Vegetables, as well as animal substances, are sometimes fried, though it is a process not to be recommended, for it seldom makes them more palatable, and always injures their digestible and nutritive qualities. Vegetables when fried part with all their juices, but the place of these is not, as in the case of meat, supplied by the melted fat; and their most nutritive substance, starch, is also rendered insoluble in water, and in a great measure indigestible. Potatoes when fried become waxy in texture and semi-transparent in appearance. Such dishes should always be avoided by invalids and those whose digestion is feeble. They will often produce derangement even in the most healthy and vigorous. We have said the same of potatoes done under a roast.

Fruit, according to some writers, is not so easy of digestion as many seem to suppose. The mistake has arisen from the fact that an over quantity of it does not seem to be very mischievous. This, however, is not owing to its digestibility, but to its want of stimulation. It is generally supposed that fruit digests easily, because children are very fond of it, and do not often seem to suffer from the use of it. They do, however, experience more ill effects from it than has usually been imagined, and this lays the foundation of many complaints among them. One thing, however, in regard to children should be remembered-that if their digestive organs are not quite so strong as those of adults they are at least much more active, which makes up in part for their want of strength. Were it not so they would suffer much more from their excessive use of fruit than they now do.

We have said that fruits are not very easy of digestion. They are, however, easier in proportion to their perfection. This might have been urged as a reason why they should be of good quality, seasonable, healthy, &c. But with everything else, and all circumstances concurring, they can be digested with tolerable ease.

One favourable circumstance is full bodily vigour. On this account fruits should be generally used in the

early part of the day, and seldom late in the evening. The morning is, on the whole, best, and next to that, perhaps, the middle of the day. The worst hour is the hour just before going to bed.

There cannot be a more wholesome breakfast in hot weather for persons in good health than a breakfast made up entirely of ripe fruits, as strawberries, raspberries, cherries, whortleberries, &c. If mixtures are adopted, milk, or bread, or rice is probably the best adjunct.

Fruit in general possesses strongly resolvent powers, and it is more beneficial as it comes to maturity at a time when the body is relaxed by the heat of summer, and when the blood has a strong tendency to inflammation. Persons of a thick and languid blood cannot eat anything more conducive to health than fruit, as it possesses the power of attenuating and putting such blood in motion; but those of a watery and phlegmatic constitution ought carefully to avoid it.

Fruit preserved with sugar is antiseptic and nourishing, but at the same time flatulent, and if preserved with sugar and spices it is heating and drying. It is most wholesome when eaten on an empty stomach, which can exert all its powers to expel the air disengaged from it, and to remove it before it begins to ferment. Boiling as well as drying corrects the flatulent tendency of fresh fruit, so that thus prepared it agrees with most persons. By either of these methods it is deprived of its superfluous humidity, as well as of the fixed air, whence it becomes more nourishing, but less cooling than in the fresh state.

The sweet and mildly sour apple, the milder and more tender sort of pear, some kinds of peaches, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, may be said, as a general rule, to be among the better class of fruits; and next to these are the winter apple, the cherry, the gooseberry, the currant, the mulberry, the best grapes, and some sorts of plums.

As a general rule those sorts or kinds of fruits should be chosen which are either moderately sweet or gently

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acid, and those individual fruits of each general sort which are the ripest and most perfect.

The following list of fruits in season may be useful to our readers :

January.-Almonds, apples, grapes, medlars, nuts, pears, and services.

February.-Apples, grapes, and pears.

March.-Apples, pears, and strawberries, forced. April.-Apples, cherries (forced), pears, and apricots for tarts.

May.-Apples, apricots (green), cherries, currants for tarts, gooseberries, melons, pears, and strawberries. June.-Apples, apricots, cherries, currants, gooseberries, grapes, melons, nectarines, peaches, pears, pine-apples, and strawberries.

July.—Apples, apricots, cherries, gooseberries, melons, nectarines, peaches, pears, pine-apples, plums, raspberries, and strawberries.

August.-Apples, cherries, currants, figs, filberts, gooseberries, grapes, melons, mulberries, nectarines, peaches, pears, pine-apples, plums, and strawberries. September.-Currants, filberts, grapes, melons, pears, peaches, hazel nuts, lazeroles, medlars, morello cherries, plums, quinces, pine-apples, and walnuts.

October.--Apples, bullaces (black and white), figs, filberts, grapes, hazel nuts, medlars, peaches, pears, quinces, services, and walnuts.

November.-Apples, bullaces, chestnuts, grapes, hazel nuts, medlars, pears, services, and walnuts.

December.-Apples, chestnuts, grapes, hazel nuts, medlars, pears, services, and walnuts.

MODERATION IN DRINK.

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CHAPTER IV.

DRINKS.

"Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty,
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Nor did I, with unbashful forehead, woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly."

SHAKSPEARE.

ERRORS IN REGARD TO DRINK constitute one of the causes to which, in a great measure, is to be attributed the increase of disease as society advances in refinement and luxury. It has been computed that, since the introduction of ardent spirits into common use, more victims have fallen by it alone than by the sword and pestilence within the same period.

The picture of drunkenness is, alas, so common in our streets that none are unacquainted with it. This dreadful vice strikes at the root of our social fabric, and produces the greater portion of the vast amount of crime that is committed in our country. The insidious manner in which a person prone to this fearful indulgence is led on to the final catastrophe of ruin and death, urges us to warn our readers from the slightest tendency to exceed the principles of moderation in drink. A writer half a century ago gave a striking description of the effects of excess in spirituous drinks upon the frame. "By habits of drunkenness it will be

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found," he observes, that an amazing number of lingering yet fatal diseases are produced in consequence of them, and that many thousands drag out a miserable existence, unable either to continue their former practices, or to recover from the effects produced on the withered and emaciated fabric. In the mornings the mouth becomes dry and disagreeable, the sleep ceases to be refreshing, and the appetite for food fails. The hands shake, and the wretched sufferer flies again to the bottle for temporary relief; the face is bloated; the breath is horribly disgusting, and a stench issues from the whole of the body; the features are enlarged and inexpressive; the eyes assume a glazed appearance, then become fixed and stupid, and at last watery and tender; their expression is extremely unpleasant, and at length they seem considerably protruded from their sockets; the whole frame either becomes flabby and soft, or emaciated and haggard in appearance; the extremities are shrunk and meagre, the feet unable to support the limbs, and the knees unable to support the body."

During this period the internal changes are not less striking than the external appearances. The liver principally becomes affected, and a sensation of disagreeable heat and oppression is felt about the region of the stomach; while the bowels in particular, and the system in general, become extremely disordered. The disease of the liver still increases; heavy gnawing pains are felt in it, distressing nausea, a perpetual inclination to vomit, or vomiting itself, becomes frequent; violent spasms often seize the stomach and contiguous viscera, and either obstinate torpidity of the bowels or profuse and debilitating diarrhoea is the only alternative of the patient.

Neither is the state of mind less changed. Its sensibility and all its delicate emotions become gradually blunted. Those qualities which at any time may have rendered persons valuable in private or in public life are neglected and disgraced. Their society ceases