ul results. Nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and
the like nasty chemical things seem indeed to have occurred in
everything he touched. Those sturdy mendicants who go about complaining
that they cannot get food should visit this Parkes Museum and see what
food is really like, and learn contentment with their lot.

There were no real vegetables, but only the ideals of a firm of
seedsmen, made of wax and splendidly coloured, with something of the
boldness and vigour of Michael Angelo about the modelling of them. And
among other food stuffs were sweetmeats and yellow capers, liver flukes,
British wines, and snuff. At last we felt replete with food stuffs, and
went on to see the models to illustrate ventilation, and the exhibits of
hygienic glazed tiles arranged around a desert lecture-theatre. Hygienic
tiles stimulate the eye vigorously rather than relax it by any aesthetic
weakness; and the crematory appliances are so attractive as they are,
and must have such an added charm of neatness and brightness when
alight, that one longs to lose a relative or so forthwith, for the mere
pleasure of seeing them in operation.

A winding staircase designed upon hygienic principles, to bump your head
at intervals, takes one to a little iron gallery full of the most
charming and varied display of cooking-stoves and oil-lamps. Here, also,
there are flaunted the resources of civilisation for the Prevention of
Accidents, which resources are four, namely, a patent fire-escape, a
patent carriage pole, a coal plate, and a dog muzzle. But the labels,
though verbose, are scarcely full enough. They do not tell you, for
instance, if you wish to prevent cramp while bathing, whether the dog
muzzle or the coal plate should be employed, nor do they show how the
fire-escape will prevent the explosion of a paraffin lamp. However, this
is a detail. We feel assured that no intelligent person will regret a
visit to this most interesting and instructive exhibition. It offers you
valuable hints how to live, and suggests the best and tidiest way in
which you can, when dead, dispose of your body. We feel assured that the
public only needs this intimation of its whereabouts to startle the
death-like slumbers of Margaret Street with an unaccustomed tumult. And
the first to arrive will, no doubt, find legibly and elegantly written
in the dust that covers the collection the record of its discovery by
Euphemia and me.

BLEAK MARCH IN EPPING FOREST

All along