BEEF STEW. 1 lb. plate or brisket, 4 potatoes, 1 t. salt, 1 carrot, 1 T. fat, 1 T. flour, % t. pepper.

Cleanse the meat by wiping it with a damp cloth or by scraping it with the back of the knife. Cut it into pieces about two inches square, and put it into a saucepan with the bones and sliced carrot. Pour over this enough boiling water to cover well, about a pint and a half, and let it simmer until the meat is tender, then add the diced and parboiled potatoes. When the potatoes are done thin the mixed fat and flour with a little of the hot liquor from the stew, and after pouring it into the stew stir it until it thickens slightly. Cook a few minutes longer, then remove the bones, season and serve.

CORN CAKES. 1 pt. meal, 1⁄2 C. flour, 1 pt. sour buttermilk, 11⁄2 t. soda, 1 T. fat, 1 egg, 1 t. salt.

Scald the meal with sufficient boiling water to moisten, then put in the fat and stir until well mixed. When this is cool add the salt, flour and the buttermilk. Stir in the beaten egg and the soda, which is mixed with a little cold water. Bake in small cakes on a lightly greased hot griddle. GINGERBREAD. 1 C. molasses, 1/3 C. drippings, 1 t. soda, 1⁄2 t. salt, 1 C. sour buttermilk, 1 T. ginger, 3 C. flour, 1 t. cinnamon, 1⁄2 t. allspice. After mixing the salt and spices with the molasses add the fat, after which add flour and buttermilk alternately, then beat until perfectly smooth. Stir in the soda which is mixed with a little cold water and partly fill greased gem pans with the batter. Bake in a moderately hot. oven about thirty minutes or until the cakes are a light brown.

CHARTREUSE OF MUTTON. 1 C. cooked chopped mutton, 1 t. chopped parsley, 1⁄2 t. onion juice, 1 t. lemon juice, 4 t. salt, 2 T. butter, 1 C. stock or water, 2 T. flour, little cayenne.

Make sauce as directed for cream sauce, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Line a greased mold with hot boiled or steamed rice, having the layer about half an inch thick, then fill the center with the mutton mixture and cover the top evenly with rice. Steam forty-five minutes, then turn from the mold and serve with tomato sauce. The greased mold may be coated with bread crumbs, then lined with mashed potatoes and, after filling with the mutton, covered with potato. Bake.

TOMATO SAUCE. 2 T. drippings, 1 C. strained tomatoes, 2 T. flour, 1⁄2 t. salt, % t. pepper.

After melting the fat add the flour and cook for one minute, then add the strained tomatoes, the salt and the pepper. Stir until it thickens, then serve.

SCRAPPLE. 4 pts. water in which the lamb was cooked, 1 lb. scrap meat, 3 t. salt, 1 t. thyme, 1 t. sweet marjoram, 1 pt. meal, 4 t. pepper. After cleansing the meat, by wiping it with a damp cloth, cut it into small pieces and cook it slowly in the mutton broth until it will easily separate. See that here is one quart of the liquid and that the meat is in very small pieces. Season the mixture of water and meat, put it on the stove and, when it reaches boiling point, stir in the meal. Cook over hot water for two hours, then add the thyme and marjoram and, when well mixed, turn it into square pans and stand away to cool. When this is firm cut it into slices and brown in a little fat.

RICE MUFFINS. 24 C. flour, 1 C. milk, 34 C. hot rice, 1 egg, 5 t. baking powder, 2 T. butter or drippings, 11⁄2 t. salt.

After mixing the flour with the salt add the rice, which has been pressed through a strainer, and the milk which is mixed with the beaten. yolk of the egg. Beat until the batter is quite smooth, then add the melted fat, stir in carefully the baking powder and then fold in the stiffly beaten white. Partly fill greased gem pans with the batter and bake in a moderately hot oven until a light brown, about thirty minutes. Serve hot.

WINTER.

Apples, 10 cts. 4 peck.

MARKET PRICE OF FOODS.

Apple butter, 8 cts. jar.

Bacon (country), 10 cts. per lb.

Beef, part of the round, 6 cts. per lb.

Beef, brisket and plate, 6 cts. per lb.
Beef, corned, 6 cts. per lb.

Beef's heart, 8 cts.

Beans, 9 cts. qt.

Broken rice, 314 cts. per lb.

Bread (stale), 3 cts. loaf.
Butter, 30 cts. per lb.
Buttermilk, 5 cts. per qt.
Cabbage, 8 cts. head.

Coffee, 13 cts. per lb.

Corn flakes, 10 cts. pkg.

Cottage cheese, 6 cts. pt.
Escarolle, 3 cts. head.

Evaporated apricots, 10 cts. per lb.
Flake tapioca, 3 cts. per lb.
Flour, 6 lbs. 18 cts.

Hake, 5 cts. per lb.

Hominy, 41⁄2 cts. qt.

Kidney, 8 cts. for one.

Meal, 2 cts. per lb.
Molasses, 8 cts. per qt.
Mutton, breast, 7 cts. per lb.
Mutton, fore leg, 10 cts. per lb.
Mutton, neck, 6 cts. per lb.

Pig's feet, 8 cts. set.

Potomac herring, 8 cts. doz.
Potatoes, 20 cts. per pk.
Prunes, 5 cts. per lb.
Rolled wheat, 10 cts. pkg.
Salt pork, 7 cts. per lb.

Salt water trout, 10 cts. per lb.
Sausage, 3 lbs. 25 cts.
Skim milk, 6 cts. qt.
Spinach, 10 cts. 4 pk.
Split peas, 6 cts. lb.
Sugar, 5 cts. per lb.
Tea, 15 cts. per lb.
Tripe, 2 pounds 25 cts.
Turnips, 5 cts 4 pk.

SUMMER.

Apples, 8 cts. 4 pk.
Beets, 3 bunches 5 cts.
Blackberries, 5 cts. qt.
Butter, 20 cts. per lb.
Cabbage, 5 cts. per head.
Corn, 10 cts. per doz.
Eggs, 15 cts. per doz.
Onions, 3 bunches 5 cts.
Potatoes, 65 cts. bushel.
Spinach, 5 cts. per 4 pk.
String beans, 5 cts. 4 pk.
Summer squash, 5 cts. per doz.
Tomatoes, 3 cts. 4 pk.

QUANTITIES OF MATERIAL TO BE USED FOR A FAMILY OF SIX WHEN NOT GIVEN IN COOKING RECIPES.

According to a French Medical Journal the annual mortality of the entire human race is 33,000,000 of persons. A fourth of the race die before completing their 8th year, and one-half before the end of the 17th year, but the average duration of life is about 38 to 40 years. Not more than one person in 100,000 lives to be 100 years old. ("Medical Record," February 27, 1892.)

During life the fluids and tissues of the body are constantly undergoing changes; new matter is formed and the old is removed with ceaseless activity. The body is indeed a complex machine in which the law that force is generated by decomposition is fully carried out. Every motion of the body, every pulsation of the heart, nay even every thought is accompanied by the destruction of a certain amount of tissue. As long as food is supplied in sufficient amount and the assimilative functions are not disordered, reparation proceeds as rapidly as decay, and so long as these

*Carpenter, "Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology," Vol. I, article "Age," "Hammond's Treatise on Hygiene."

two actions exactly counterbalance each other, life and health, unless, of course, in case of accident, continues.

The human body has been aptly likened to a machine, and it is said that every machine has a natural life, capable of doing just so much work, but after all our machine differs from an inorganic machine in the fact that it possesses the power of self-repair, and also that for a given time, say between birth and the 25th year, our machine increases in growth and efficiency; there is then another period, limited usually between the 25th and 35th year, during which the living machine maintains its fullest development and resistance, probably because regeneration and waste are exactly counterbalanced, and then comes the period of decline, reaching from the 35th year to the extreme limit of human life, when this natural resistance begins to fail and the tissues are not regenerated as fast as they are broken down. (Hammond.)

The various periods in the life of man are marked by certain peculiarities, and exhibit susceptibility to some diseases and immunity to others.

Statistics show that out of every 1,000 children born alive, 188, or over one sixth, perish before the completion of the first year. Of the twelve months during the first year of life the first month furnishes the highest mortality. This is due to the fact that a great many children, imperfectly developed at birth, die within a few days; the first month is followed by the second, third and fourth month, probably, also, because of diminished vital resistance; next by the twelfth month. This jump from the fourth to the twelfth month is quite suggestive, as it is the usual period of weaning, with its attending danger from digestive diseases incident to artificial feeding.

During the second and subsequent years the mortality gradually decreases, and of children between the age of 1 and 5 years there die annually about 37 out of 1,000, making a total loss during the first 5 years of 336 out of every 1,000 children born. If we stop to inquire into the immediate cause of the excessive mortality during the first 12 months, we find that about 40 per cent perish from diseases of the digestive system; about 21 per cent from affections of the respiratory organs; next in frequency are the infectious diseases like diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, mumps, tubercular affections. Rickets, diseases of the nervous system, convulsions and inflammation of the brain and its membranes are also of common occurrence.

As the age of the child advances the body becomes more fully developed and better fitted to resist disease. The diseases to which the race is especially liable during the period extending from puberty to maturity,

or about the 25th year, are those of the respiratory organs, tuberculosis, appendicitis and typhoid fever. Thus of 500 cases of typhoid fever analyzed by me, 327 cases were between the age of 10 and 25 years. It has been suggested that the undue prevalance of these diseases, as well as of mental and nervous affections during this period, may possibly be connected with a diminished power of resistance, the result of morbid sexual habits.

The diseases which are most frequently met with during the period of maturity, which ordinarily extends from the 25th to the 35th year of life, are consumption, gastric affections and rheumatism.

The period of decline has been stated to embrace the 35th year to the extreme limit of human life. This is scarcely exact, as in the majority of instances we observe a period varying from 5 to 10 years, during which the body remains at a nearly fixed point of development, before a disposition to degeneration is manifested. Indeed, during the first few years of actual decay the organism is so slowly affected that very little inconvenience results, and occasionally individuals may withstand the tendency to degeneration to a very advanced period of existence.

The diseases to which the period of decline is especially liable are apoplexy, organic diseases of the heart and blood vessels, of the liver and urinary organs. Gout and chronic rheumatism, pneumonia, bronchitis and a variety of nervous affections are also very common; while malignant diseases, especially in the female after the cessation of the menstrual functions, are not infrequent.

We have not attempted to answer the question, quite often asked, why the body, after reaching a certain point of development, ceases to grow? A question equally interesting and difficult is, "Why does the body, after reaching maturity, begin to degenerate?" It has been said. by Hammond: "If it were possible to so adjust the repair to the waste that neither would be in excess, there is no physiological reason why life, if protected against accidents, should not continue indefinitely." But as this with our present knowledge is impossible, we should at least direct our attention to the removal of the factors which heretofore have interfered with the average span of life allotted to us. We know that with the advance of hygiene the average human life has been lengthened from 18 to 20 years in the 16th century to 38 to 40 years and over at the present time, and there is reason to hope that we may still further prolong our existence. Whilst much has been accomplished in the past, more remains to be done, and one of the pressing needs is an enlightened system of dietetics.