y better than
it sounds, And does it not sound better than Dr. Trall's proposal of
sweet oil? Will not some of these ways satisfy our ardent reformers and
physiologists? But about chicken-pie, remember the tradition, that,
unless the top crust is punctured, it will make one very ill. (Who knows
but this was the secret of the National Hotel sickness?) At least, it is
truer than some other traditions, such as that eating burnt crusts will
make the cheeks red, or that fried turnip will make the hair curl.

Pickles do not seem so good that they must be eaten, nor so bad that
they must not be. But with them comes evermore the vision that Trollope
has prepared of all our smart little five-year-old men and women perched
at hotel-tables, pale-faced and sedate, with waiters behind their
chairs, and ordering chowders and chops with an inevitable "Please don't
forget the pickles."

Preserves, aside from the recent luxury of canned fruit, have the
happiest substitutes, if we will take what the seasons bring to our
hands. Not a month in the year is left wholly barren of these relishes
for the tea-table. There are berries all the summer, apples and
cranberries in the winter, when, just as the last russet disappears, and
with it every one's appetite, up springs the pungent and luxuriant
rhubarb. Somewhat curious is it concerning this last article. Forty
years ago it was such a pure experiment in England, that a Mr. Myatt,
who took seven bundles of it to London, succeeded in selling but three.
Still he persisted in keeping it before the people, although he seemed
only to lose rhubarb and to gain ridicule, being designated as the man
who sold "physic pies."

And besides our own zone, with its fruits fresh or dried, there are the
abounding tropics always at the door: Pine-apples, which, if
unwholesome, are yet charmingly convenient to help a luckless
housekeeper, and which, by the way, made a better _entree_ in London
than pie-plant, being so popular that their salesmen floated flags from
the top of their stalls; bananas, those foreign muskmelons of spring;
oranges, gilding every street-corner; dates, which do not go meanly with
bread and butter, though one is a little fearful of finding a whole
straw bed therein; and prunes, which, if soaked several hours and stewed
slowly, are luscious enough for a prince.

But pork it appears to be the common impression that man cannot do
without. Certainly he must have partaken somewhat of its na