ps of
former days served their purposes well, and although some are certainly
antique, they are by no means desirable curios. The light they gave when
driving through a country lane was indeed a dim flicker compared with
the powerful arcs of the modern motor-car.

[Illustration: FIG. 17.--FINE PAIR OF ANCIENT SNUFFERS.]

The beacon fire is no longer seen on housetops, neither is the lantern
in the yard and the vestibule furnished with a candle; but curiously
enough, even in the most modern appointed houses, so great is the love
for the antique in the furnishings of to-day, that beautifully modelled
little replicas of the old horn lanterns are hung in entrance halls and
passages--but instead of the candle there is the electric bulb!

IV

TABLE APPOINTMENTS

CHAPTER IV

TABLE APPOINTMENTS

Cutlery: Knives, forks, and spoons--Salt cellars--Cruet
stands--Punch and toddy--Porringers and cups--Trays and
waiters--The tea table--Cream jugs--Sugar tongs and
nippers--Caddies--Cupids--Nutcrackers--Turned woodware.

It is very difficult to realize in these days of refinement and of
comparative luxury, even in the homes of the working classes, what the
table appointments must have been in early English homes. Sometimes
glowing accounts are given of the feasting of olden time; but no doubt
many of the great occasions contrasted in their luxurious magnificence
with the usual mode of living. They were, however, the days of feeding
rather than of refinement in partaking of the sumptuous feast. The table
appointments on such occasions were crude and simple, and they were
altogether absent from the tables of the lower classes. It is difficult,
indeed, to realize that the conditions under which people lived in
mediaeval England, in the days when the baron and his followers assembled
in the great hall, and with his chosen companions sat above the salt,
satisfied men of wealth; it was, however, in accord with the spirit of
the age.

The primitive methods of serving up food and eating it observed by the
majority of people then would be looked upon with disgust nowadays by
every one. The table appointments were not only very few, but those
which were used, like the knife and spoon, were often brought into the
feasting hall by those who were to use them. The polished oaken board
was often laden with rough and readily prepared dishes, the result of
some fortunate expedition or of a prosperous hunt. T