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INTERESTING STATISTICS.

THE number of passengers conveyed on railways during 1849, amounted to 63,841,539, including 32,890,322 who travelled by the third class.

Ar the close of the last year, 1849, the total number of brewers in the United Kingdom was 2,460; victuallers, 88,465; persons licensed to sell beer, 38,006.

THE floating island in Derwent Lake, Keswick, has again made its appearance above the surface of the water, after having been submerged exactly twelve months.

IT is estimated that the wheat land of Great Britain will in the present year (1850) yield a less quantity of sound, useful corn, by full 5,000,000 of quarters, than in the years 1844 and 1849, which were years of abundance.

ABOUT the beginning of last century, the quantity of cotton wool yearly imported into Great Britain did not amount to 1,200,000 lbs. The average importation now, is between five and six hundred millions.

THE port of Hull Society for the Propagation of the Gospel have a floating chapel there, in which from four to five hundred seamen meet every Sabbath day. One agent of the Society sold during the last year to the seamen, 367 bibles, and 320 testaments.

WE learn from some documents lately found in the archives of the municipality of Leipsic, that the cholera raged in that city in 1680, when 2,380 persons were carried off. This number amounted to about a ninth part of the whole population, which at that period was 19,900.

AT the end of last year the total length of rail. ways in England authorized for the conveyance of passengers, which was then open, was 6031 miles; over about 150 miles of this length passengers were, however, not conveyed, and 50 miles were worked by horse power.

THE Trafalgar Square Well is 383 feet deep, and the well at Kensington new workhouse 370 feet. The well at Meux's brewery is 425 feet deep; that at Messrs. Elliott's, Pimlico, 398 feet; and that at the Excise office 500 feet: but the deepest well in London is that sunk by Messrs. Coombe and Co.-it measures 522 feet.

By the tariff of the South-eastern telegraph, for the present year (1850), it appears, that to transmit a message containing a hundred words, to a distance of 50 miles, would cost 31s. 6d. exclusive of the expense of transmission from the telegraph station to its destination. In America, the same distance would cost 4s. 3d. only.

A PRINTING PRESS has lately been designed and constructed upon a new principle, the value and utility of which professes to be, that it will throw off by hand upwards of eight hundred per hour, and will not only cost infinitely less than the presses now in use, but can be worked at a third of the expense.

THE Ashton-under-Lyne Committee appointed to make arrangements for working men visiting the Exhibition of 1851, have calculated that a trip to occupy one week will cost £2 10s. per head, viz.-15s. each for railway fare, 10s. 6d. for seven nights' lodging, 14s. for seven days' breakfasts and suppers at their lodgings, and 10s. 6d. for seven mid-day refreshments.

TRIFLES.

No man has a right to do as he pleases, except when he pleases to do right.

LADIES are like violets; the more modest and retiring, the more you love them.

"Do make yourselves at home, ladies," said Mrs. Smith to her visitors; "I am at home myself, and sincerely wish you all were."

"HE provoked me more than enough with his ways, you never knew what he intended; why he would sometimes keep putting off his breakfast till the next day at noon.'

UPON the 19th of May, 1790, the memorable dark day, a lady wrote to Dr. Byles of Boston, U. S. as follows:-"Dear Doctor, how do you account for this darkness?" He replied, "Dear Madam, I am as much in the dark as you are."

"DEAR heart a day, Mr. Dawkins! the gentleman at 163A, has had a short run; that is a regu larly unlucky sort of shop. Who did Mr. D. sueceed?" "Indeed, I don't know, but it seems he did not succeed himself."

MISSING from Killarney, Lane O'Foggerty; she had in her arms two babies and a Guernsey cow, all black, with red hair, and tortoiseshell combs behind her ears, and large black spots all down her back, which squints awfully.-Irish Adver

tisement.

"Do you know," said a cunning Yankee to a Jew, "that they hang Jews and jackasses together in Portland?" "Indeed, brother, then it is well you and I are not there." Dr. Young said, "All men think all men mortal but themselves." At least the Yankee did.

A LADY very much given to gadding, was taken suddenly ill at home one day, and sent her hus band in great haste for a physician. The obedient man run part of the way, but then returned to put this important query My dear, where shall I find you when I get back again?"

"SAMBO, why is a shimley-sweep one ob de happiest men alibe?"-" I spose kase he knows de joys ob de fireside!"-" No, dat ain't it."-" Well den, let me see,-kase from de queun on de trone, de ladies cannot do widout him.""No, dat ain't it; do you gib it up?-Well den, kase he's always suited (sooted.)"

"IT is a great pity that you come dangling at my heels, Mr. Nonenity," said a consequential lady to her sentimental adorer; " 'you remind me of a barometer that is filled with nothing in the upper story."-" Most amiable of your sex," said he, "for so flattering a compliment, let me remind you, that you occupy it entirely."

A FARMER'S labourer, speaking of the hard toil, the small pay, and consequent bad living of the men engaged in thrashing during the winter, brought his description of their sufferings to a climax thus:-"They work till they are as thin as hurdles, as weak as water, and as gonderly as porridge made of blighted oats."

A REWARD of Five Pounds is offered for the apprehension of Mr. Patrick O'Flaherty, who one Wednesday last week stole the jackass, which same had on a pair of corduroy breeches, with blue eyes and a short pipe, and is very much given to awful squinting, has one shoulder out of jaw, and like wise his shoes are down at the heel all over sunspreckled, alike.-Irish Advertisement.

SLEEP, GENTLE BABY.

[See Music, p. 318.]

SLEEP, gentle Baby, my treasure, my joy,
Let not sad weeping thy moments employ;
Silence is reigning without and within,
Sleep, gentle Baby, my song I'll begin.
Rosy and golden to thee life is still-
Alas! my darling, I fear that it will
Ever remain so; for, oh! there may be
Times when the night will no rest bring to thee.

Angels from heaven, as lovely as thou,
Hover around thee, with smiles on their brow;
When thou art grown, they will only appear
From thy moist eyelids to wipe off the tear.
Added by the Editor:

[But when with weeping thy tears are all shed, The clouds that oppress thee shall burst o'er thy head;

Thy spirit, unburdened, to heaven shall rise,
Angels shall welcome thee unto the skies.]

Sleep, gentle Baby, and fear not the night,
Thy mother is watching o'er thee with delight;
Let it be early, or let it be late,
Thy mother's fondness shall never abate.
[From the German, by] A. H. W.

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HOW TO TOAST WELL.

In toasting bread, we wish to get out the water that remains, and which makes the bread cold, waxy, and heavy of digestion. Perhaps we shall be best understood if we first explain what makes bad toast of a piece of bread, or rather no toast at all, but merely a piece of bread with two burned surfaces, more wet and waxy in the heart than ever; and which not a particle of butter will enter, and if put by for an hour or two and allowed to cool, will get as tough as possible. If the slice of bread is brought into close contact with a strong fire, the surface becomes covered with, or rather converted into charcoal, before the heat produces any effect on the interior of the slice. This being done, the other side is turned, and has its surface converted into charcoal in the same manner. The consequence of this will be, that not a particle of butter will enter such a piece of toast, but only remain upon the surface, and if vexed with additional fire, turns to a rancid oil of the most unwholesome description. Charcoal, as every one knows, is a very bad conductor of heat, and as such is used between the cylinders and casings of steam engines—it is no consequence whether the said charcoal be formed of wood, of flour, or any other substance, for its qualities are in every case the same. Now, when the surfaces of the slice of bread are over-charred in this manner, there is an end to all toasting, as no heat can be communicated to the interior, and not one drop can be evaporated or drawn away. In this state the slice of bread may be wholly burned to charcoal; but until it is altogether so burned, the unburned part will become more and more wet and unwholesome. Hence, if you would have a slice of bread so toasted as to be pleasant to the palate, and wholesome and easily digested, never let one particle of the surface be charred. Chestnut brown is even far too deep for a good toast; and the colour of a fox is rather too deep. The nearer it can be kept to a straw colour, the more delicious to the taste, and the more wholesome it will be. The method of obtaining this is very obvious. It consists in keeping the bread at the proper distance from the fire, and exposing it to a proper heat for a due length of time; or it may be done, placed on edge the same way as dry toast is brought to table, in a rack, in an iron or brick oven of a proper heat. For those who "make the toast," especially if a large quantity be required, it is generally a tedious process, and for this reason it is commonly hurried. But if the toasting fork was discarded, and its place supplied by a small apparatus made of wire, long enough

to hold three or four pieces at a time, and so contrived as to slide in or out to any required distance from the fire, the bread may be placed in it, and the process of toasting carried on, while the servant was at liberty to do her other work. Of course the "Toast Holder" would require to be made differently to suit particular shaped grates and fire-places.

If not cut too thin, if placed at the proper distance from the fire, and continued long enough, care being taken that not a single black, or even dark brown spot, makes its appearance on the surface, the slice of bread may be toasted through and through; and it is this operation which makes properly toasted bread so much more wholesome than bread which is not toasted, and still more preferable to bread burned on the surface and sodden in the interior. By this means the whole of the water may be drawn out of it, and it may be changed from dough, which has always a tendency to undergo the acetous fermentation in the stomach, to the pure farina of wheat, which is in itself one of the most wholesome species of food we have, not only for the strong and healthy, but more particu larly so for the delicate and diseased. As it is turned to pure farina, the tough and gluey nature is gone, every part can be penetrated, all parts are equally warm, and no part is so warm as to turn the butter into oil, which, even in the case of the best butter, is invari ably turning a wholesome substance into an injurious substance. There is another cir cumstance regarding the buttering of a rightly toasted slice. The dough, being a compound of water, repels the butter, which is an oil; but the dried farina allows the butter to penetrate the whole slice equally through. There is more advantage in this than some may suppose. Butter in masses (whatever may be its quality) is too heavy for the stomach; though butter divided with sufficient minuteness, and not suffered to pass into an oil, makes a most valuable addition to many kinds of food. The properly toasted bread absorbs the butter, but does not convert it to oil: and both butter and farina are in a state of very minute division, the one serving to expose the other to the free action of gastric fluid in the stomach; and that this fluid shall be able to penetrate the whole mass of the food, and act upon it in small portions, is the grand secret of healthful digestion; so that when a slice of toast is rightly prepared, there is, perhaps, not a lighter article in the whole vocabu lary of cookery. Unfermented brown bread, treated in this way, forms an excellent substi tute for biscuits, and is in some respects supe rior, as it may be eaten with impunity by those persons with whom biscuits may disagree. H. C., Langton Cottage, Blandford.

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