Social Problems And Their Peaceful Solution.

Now there cannot be a doubt but that in nearly every , if not in every , household of the middle classes of society , to say nothing of the upper , sufficient is absolutely wasted to feed at least one poorer family—witness tbe crusts of bread , trimmings and

shreddings of meat , skimmings of fat , parings aud outsides of vegetables , and the like ; all of which properly cleaned and cooked would form many a meal not only wholesome and nutritious , but positively toothsome and savoury , only our sisters know

not how to utilise them ; the very bones , again , which are tossed aside as useless , would yield in a digester a quantity of excellent stock . We have met with one capital plan by which soup , as good as it is wholesomeis made without any expense

, further than that of the thickening : all bones , whether of meat or of poultry , instead of being " picked , " after having had the meat cut from them are carefully placed aside ; these together with any shreddings are put to stew in the digester ; the

addition of the rind of ham or bacon gives an exquisite flavour to the soup ; tops and parings of vegetables , as well as those rejected on account of their small size are

added , and when the whole has been stewed a sufficient time a capital soup is the result , which can be thickened either with oatmeal , pea-flour , or the pulp of vegetables . We must not , however , suppose that waste is confined to the well-to-do , for there is

probably no more extravagant class in existence than the extreme poor—witness the way in which the cottager who has a garden rejects those small vegetablespotatoes , for instance—which are too small to cook in the ordinary waybut which are

, quite as useful in a stew as the largest that he can produce . One other blunder , made by richer as well as poorer housewives , requires correction , which is that only the so-called primest parts of the meat are good for cooking ; no greater mistake can be

made , for every portion , properly manipulated , has not only its use but also its individual merit . That savoury dish known as " a la mode" or stewed beef is best prepared from the so-called " coarse " part of the meat taken from the shoulderwhich

, Part , indeed , is the only proper one for the Purpose . Now to return to the latter part of our first remed y , namely , the utilisation of

home and foreign products for our purpose . When we come to deal with our indigenous food-supply we find that our people act as if there were a certain definite number , and that small enough in all conscience , of animals and plants upon which we may safely feed , whilst all others are to be

avoided as poison , or at least to be shunned as carrion ; but what is the actual state of the case ? Why , that the lap of motherearth is brimming over with wholesome and nutritious products , from which we turn with disgust , simply because we have

never been accustomed to their use . Wh y should our French nei ghbours consider snails a delicacy , whilst we pass them by with loathing . We eat the periwinkle , which is exactly the same thing , and the shrimp aud prawn , which are worse ,, being

nothing more nor less than sea beetles ; then why nob snails , especially such as are within a few yards of us , as we write , find noble fellows , descendants , they say , of those brought over by the ancient Romans' ? Our gipsy friends make a luxurious meal off a hedgehog , why not we . Anyhow , it is as clean a feeder as a duck or a pig . Take small birds again ,

why should starlings , which are in one county regarded as remarkably good eating in a pie , be regarded as carrion in the next ? Now turn to the vegetable world , and see what stores of good Dame Nature provides to our hand in every field

and hedgerow : the tender tops of the hop and nettle give us excellent greens , the young dandelion aud sorrel a capital salad , arrow-root , or something very nearly resembling it , is to be had in plenty from the roots of the cuckoo-pintflour can be

; obtained from the chesnut properly cooked , aud we are much mistaken if something could not be done with the bitter acorn . Our fathers ate it , and we strongly doubt that they relished it in its acrid state , and rather fancy that they must have had some

method of making it palatable , which we surely might recover . What we have said with respect to other vegetable growths will apply equally well to the mushroom tribe . Hundreds of tons of edible fungi , other than truethat is to say the ordinary

, , mushrooms , spring up and decay where they stand , instead of going , as they might , were it not for ignorance of their wholesome properties , to feed our hungry