persist in turning your sideboard into a young housekeeper starts out with a depository for books and playthings generous supply of these needful artiyou will find it decidedly up-hill work. cles, and she can thus gradually instiSometimes we are tempted to leave tute this custom of replenishing without a thing we expect to use soon again out feeling the expense too much. The of its proper place. We do this to save custom once established, it becomes a ourselves trouble. But it is false econ- matter of course, the same as purchasomy of time and strength. Ten to one ing your hat or dress when the season it becomes necessary to get out a search comes around. warrant and turn the house upside down in order to find that thing when needed. Labeling a Time-Saver. It is an excellent plan for a housekeeper to make generous use of the labeling system. It not only repays her for the trouble, but frequently serves as an unerring guide when sickness or some other cause makes it necessary for another to act in her place. It is a satisfaction to be able to put your hand on the cinnamon without having first to smell in three or four different cans; or to be positive you have the mustard and not the ginger, without taking the trouble to taste. Nothing gives stronger evidence of good housewifery than rows of neatly labeled herbs, spices, extracts and various other articles used in the culinary department. One young woman of my acquaintance, in packing wearing apparel away when its season is over, always does up each article in a parcel and labels it. She is thus able to lay her hand on the thing needed on short notice, and without causing a general stir-up. Every business house has Regularity. its regular hours and seasons for doing certain things. They open at about a certain hour every day and close with the same punctuality. Each employe has a fixed time for his dinner hour. Any house that does not have this methodical way of conducting business, lays itself liable to severe criticism. Isn't it just as essential for a household to practice the same regularity and punctuality when circumstances admit of it? Nothing is more conducive to good digestion than regular hours for eating; nothing more conducive to good health generally than a corresponding regularity in one's sleeping hours. Considering the haphazard way in which a great many violate both these laws of health, it is a wonder the results are not even more disastrous than they are. Certain days for washing, ironing, sweeping, baking, etc., are some of the essential rules for systematic housekeeping. One may deviate when occasion requires, or combine if it is thought best; but if you have only the faintest spark of aspiration to experiment along this line, never, never let your mending go till Saturday night! be anyone there to eat them; consisting of whatever chances to be at hand, put together in the style that takes the least exertion; lukewarm coffee, underdone potatoes, heavy griddle cakes, looking sadder than the consumers; table-cloth, at best scarcely capable of covering the table, all askew and not of the cleanest; dishes put on in a slovenly fashion a plate headed for the middle of the table, or a knife seeking to escape from his fellow fork. When these days occa A "Hit" Day. sionally come, the customary routine of affairs is conspicuous by its absence. The cloth has stretched to ample proportions, the dishes are placed with great precision, the meat reaches the table without heralding its approach by a scorched odor, the coffee actually smokes when it is poured out! It's the prospect of company that has wrought this marvelous change. How eagerly the children await the summons, and how they "do wish we had company every day." Since this is an impossibility, one would think the dismal certainty of the famine that must follow this lay-out would detract from the enjoyment of the partakers. A feast day in this household is followed by several days of famine. Each one fills himself to his fullest capacity, and for the next few days is allowed to live on the remembrance of the goods provided by the-housekeeper. Piquant Pea Soup. NEW RECIPES.* One pint of green, dried peas; scald in a solution of saleratus and water; blanch thoroughly, drain, and add two quarts of fresh boiling water. Simmer gently until tender, then pass through a sieve. Fry two chopped onions in two tablespoonfuls of butter, add six cloves and one bay leaf, and stir all together. Put in a tablespoonful of salt and a cup of canned tomatoes. Let all cook slowly for an hour, when, if too thick, add a little boiling water. Add a pinch of red pepper and a tablespoonful of butter, and, when ready to serve, a cupful of squares of bread which have been fried a golden brown in butter. and Corn. ing, and brown over a hot fire. When well-browned, add half a can of sweet corn and a seasoning of three-fourths teaspoonful of salt and one-fourth teaspoonful of pepper and enough boiling water to moisten; stir over the fire until thoroughly heated, and serve at once. Canary Cream. Dissolve one ounce of gelatine in a pint of water. Strain and add to it the juice of three oranges, the grated rind of one, juice of one lemon, the yolks of four eggs well beaten, and a cup of sugar. Stir over a gentle fire until it thickens, then pour into a mold. SAUCE Beat the whites of the four eggs very stiff; take a goodsized cupful of strawberry, raspberry or peach preserves and beat thoroughly, then add the egg whites and beat together. Pile around the the canary Cut into small pieces a Ragout of Pork Tenderloin pound of fresh pork tenderloins; put into a saucepan with enough butter to prevent burn- cream. * From the Inner Man for December. Current Review "WHO SHALL DISPUTE WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAYT CHURCHILL The THE NICARAGUA CANAL. That the President realPresident's izes the vast importance Views. and possible complications in the construction of the Nicaragua Canal is made apparent by his earnest reference to the subject in his message to Congress. After reviewing recent matters in connection therehe says: with, "All these circumstances suggest the urgency of some definite action by the Congress at this session if the labors of the past are to be utilized, and the linking of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a practical waterway is to be realized. That the construction of such a maritime highway is now more than ever indispensable to that intimate and ready intercommunication between our Eastern and Western seaboards demanded by the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, and the prospective expansion of our influence and commerce in the Pacific, and that our national policy now more imperatively than ever calls for its control by this Government, are propositions which I doubt not the Congress will duly appreciate and wisely act upon." and Costa Rica, the completion and equipments of the canal within six years from the enactment of the proposed law, the of the United States under the inspection letting of the contracts to responsible citizens and supervision of government engineers and the limiting of cost in any event to $115,000,000. The new Maritime Canal Company is to be made up of eleven directors, one named by Nicaragua, one by Costa Rica and nine by the President of the United States. The directors will receive a salary of $5,000 a year, except the president, who will be paid $6,000. The term of office is fixed at six years, except for the nine first appointed by the United States. They shall ballot for term of office, three to serve two years, three for four years and three for six years. Of the $100,000,000 of stock of the Maritime Canal Company against which $100,000,000 of bonds are to be issued, stock to the amount of $70,000,000 is to be surrendered to the United States Government. Of the remaining $30,000,000 of stock, the Nicaraguan Republic, under the concession to the Maritime Canal Company, must receive $6,000,000 and the Costa Rican Republic $1,500,000, they having now respectively 6 and 12 per cent. interest in the canal concession. This would give the three republics 77% per cent. of the capital stock of the new company, and an equal percentage of the stock not disposed of and left in the treasury after all debts and obligations have been settled or canceled. The total stock obligations of the present Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua, minus the $7,500,000 of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, is $15,961,500 paid for concessions and issued for work. In addition there are cash obligations. The company agrees to wipe out all debts and cancel all out-standing stock providing the persons designated by the present stockholders receive $4,500.000 of the new bonds and 70,000 shares ($7,000,000) of stock. This would leave the remainder of the $100,000,000 of stock, not already provided for, in the treasury of the new Maritime Canal Company; that is, the republics of the United States, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, to be used as working capital. Senator The Old Maritime Canal Morgan's Company, the charter of Opinion. which expired in October of the present year, has done considerable work already. Complete surveys have been made; the character of the earth to be excavated has been ascertained; harbor facilities have been acquired; wharfs, buildings, telegraph lines, etc., have been constructed; twenty miles of "right of way" have been cleared of timber; eleven miles of railway have been constructed; an extensive operating plant has been installed, and about one mile of the canal is open for utility. Senator Morgan, of Alabama, who has championed the canal for years, thus points out its advantages to the United States: "It is too late to question the right or the policy of the United States to give aid to a canal company, even if it was only a private enterprise, in opening a ship canal through the Isthmus of Darien, which, in time of war, is a necessary means of defending the country, and in peace will be a blessing to every person in the United States, while at all times it is a necessary facility for conducting our Government. The effort to portray the blessings that will result to the world, and to the western hemisphere, in a special sense, from this canal, and the peculiar advantages of its control in promoting the welfare of the United States, and the honor it will confer on our country and the men of this generation are beyond the reach of our present forecast and must be left to the historian. "While we have been debating this subject in Congress, and have been balked and delayed by competing lines of land transportation and by the intermeddling of the agents of competitive water lines of transportation, the ship canals at Corinth, Greece, at Manchester, England, and at Kiel, in Germany, have been projected and completed, to the great honor and advantage of those countries. Yet our resources have been so ample that we have kept $100,000.000 idle in the treasury on which the people have paid interest, during all this time, in order to protect our credit, which has stood at from fifteen to twenty-five per cent. premium in the markets during this entire period." What On Dec. 13th, while dis Senator cussing the provisions of Turple Says. the bill the debate became somewhat heated, Senator Morgan defending, and Senator Turpie opposing the bill, and the privileges to be given. to a private corporation. A Washington dispatch says: Mr. Turpie said that while not opposed to the canal as such, he was opposed to the scheme of a Maritime Canal Company, and he denounced that company as the most venomous and effective opponent of a real canal enterprise. He did not believe it possible for that company, with its bad odor, to construct the canal and he held that the Maritime Company should get out of the way of the genuine canal enterprise. 66 The object of the Maritime Company being, he declared, not to cut a canal but to I cut a channel of communication at the least possible cost, between the treasury of the United States and the empty coffers of that beggarly corporation." Mr. Turpie asserted that the Government could not lawfully guarantee the Maritime Company's bonds as proposed. As to the possibility of foreign jealousy operating to prevent the construction of the canal by this Government, Mr. Turpie declared that there was no civilized nation that would not be pleased to see the canal constructed. He would not support the pending bill because of the failure to provide for the ownership of the canal by the United States. All obstacles would disappear before a movement on the part of the United States to construct the canal, the opposition of Nicaragua, and other countries was made to the Maritime Company and to it only, |