The Swansea Gazette and Daily Shipping Register

To Mothers. j- .-0- We are sure you would all like to have a nice hot dinner ready for the children when they come bime 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 les.sons their brains take a great deal of the nourishment which used to go to their bodies, and they are wondering very much how we can. get the children better fed. We «11 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 timea a week, without costing you a penny more than it does for bread, and without taking any more fireing than it does to boil a kettle, will you try it? 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 costt at least 4d. 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 in a cloth with a little salt, and boil well. Nothing makes nicer soup than ilentils. Haif- a-pound of lentils and a few vegetables 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 aome 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" froaj 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 teaspoonful to half a pound of cooked lentils, 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 mO"; soup. Peas, too, are very nourishing. If you could give the children rolled 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. 15). In 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 pro- perties than beef and mutton. Add to all thia that there ia 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- bours about them. A few more hints — Do not give the children cheap jam and cheap pickles 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 batter. 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. Consumption, scarlet fever and diphtheria are less likely to attack families where the niilk is boiled. Re member that boiled rice a! one is not a suflt 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 five minutes or so. M.B

= If you want a neat typewriten circular printed on your own note hteadigs, you can get it at Vaughan's Printing WortM.

ifisn WHICH F ,sn yon OTHJIK FISH. Fish, as a rule are not supposed to be pM sdmirers of fishing. With them it is general!} a matter of being at the wrong end r-F the lias. But there are some curious-looking fish whiek do a great deal of fishing themselves. They be long to the silurus family, and their <1 Anguish- ing features are the Crtntacle appendages of the mouth. For a long Unae. ?a.vs Science Sifting. th", precise object of the?? tentacles was not on- derstood There did ot seem to be alai possible use for them. Close observation, how, ever, in a tank with numerous other small tafc BC-ow the sly silurus ising th..ir tentacies as de- ooy", like the fin ra; of the .shing frog, te entice unwary little n.h 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 or 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 pntacles as hands. The fish has been ?een to approach some object in the water, and then, in- stead of getting any closer, it would project the points of its tentacles to the object and feel it ▼ery gingerly, as if -aiir-fving it<.«!f that then wa.s no danger before making any closei ac- quaintance.

— ♦ THB 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 moie I send my erro- neous watch which requires thy friendly can and correction. The last time he was at thy school he was by no means benefited by thy in- utruction, aB I fino oy the index of his tongue b, is a liar, and his movements are wavering and unsettled. This m:>k;>«. me think he is not right in the inner man. ) mean the mainspring. Teach h'm to speak the truth and the equa.. tion table, and whet; thou finds him conformnbJe co these, send him 110llie with a bill in modera- tion, which will assuredly be paid by thy true 'riend,—OBADIAH PRINCE."

PROVERBS ABOUT WOMEN. The Germans say: Listen to a woman's ttrsi opinion, but not her second." This pi .d embodies the world-old theory that a. wOw<in'. ..tuition is better than her reason. fhe French say: "A wife it a perpetual tor. nent," and A man of straw is worth a vomnn tf gold." The absurd French cynicism th". trench distrust of womankind, is as weil por- trayed in those two proverbs as in one of Guy de Maupassault's stories. The Spanish love their women, but in a light and jesting way. Thus their proverbs makG Sport of her. For instance: Women, wind, and fortune are changeable." "If yon have any. thing; to proclaim in the open rftarkfi you noeo only whisper it to a woman." !'e on your guard against a bad woman and never ini&t 11 good one." "There is only ont b;»<! w:U>. bu every lrisi!>anu thinks he 1 ,6 got iier Bitter and conternptuo is tne Italian's idea of woman. They say in taly as they i*uck des- perately on their mieerably-madc Government Bigars: "He who loses his wife al\.1 a braes farthing has only lost the latter." The Chinese objection to women is that fiht talks too much. "A woman's tongue is her sword, and she never permits it to rrnt." The American proverbs are kinder- "Women oan keep a secret, but it takes a lot o them to dr it," and" Women paint to hide their blushes

» 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 is proof against alcohol against boiling water, aga:net almost all known,, agencies. The lacquer tree of Japan is -e>> large. It is always cut down at the age of forty years, as thereafter it begins to dry up. Each tree yields on its demolition about six of lacquer sap. The Japanese are very careful not to let foreigners into the secrets of lacquering.

4 QUEER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. Among the queer instruments in the Metro politan Museum of Art, New York are a cane riolin and a tne flute. The former is a peculiar, narrow instrument of small size, but perfect ia •v,ery detail, made in imitation of a walkin*- .Stick and furnished with an ornamental kno» handle. The strings are held by small iron pinv and are tuned by a key. When not in use a small bow slips within the stick, and a rountf cover, held by metal, bands, conceals the clevet little instrument. The length of the violin k 2ft. llin., and its greatecst width is Ifin. It ia a German conceit, and dates from the nineteenth eentury. Like the cane violin, the cane flute w also of German make, but it dates from early i» the eighteenth century. The flute it in C, and it made of light wood, ornamented with turned bands of the same colour and finished with a knob. The lower joint is eolid. It has six gogwe- holes and one flat brass The raetemweet a blown at the side. like the transverse flute, and i))t M excellent sounder.