The Swansea Gazette and Daily Shipping Register

To Mothers. —0— We are sure you would all like to have a nice hot dinner ready for the children when they come home from school, instead of giving them so much. Bread and Butter and Bread and Jam, and tea. You may have heard that children are. not growing up as broad and strong as they used to do. borne people think that now they do so many lessons their brains take a great deal of t.he nourishment which used to go to their bcdies, and they are wondering very much how we can get the children better fed. We all know you cannot afford to spend a single penny more than you do in providing for your little ones, and that you cannot get them Milk and Meat and Suet Puddings, which we know grow- ing children ought to have. But if we tell you of something which will make them a nourish- ing and tasty dinner two or three times a week, without costing you a penny more than it does for bread, and without taking any more iireing than it does t-o boil a kettle, will you try it r Take two loaves less a week, and spend the money in buying some lentils; they are lid.' per lb. A pound of lentils, cooked as we will show you, will make a good dinner for a family, and would cost lid while a loaf of bread costs at least 21d. Soak the lentils for 20 minutes, rinse them well, and put them in a saucepan with a little salt, and, if you can get it, some chopped onion. Boil these in just enough water to cover them, until they are tender and are like minced meat, stir as they thicken. The children will enjoy this as it is, but it is nicer still with potatoes, or a little boiled rice put round it sometimes would make a change. Another day try a lentil pudding. This is like pease pudding, but it is more quickly cooked. Soak and rinse the lentils, tie them up ja a cloth with a little salt, and boil well. Nothing makes nicer soup than lentils. Half- a-pound of lentils and a few vegetable* will make soup for four or five children. Another time you might try a potato pie. Prepare the lentils according to the first recipe, cover them with some mashed potato, and make brown. This is especially nice with plenty of onion, and a few scraps of bacon or meat. For Sunday's dinner get a few "pieces" from the butcher's, cook some lentils (first recipe), add them to the meat, and bake under a crust. If you can manage it, get a pennyworth of curry-powder one day; it will keep a long time if it is well covered. By adding a teaspoouful to half a pound of cooked lentil*, a little more onion than usual and a very little sugar, you will have a nice supper dish (with a little rice round it) for yourself and your husband. The children might like a little curry occasionally. Try haricot beans sometimes for a change. They are very cheap, but want more soaking and cooking than lentils; they make nieo soup. Peas, too, are very nourishing. If you could give the children roliad oats every day, or every other day, for breakfast instead of bread, it would be much better for them; they do not take so long to cook as oat- meal does, and are very cheap. It was all this kind of food which made Daniel and his companions "fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the King's meat" (Dan. 1. 1I). la India and other parts lentils are regarded as the best food on which to take a long journey, and they are much used abroad. They con- tain more flesh-forming and fat-forming pre- perties than beef and mutton. Add to all ihi* that there is no cheaper food to be obtained, and we think you will be glad to have had them brought to your notice, and will never be without some in the house. Tell your neigh- boars about them. A few more hints — Do not give the children cheap jam and cheap piokles with their bread; good margarine and dripping (which you can buy at the butcher's) are the right things to get if you cannot afford butter. Skim milk is much better than no milk at all, as even without the cream it has things in it which children require, but whatever milk you use don't forget to boil it. Coosumption, scarlet fever and diphtheria are low likely to attack families where the milk is boiled. Rf member that boiled rice alone is not a suft ciently nourishing dinner for children in a cold climate, and that bread and butter and tea is no dinner at all for YOU. Do not take tea more than twice a day, and never after it has stood more than fire minutes or so. M.B "1

If you want a neat typewritsn circular printed on your own note headigs, you can get it at Vaughan's Printing Woaki.

FISH WHICH FLSH 70B OTHXB FlM. Fish, as a rule are not supposed to be gtmtlk idmirers of fishing. With them it is generallj a matter of being at the wrong end r.f the line. But there are some c urious-lookirg fish whieh do a great deal of fishing themselves. They be long to the silurus family, and their distinguish- ing features are the tentacle appendages of the mouth. For a long time, says Science Siftingt the precise object of these tentacles was not on- derstood There did ot seem to be amW possible use for them. Close observation, how- ever, in a tank with numerous other small fisk ..£rqW the sty silurus ising th<*ir tentacles as d. ooys, like the fin ra, 5 of th4,, fishing frog, to entice unwary little fish within reach of the mouth. The long silvery tentacles were waved to and fro until some unwise little fish would approach, either fascinated by the display 01 consumed by curiosity. When the little fish got dose enough there was a. wild rush, a gobble and it was all over. The silurus also uses ita tentacles as hands. The fish has been seen to approach some object in the water, and then, in, stead of getting any closer, it project the points of its tentacles 1o the object and feel it very gingerly, as if satisfying itself that there was no dinger before making any closet ac- quaintance. ♦

THE QUAKER AND HIS WATCH. The following quaint letter was addressed by a Doncaster Quaker to his watchmaker over a hundred years, ago; Friend John,-Once mote I send my erro- neous watch which requires thy, friendly care and correction. The last time he was at thy school he was by no means benefited by thy in- struction, 88 I fino by the index of his tongue ho is a liar, wnd his movements are wavering and unsettled. This make* me think he is not right in the inner man. 1 mean the mainspring. Teach Ivm to speak the truth and the equa- t,on table, and when thou finds him conformable 00 these, send him home with a bill in modera- tion, which will assuredly be paid by thy true 'riend,—OBADIAH PRINCE. -+--

PROVERBS ABOUT WOWEN. The Germans say: "Listen to &woRla.n'b.rst opinion, but not" her second." This pi -rf1 embodies the world-old theory that wtuition is better than her reason. The French say: "A wife ib a perpetual tor- nent," and "A man of straw is worth a, woman >f gold." The absurd F.rench cynicism.ith«\ trench distrust of womankind, is ae welt por- trayed in those two proverbs ae in one of Guy de Maupaseasit's stor-iee. The Spanish love their women, but in a light and jesting way. Thus their nroverbs make sport of her. For instance: Women, ioin(i, and fortune are changeable." "If you have any. thing; to proclaim in the open market you, need only whisper it to a woman." Be on your guard against a bad woman and never trigst a good one." "There is only one bad wife, bu every Iris^nu thinks he 1.S got -her. Bitter and contemptuo is the Italian's idea of woman. They say in taly as they suck des- perately on their miserably-made Government Bigars: "He who loses his wife aivi a brass farthing has only lost the latter." The Chinese objection to women is that, sht talks too much. "A woman's tongue is her sword, and she never permits it to rust." The American proverbs are kinder- "Women can keep a secret, but it takes a lot o> them' to df it," and Women paint to hide their blueses —.»

JAPANESE LACQUER TREE. Japanese lacquer is a very curious substance. A simple tree sap, like maple sap, it is, yet when applied to wood or metal quite indestructible A coat of lacquer ia proof against alcohol against boiling water, against almost lillknmvn agencies. The lacquer tree of Japan is vert large. It is always cut down at the age of forty rears, lIB thereafter it begins to dry up. Each tree yields on its demolition about six barrels of lacquer sap. The Japanese are very careful not to let foreigners into the secrets of lacquering. —♦

QUEEB MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. Among the queer instruments in the Metro- politan Museum of Art, New York a.re n cans riolin and a tne flute. The former is a peculiar, narrow instrument of small size, but perfect in every detail, made in imitation of a walking- Stick and furnished with an ornamental, knob handle. The strings are held by small iron pmN and are tuned by a key. When not in use a small bow slips within the stick, and a rountf cover, held by metaj. bands, conceals the clpvot little instrument. The length of the violin » 2ft. llin., and its greatest width is lfin, It is a German conceit, and dates from the nineteenth eentury. Like the cane violin, the eane fiote is also of German make, but it dates from early in the eighteenth century. The flute is in C, and is made of light wood, ornamented with turned bands of the same colour and finished with s knob. The lower joint is solid. It has six unger- holes and one flat brass key. 'The mstramept » blown at the side. like the traBeveraeSuteanp At an excellent sounder.