this sensible person determined 
at the cost of whatever discomfort, to go 
Without a pillow, and te sleep flat on her 
back, with her shoulders in an absolutely 
straight position, The result was that 
the habit, which it was almost impossible 
to keep constantly in mind during the 
daytime, was done away with. 
The skin should be nourished for the 
beauty sleep by washing it in warm 
water with a little oatmeal introduced, 
just before retiring, or by rubbing in 
some skin food or emollient cream. 
Above all see that your bedroom is 
properly ventilated, leaving registers 
open in the fire-grate, as well as windows 
down at the top, That beauty-sleep may 
be enjoyed in perfection, the temperature 
should not be above sixty degrees. 
The mouth should be kept closed, if 
not naturally, by a chin-strap, as this 
induces deep breathing, one of the 
secrets of good circulation and good 
complexion. A suflicient amount of 
sleep must be taken, or the complexion 
will speedily show it. One hour added 
to the old saying of ‘six hours for a man 
and seven fora woman’ is about right, 
If there be a desire to sleep longer, it 
points to indigestion or overeating. 
—‘ Scraps.’ 
Who Should Wipe the Dishes? 
‘Don’t you think, Minerva,’ said Mr. 
Backenstots, anxiously as he tied the 
strings of his kitchen apron firmly 
around his waist, and tucked his whiskers 
carefully behind the bib to keep them 
out of the dish water—‘ don’t you think 
that we are carrying this idea of co-oper- 
ation in domestic matters to extremes? I 
have been washing dishes for a week now, 
‘and between times I have been doing a 
little scriptural reading, and I can’t find 
in the Bible any authority for men doing 
kitchen work; on the other hand, women 
are frequently spoken of in this connec- 
tion. She looketh well to the ways of 
her household,’ She worketh willingly 
with her hands,’ ‘She riseth while it is 
yet night and giveth meat to her house- 
hold;’ these quotations, Minerva, would 
would seem to warrant the conclusion 
that household duties should properly be 
assigned to the woman.’ 
‘My dear,’ replied his wife, ‘like the 
rest of your sex, you are adapted to 
thorough research, but are painfully 
superficial. If you pursue your studies 
further you will find in Kings, 21st, these 
words—‘*I will wipe Jerusalem as a man 
wipeth a dish, ‘wiping it and turning it 
upside down.’ This conclusively proves 
that you are nobly, although quite 
unobtrusively, doing the work designed 
for you by providence When you are 
through, be sure and wash the towels 
clean, rinse them, shake them and hang 
thom straight on the rack, Death, you 
know, Gecrge Henry, lurks in the dish- 
cloth. And Mrs. Backenstots tied her 
bonnet strings in a butterfly bow and 
went out to attend a meeting of the 
Society for Extinction of the Microbe by 
Means of Electrocution, 
The Human Race as Part of 
the Vegetable World. 
Councillor J.U.*Currie, of Hampden- 
shire, has discoved a physiological 
significance in poetic similes. Since 
wonien are said to be ‘fair as lilies’ or 
* modest as violets’ while men are ‘ green 
as cabbages,’ or ‘ bald as a pumkin ’ he 
concludes that the human race must be a 
part of the vegetable world. A necess- 
ary consequence is that the devotees of 
the nuts-and-fruit diet are cannibals, but 
probably Councillor Currie did not mean 
to condemn so utterly a fashionable fad 
of the time. -His fancy suggests a now 
way of writing the simple romances 
which occur in the garden of modern 
society:— 
A cabbage in a garden 
Adored a blushing rose; 
His passion (past all pardon) 
He dared not disclose, 
That sweet and fragrant blossom 
He longed in vain to hug. 
For love within his boson 
Was gnawing like a slug. 
Such feelings always harrow 
The soul when love takes fire; 
His vegetable marrow 
Was burning with desire. 
When ever he espied her 
He dreamed of pleasant scenes, 
