butter and parmesan (à l'italienne) and with tomatoes, which furnish saline matters, with meat gravy, or with milk.

Nearer home the potato forms a vegetable basis in composition closely resembling rice, and requiring therefore additions of nitrogenous and fatty elements. The Irishman's inseparable ally, the pig, is the natural, and to him necessary, complement of the tuber, making the latter a complete and palatable dish. The every-day combination of mashed potato and sausage is an application of the same principle. In the absence of pork, the potato eater substitutes a cheap oily fish, the herring. The combination of fatty material with the potato is still further illustrated in our baked potato and butter, in fried potatoes in their endless variety of form, in potato mashed with milk or cream, served in the ordinary way with maître d'hôtel butter, or arriving at the most perfect and finished form in the pommes de terre sautées au beurre of a first-class French restaurant, where it becomes almost a plat de luxe. Even the simple bread and butter or bread and cheese of our own country equally owe their form and popularity to physiological necessity; the deficient fat of the bread being supplemented by the fatty elements of each addition, the cheese supplying also its proportion of nitrogenous matter, which exists so largely in its peculiar principle caseine. So again, all the suet puddings, short cake,' pie-crust, or pastry, whether baked or boiled, consist simply of farinaceous food rendered stronger nutriment by the addition of fatty matter.

In the same way almost every national dish might be analysed up to the pot-au-feu of our neighbours, the right management of which combines nutritious quality with the abundant aroma and flavour of fresh vegetables which enter so largely into this economical and excellent mess.

It will be apparent that, up to this point, our estimate of the value of these combinations has been limited, or almost so, by their physiological completeness as foods, and by their economical value in relation to the resources of that great majority of all populations, which is poor. But when the inexorable necessity for duly considering economy has been complied with, the next aim is to render food as easily digestible as possible, and agreeable to the senses of taste, smell, and sight.

The hard labourer with simple diet, provided his aliment is complete and fairly well cooked, will suffer little from indigestion. He cannot be guilty, for want of means, of eating too much, fertile source of deranged stomach with those who have the means; physical labour being also in many circumstances the best preventive of dyspepsia. 'Live on sixpence a day and earn it,' attributed to Abernethy as the sum of his dietary for a gluttonous eater, is a maxim of value, proved by millions. But for the numerous sedentary workers in shops, offices, in business and professions of all kinds,

the dish must not only be complete;' it must be so prepared as to be easily digestible by most stomachs of moderate power, and it should also be as appetising and agreeable as circumstances admit.

On questioning the average middle-class Englishman as to the nature of his food, the all but universal answer is, 'My living is plain, always roast and boiled '—words which but too clearly indicate the dreary monotony, not to say unwholesomeness, of his daily food; while they furthermore express his satisfaction, such as it is, that he is no luxurious feeder, and that, in his opinion, he has no right to an indigestion. Joints of beef and mutton, of which we all know the very shape and changeless odours, follow each other with unvarying precision, six roast to one boiled, and have done so ever since he began to keep house some five-and-twenty years ago! I am not sanguine enough to suppose that this unbroken order which rules the dietary of the great majority of British families of moderate and even of ample means, will be disturbed by any suggestions of mine. Nevertheless, in some younger households, where habits followed for want of thought or knowledge have not yet hardened into law, there may be a disposition to adopt a healthier diet and a more grateful variety of aliment. For variety is not to be obtained in the search for new animal food. Often as the lament is heard that some new meat is not discovered, that the butcher's display of joints offers so small a range for choice, it is not from that source that wholesome and pleasing additions to the table will be obtained.

But our most respectable paterfamilias, addicted to 'plain living,' might be surprised to learn that the vaunted roasting' has no longer in his household the same significance it had five-and-twenty years ago; and that probably, during the latter half of that term, he has eaten no roast meat, whatever he may aver to the contrary. Baking, at best in a half-ventilated oven, has long usurped the function of the spit in most houses, thanks to the ingenuity of economical rangemakers. And the joint, which formerly turned in a current of fresh air before a well-made fire, is now half stifled in a close atmosphere of its own vapours, very much to the destruction of the characteristic flavour of a roast. This is a smaller defect, however, as regards our present object, than that which is involved by the neglect in this country of braising as a mode of cooking animal food. By this process more than mere 'stewing' is of course intended. In braising, the meat is just covered with a strong liquor of vegetable and animal juices (braise or mirepoix) in a closely covered vessel, from which as little evaporation as possible is permitted, and is exposed for a considerable time to a surrounding heat just short of boiling. By this treatment tough fibrous flesh, whether of poultry or of cattle, or meat unduly fresh, such as can alone be procured during the summer season in towns, is made tender, and is furthermore impregnated with the odours and flavour of fresh vegetables and sweet herbs. Thus, also,

meats which are dry, or of little flavour as veal, become saturated with juices and combined with sapid substances, which render the food succulent and delicious to the palate. Small portions sufficing for a single meal, however small the family, can be so dealt with; and a réchauffée, or cold meat for to-morrow, is not a thing of necessity, but only of choice when preferred. Neither time nor space permits me to dwell further on this topic, the object of this paper being rather to furnish suggestions than explicit instruction in detail.

The art of frying is little understood, and the omelette is almost entirely neglected by our countrymen. The products of our frying pan are often greasy, and therefore for many persons indigestible, the shallow form of the pan being unsuited for the process of boiling in oil, that is, at a heat of nearly 500° Fahr., that of boiling water being 212°. This high temperature produces results, which are equivalent indeed to quick roasting, when the article to be cooked is immersed in the boiling fat. Frying, as generally conducted, is rather a combination of broiling, toasting, or scorching; and the use of the deep pan of boiling oil or dripping, which is essential to the right performance of the process, and especially preventing greasiness, is a rare exception and not the rule in ordinary kitchens. Moreover, few English cooks can make a tolerable omelette; and thus one of the most delicious and nutritious products of culinary art, with the further merit that it can be more rapidly prepared than any other dish, must really at present be regarded as an exotic. Competent instruction at first and a little practice are required, in order to attain a mastery in producing an omelette; but these given, there is no difficulty in turning out a first-rate specimen. The ability to do this may be so useful in the varied circumstances of travel, &c., that no young man destined for foreign service, or even who lives in chambers, should fail to attain the easily acquired art.

HENRY THOMPSON.

(To be concluded.)

RECIPROCITY AND FREE TRADE.

THE great and well-won reputation of Mr. Wallace as a scientific observer entitles him to respectful attention whenever he propounds any doctrine or theory, however startling; and I therefore need no apology for examining as carefully as I am able his recent utterance in the April number of this review, entitled 'Reciprocity the True Free Trade.' The first impression which this wonderful title made upon me was much the same as if he had said, 'Cowardice the only true valour,' or 'Swindling the only true honesty.' But when I had a little recovered from my surprise, I considered that the truth or falsehood of this astounding title resolved itself, after all, into a question of words. I first simplified the matter by leaving out the word 'true,' since it appears to be quite evident that a false free trade is no free trade at all. But then I encountered a difficulty with which I never thought to have been embarrassed by a gentleman of such high scientific attainments. The controversy which he raises is concerning free trade, and I do not think we should be thought unduly exacting if we were to require that when he uses the same word he should use it in the same sense, or, indeed, if we had asked that he should give us a definition of free trade, and after he had given us his definition, that he should adhere to it. My complaint is that the word free trade' is used in an essay of no very formidable length in a number of senses utterly at variance with each other. Nay, I am almost sanguine enough to believe that if Mr. Wallace had given himself the trouble of considering for five minutes what meaning he attaches to the word free trade,' the essay now lying before us never could have been written. I do not expect my readers to take so serious an accusation on trust, but will adduce the reasons and instances which have driven me to this conviction.

'No one,' says Mr. Wallace, advocates free trade in poisons or explosives, or even in alcoholic drinks; and few believe that we are bound to allow Zulus or Chinese to become armed with breech-loaders

and rifled cannon if we can prevent it.' In this passage Mr. Wallace clearly identifies protection with the necessary precautions of police or the precautions required by actual or impending war, and free

trade with the foolhardy carelessness which disregards such precautions. Having just been told that free trade may consist in rashness and negligence, we are next informed that the essence of free trade is mutuality. We are then informed that it is a maxim of expediency. We learn next that if each country does not freely produce that which it can produce best and cheapest, one entire section of the benefits derivable from free trade is destroyed. Next we are told that the whole programme of free trade must be carried out if its advantages are not to be overbalanced by disadvantages. We are next told of the stability which general free trade would give us, from which we are led to infer that there are two kinds of free trade, general and special; but upon this interesting subject we are favoured with no further information. We next hear that our boasted freedom of trade shuts us out of half the markets of Europe, but whether because it boasts or because it is free I do not know. We learn next that countervailing duties are strictly in accordance with the essential spirit of free trade, from which it would seem to follow that free trade is something different from its essential spirit; and, lastly, that Mr. Wallace is himself a free-trader. I ask the candid reader whether, from the extracts which I have placed before him, he can form the slightest idea of what Mr. Wallace means by 'free trade,' and I would respectfully invite him to try his hand at reconciling all that is said about free trade within the limits of a single definition. I cannot sufficiently regret that it never occurred to Mr. Wallace to favour us with a definition of his own. I am convinced that, had he done so, very few of the quotations which I have just cited would have seen the light, and I greatly incline to the opinion that the article I am considering would never have been written. At any rate we should have been spared the trouble and perplexity of answering arguments to which it is impossible to do full justice, because, when we try to ascertain the meaning of the term on which the whole controversy depends, we are met by irreconcilable contradictions. Mr. Wallace would not think of employing the same word to describe a bee and a bat, an elephant and a mouse. Why cannot he treat himself and his readers to a different word to express a different idea? One coin may pay many debts, but one word should, I respectfully submit, be devoted to the service of one single idea.

Little reassured or edified by this examination, I proceed to inquire whether there is any known and received meaning of free trade which can fairly identify it with any system of reciprocity. Now, the word 'free trade' was for many years the watchword of a most acrimonious controversy. That controversy was not raised by, and did not raise, the question of reciprocity. The question was not how foreign. countries were to behave to us, but how we were to behave to foreign countries. The free trade for which Cobden and Bright fought and conquered was a negative-the abstinence on our part from the im