moral right to shirk her obligations, nor to let other matters crowd them aside. There is a right and a wrong way to do every thing. The wrong way to go about this is to wait till the child has become fixed in awkward and slovenly habits, and then try to correct them by sharp reprimands or punishment. One cannot begin too soon after the child begins to eat to teach it to take its food daintily; to hold the spoon and fork correctly, using the latter whenever possible; to eat slowly, avoiding all unnecessary noises, movements, or exhibitions of the act of mastication. Like unto these rules, and quite as important, are those points of deportment which do not really include the partaking of food. To wait quietly until helped; not to clamor for desired articles, or to tease for them when refused; not to overstock the plate, or desire more than can be eaten; to talk little unless spoken to, especially at a strange table; never to leave the table before the others, unless asking and obtaining permission. These well known essentials are necessary among civilized beings, if one is to enjoy both the companionship and the food at meals. A mother who has the right iufluence over the little one can so instruct and prepare him when there are no observers. It is apt to embarrass, if not "harden" a child, to have the attention of company directed toward it by a reproof. Mistakes or misconduct should be noticed and pointed out in private. A few months of constant vigilance is a small price to pay for correct habits of eating, and will save both mother and child a great deal of regret in after life.

AUSTRIAN WOMEN.

Ladies of high birth are wonderfully capable, owing to their excellent system of education, says a Vienna letter to the New York Evening Post. Whatever they may be called upon to do—from cutting a dress to making a salad, they are always ready.

Young ladies with titles and fortunes are sent to famous milliners and dressmakers, where they serve a regular apprenticeship, and remain until perfectly able to cut and make any garment.

An Austrian lady who cannot swim or does not know how to ride well is an exception.

Needle work of every kind, even to the making of lace, is part of every young lady's education. There is no smattering of any thing; whether she learns the piano or to draw, she learns it thoroughly. If

she has no talent at all for any art, which is seldom, she lets that art entirely alone. Her pedestrian accomplishments put us quite to shame; her efforts of memory are another source of wonder to us.

The wonderful memory which enables Austrian girls to repeat sometimes the whole of "Paradise Lost," or an entire drama, comes from practice begun in babyhood.

Every day the girl is expected to learn a poem or a page. She often does it while making her toilet and at last a poem requires but a single reading and it is stowed away in the memory safely. As linguists they are famous. This, too, comes from learning when very young. As the court language is French, learning it is compulsory. Even servants are expected to speak both French and German.

The burgher's daughters will not condescend to the learning of dressmaking and cooking, which the titled lady can do without its reflecting on her social position. And so the young women to whom such knowledge would be of practical benefit are inefficient, while all the ladies at the court have at their fingers' ends the power to do any thing.

The Austrian lady of station is acquainted with every detail of the cuisine. A story is told by Viennese ladies of another, who, having neglected this branch of her education, allowed, at a great dinner party which she gave, two dishes of the same color to be served in succession-a fault for which no excuse could be made.

EUCALYPTUS DISINFECTANT.

It was only a few years ago that the value of the eucalyptus tree as a preventive of ague and fever was made known. Since then it has been transplanted in districts addicted to this disease in this country, with beneficial results. Later on we are even assured that cures are effected by an extract of its leaves. Now we learn that the same agent is a powerful disinfectant and preventive of more fatal diseases. Dr. J. B. Curgenven writing to the Farm and Home (English), says of it: For the last two years I have used the "Eucalyptus Disinfectant" (a solution of anti-septics in the essential oil) in all cases of scarlet fever and diphtheria, and have not had one case of infection. In the former disease I have not used any isolation, and in most cases have not excluded the other children of the family from the sick room. None of the cases, except two or three severe ones, were kept to their

room more than ten days, the isolation of six or eight weeks being unnecessary, as the cuticle is perfectly disinfected. This is accomplished by rubbing the disinfectant over the whole body twice, and then once a day for ten days. Baron von Müller, in a letter I received from him, quite approves of my method of disinfection by inunction. It may interest your readers to know that I have used the disinfectant successfully in a case of "roup" in a hen by applying it to the mouth and throat by means of a camel's hair brush. From what I saw of the false membrane, covering the throat, cheeks and back of tongue, I believe roup to be diphtheria and as one of the sources of diphtheria in children. I mentioned this to a medical friend, and he recalled to mind a case of diphtheria he had attended in a family where they had several pigeons die of some throat affection. I am using it now on two hens that have lost the feathers on the back, breast and belly from some disease, probably of a fungoid nature, affecting the roots of the feathers. It has arrested the disease and young feathers are beginning to appear. I believe on further trial that it will be found very useful in all infectious diseases amongst domestic animals, as I have proved it to be in scarlet fever and diphtheria. All parasites on dogs, fowls, &c., are killed by it. I am, sir, yours faithfully,

J. BRENDON CURGENVEN.

MARRIAGE AMONG NEW YORK PLUTOCRATS. Marriage among the New York snobs and plutocrats, ordinarily treats human affection as though it were a trifling optic malady to be cured by a few drops of corrective lotion. Daughters are trained by their mothers to leave no efforts untried, short of those absolutely immoral, in winning wealthy husbands. Usually the daughters are tractable enough. Rebellion is rare with them; why should it not be? Almost from infancy (unless when their parents have made fortunes with prodigious quickness) they are taught that matrimony is a mere hard bargain, to be driven shrewdly and in a spirit of the coolest mercantile craft. Sometimes they do really rebel, however, mastered by pure nature, in one of those tiresome moods where she shows the insolence of defying bloodless convention. Yet nearly always capitulation follows. And then what follows later on? Perhaps heart-broken resignation, perhaps masked adultery, perhaps the degradation of public divorce. But usually it is no worse than a

silent disgusted slavery, for the American woman is notoriously cold in all sense of passion. and when reared to respect "society," she is a snob to the core. Some commentators aver that it is the climate which makes her so pulseless and prudent. This is possible. But one deeply familiar with the glacial theories of the fashionable New York mother might find an explanation no less frigid than comprehensive for all her traits of acquiescence and decorum. How many of these fashionable mothers ask more than a single question of the bridegrooms they desire for their daughters? That one question is simply: What amount of money do you control?" But constantly this kind of interrogation is needless. A male "match" and "catch" finds that his income is known to the last dollar long before he has been graduated from the senior class at Columbia or Harvard. Society, like a genial feminine Briaræus, opens to him its myriad rosy and dimpled arms. He has only to let a certain selected pair of these clutch him tight, if he is rich enough to make his personality a luring prize. Often his morals are unsavory, but these prove no impediment. The great point with plutocracy and snobbery is to perpetuate themselves to go on producing scions who will uphold for them future generations of selfishness and arrogance. One sees the same sort of procreative tendency in certain of our hardiest and coarsest weeds. Sometimes a gardener comes along with hoe, spade, and a strong uprooting animus. In human life that kind of gardener goes by the ugly name of Revolution. But we are dealing with neither parables nor allegories. Those are for the modish clergymen of the select and exclusive churches, and are administered in the form of dainty little religious pills which these gentlemen have great art in knowing how to palatably sugar.-EDGAR FAWCETT, in Arena.

AGAINST ALCOHOL.

At the opening meeting of the recent international medical congress, which held its sessions at the national Prohibition camp ground in Port Richmond, S. I., Dr. N. S. Davis, of Chicago, spoke upon "The Nature and Effects of Alcoholic Liquor," in part as follows: "During 1890, 80,000,000 gallons of distilled spirits, 40,000,000 gallons of wine, 800,000,000 gallons of malt liquors, making a total of 920,000,000 gallons, were consumed in the United States. They cost the consumers $800,000,000, or $13 per head on the total population of the country.

The time lost from work, sickness and crimes due to drinking cost as much more, and it is estimated that rum cost the people of the United States in this period $1,600,000,000. What does the consumer get for this enormous expenditure? He does not get health, strength, clothing, food or happiness, but wasted fortunes, ruined lives and homes, homeless children, poor-houses, asylums and jails. Men who do not drink can work better and lose fewer days from sickness than those who do drink. People drink because of the erroneous ideas as to the nature and effects of alcoholic beverages. Before chemistry analyzed liquor it was suppsed to be stimulating, warming, soothing and restorative. This is now known to be fallacious. Nineteen-twentieths of the alcoholic drinks given to the sick are mixed with sugar, milk, eggs or meat broths, which furnish the nutriment and would support life better if given without alcohol. A five pound loaf of bread contains as much nutriment as will be found in a daily diet of eight or ten quarts of beer continued for a year. The man who drank this amount of beer would swallow a barrel of alcohol. In beer there is 4 per cent. of alcohol, in wine 15 per cent., and in distilled liquors from 50 to 60 per cent. Science classes alcohol as a poison. If taken pure it will destroy tissue as quickly as carbolic acid. Alcohol causes permanent structural changes in the liver, kidneys, stomach, heart, blood vessels and nervous tissue, and lessens the natural duration of life from ten to fifteen years.

Professor Williams H. Porter, of the New York Post Graduate School, followed with a paper on "Physiological Relation of Alcohol to Food," illustrated by charts showing the constituent parts of various articles of food and their value as nutritive agents. Starch, sugars and fats are stimulating and transformed into alcohol before they can be taken up by the system. Those used to eating food of this nature have a desire for stimulants.

Alcohol, being pleasant to the taste, is preferred to stimulating foods, and the alcoholic habit is gradually acquired. Albuminous food, such as meat, eggs and milk, stimulate the body without giving the desire. for alcohol. The common practice of using vegetables and cereals to the exclusion of milk and meats often arouses a desire for alcoholic beverages. To get rid of the alcoholic habit, fats, starch and sugar should be avoided.

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Professor Axel Gustafson told what he knew about Some of the Effects of Alcohol on the Brain." He said that alcohol holds a pre