many evils which arise from the custom of having for food the white bread. The mothers are so thin that they look like starved mothers; and they are so, while the babes are absolutely wretched and starved, because the mothers are. I try, under these circumstances, to make the mothers understand that this white bread is the worst food they can take, and, in the end, the dearest ; and if I can get them to believe this, and to change the food for something cheaper and better, it is astonishing how much healthier both the mother and the infant soon become.

The grain of wheat has a complicated and beautiful structure. If we look at the white inner part, which composes the geater portion of the grain, under the microscope, we observe that it is composed of a vast number of cells, each crowded with round masses called starch granules. The starch granules of wheat vary very much in size. Of the smallest there would be required 10,000, and of the largest, 900, placed end to end, to extend one inch in length. On the outer part of the wheat grain, but underlying the husk, is a layer of large cells, of a slightly yellow color; these are called the gluten cells. A little gluten and other albuminous matter are found in the starch cells, but it is in the outer layer that this matter exists in the greatest abundance. Gluten, albume n, and similar bodies are classified by the chemist as proteids. They are popularly called flesh formers, because they serve to build up the muscles and tissues of the body. These bodies all contain nitrogen as an essential constituent. At one end of the grain is the germ, wherein lies that most mysterious thing we call the life. Covering and protecting the parts we have briefly described is the testa, or branny covering. The outer part is silicious and indigestible, but the inner part is rich in serviceable mineral matters and flesh formers.

We will consider the disadvantages of using white bread. First, from 100 pounds of good white wheat we obtain only 73 pounds of fine flour; thus there is a great waste of human food, and the cost of the flour is increased. If the "tailings" are redressed and the "middlings" reground by the miller, thus producing a less white flout, the quantity will be raised to 80 pounds, but still there is a loss of 20 pounds.

Fine flour is poorer in albuminoids, or flesh formers, in fat and in mineral matters, than seconds flour.

The bran is very rich in mineral matters and bone formers, consequently only brown bread should be given to children, as they require phosphate of lime for the building up of their rapidly-growing bones.

The grains of which wheat is the most valuable-stand above all other foods in their richness in compounds of phosphoric acid and in general high nutritive value, and they are the most satisfying and sustaining. It is, therefore, important that this, our most trusted food, should be of the best quality and not the white, excessively dressed and overfermented product supplied by most bakers.

GOOD TEA.

After tea has been steeped in boiling water for three minutes over fivesixths of the valuable constituents are extracted. At the end of ten minutes the leaves are almost entirely exhausted. Prolonged infusion gives no additional strength to the liquid, but it does cause the loss by volatilization of the flavoring principles. Hard waters are to be preferred to soft waters in the teapot, as the hard waters dissolve less of the tannin out of the leaves. The bearing of these laboratory results on the art of making a good cup of tea is obvious.—Standard.

COLD FOOD.

Eat all cold food slowly. Digestion will not begin till the temperature of the food has been raised by the heat of the stomach to ninetyeight degrees. Hence the more heat that can be imparted to it by slow mastication the better. The precipitation of a large quantity of cold in the stomach by fast eating may and often does, cause discom. fort and indigestion, and every occasion of this kind results in a measureable injury to the digestive functions. Ice water drunk with cold food of course increases the mischief. Hot drinks-hot water, weak tea, coffee, chocolate, etc.,-will, on the contrary, help to prevent it. But eat slowly, any way.

HOW TO MAKE A POULTICE.

Dr. Brunton, in Brain, the new London periodical, gives the following practical hints on this subject: The common practice in making poultices of mixing the linseed meal with hot water and applying it directly to the skin is quite wrong; because, if we do not wish to burn the patient, we must wait until a great portion of the heat is lost. The proper method is to take a flannel bag (the size of the poultice

required), to fill this with linseed poultice as hot as it can possibly be made, and to put between this and the skin a second piece of flannel, so that there shall be at least two thicknesses of flannel between the skin and the poultice itself. Above the poultice should be placed more flannel, or a piece of cotton-wool, to prevent it from getting cold. By this method we are able to apply the linseed meal boiling hot, without burning the patient, and the heat gradually diffusing through the flannel affords a grateful sense of relief which cannot be obtained by other means. There are few ways in which such marked relief is given to abdominal pain as by the application of a poultice in this manner.

PROGRESS ON THE CONGO.

White sojourners in the Congo country are themselves astonished at the number and importance of the measures now under way for the protection of the many thousands of natives against murder and rapine, and to spread order and civilization throughout the great river basin. Every mail from Europe brings news of fresh edicts to be enforced, of new police or educational measures to be carried out, of new steamboats coming or new expeditions projected. The best of it is that the natives are beginning to grasp the idea that all this conduces to their material advantage, safety and welfare, and they are, therefore, becoming more amenable to discipline and law. The State is dealing with them as with the Arabs, gently if possible, but is employing severer means, if necessary, to enforce obedience and respect.

The directions in which the Congo State is now chiefly working is for the suppression of the liquor traffic, the extinction of murderous slaves' raids, the opening of new routes of traffic, and the drilling of the many hundreds of natives employed by the government in some features of military tactics, and in industrial pursuits.

All philanthropists will feel grateful to the Congo State for its new edict strictly prohibiting the sale of all alcoholic liquors in all that part of the great river basin lying east of the Inkissi River. This river is forty miles west of Leopoldville, and the country between it and the Atlantic Ocean has been so long occupied by white liquor traders that it will not be possible, all at once, to carry out drastic measures for the suppression of the traffic. The trade, however, is to be strictly regulated, and its volume will be diminished, if possible, by taxes imposed upon the dealers.

The Congo State is thus showing itself to be a most beneficent and effective agent in the protection of the people against one of the greatest evils that threaten them.

The State has at last succeeded in hemming in the Arab dealers on the west and north, limiting their further raids down the Congo and along its branches. They have done this by establishing the seven military stations on the north and south tributaries of the Congo occupied by well armed forces, and frequently visited by the trading vessels and gunboats of the State. The natives have learned that these posts are places of refuge, where, under the blue flag of the Congo State, they may find safety from Arab murderers or oppressors of their own tribes. The Arabs understand that the limits of their slave and ivory hunting fields have been reached, and they are submitting as gracefully as possible to the inevitable. Everywhere throughout the growing regions which the Congo State is bringing under its influence the horrid custom of human sacrifices is beginning to be severely punished.

As an instance of the work the State is doing may be mentioned the progress of Bangala station, where the State is undertaking to educate and care for 170 children of its black employees. It is teaching them to read. It houses them in well ventilated and well built It gives them their meals in a large dining shed, where an immense table flanked by benches gives accommodation to the entire little community at once. Many men and women are employed on the farm, about three-quarters of a mile square, raising the food for these children and the station employees, and three cooks are employed solely in preparing the meals for the little wards of the State.

A large hospital has been built behind the station, with accommodations for forty patients, besides chambers for the convalescent. At present the hospital contains twelve blacks, including eight children, three men, and one woman, out of the population of 500 souls who form the black personnel of the station.

A number of the natives are employed in the manufacture of brick, and at present two large furnaces are burning 120,000 brick each.

The construction of the Congo Railroad is going on rapidly. The survey has been completed throughout the first twenty-five miles of the road, where all the engineering difficulties are accumulated. The grading of the road has been completed for nearly four miles. There are at present ninety-eight white engineers, agents, and workmen.

engaged on the road, besides a thousand native workmen drawn from many parts of Africa. The last mail from Europe reports that three locomotives and quite a number of flat cars are constructing, and will soon be shipped to Matadi, the starting point of the railroad. The health of the white force is very good, and they are carrying on the work with a great deal of enthusiasm.

In all directions it may be said that the work of the Congo State, though beset with many difficulties, is making favorable progress, and the white men on the ground, almost discouraged as they are at times by the immensity of the work before them, are still surprised themselves when they see the large amount that has been done and the rapidly widening opportunities for making still greater progress.

FROM THE DARK AGES.

It

The Earl of Shrewsbury recently purchased the torture implements of the Castle of Nuremburg, and they are now on exhibition in London. The most valuable, as it is the rarest of the whole collection, is the iron maiden (Eiserme Jungfrau). This terror-inspiring torture instrument is made of strong wood, bound together with iron bands. opens with two doors to allow the prisoner to be placed inside. The entire door is fitted with long, sharp iron spikes, so that when the doors are pressed to, these sharp prongs force their way into various portions of the victim's body. Two entered his eyes, others pierced his back, his chest, and, in fact, impaled him alive in such a manner that he lingered in the most agonizing torture. When death relieved the poor wretch from his agonies-perhaps after days-a trap-door in the base was pulled open and the body was allowed to fall into the moat or river below. Persons were condemned to death by the embraces of the Iron Maiden for plots against the governing powers, parricide, and religious unbelief. The date of this rare specimen is the fifteenth century. A great number of torture machines were apparently constructed with such devilish ingenuity that they would twist and rack the delicate human body to the point of madness, and yet not actually endanger life.

The torture bench, about ten feet long, was used for stretching prisoners, the feet being fastened to one end, the hands to the other, across a roller studded with wooden spikes, called a spiked hare.