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respecting which the most trustworthy information may not be obtained, if we apply in the right quarter. The book which we now introduce to the public is, we venture to believe, an Oracle to which all enquirers may refer without fear of disappointment. If the young housekeeper wishes to know how to serve up a little dinner in the nicest and most economical fashion, with a maximum of taste and a minimum of waste; if an ingenious youth watching an eclipse of the moon, such as we beheld in the early days of October, wishes to know how that phenomenon was caused a visit to the nearest bookseller's shop or railway bookstall will be sufficient to enable the perplexed young persons to obtain, at a very small cost indeed, not only the special information required, but instruction and advice on a thousand other subjects.

THE ENQUIRER'S ORACLE is really what it professes to be-a Ready Reference Book, which all may consult with confidence in the accuracy of the inforination given-information gathered from many sources, with strict regard to the most recent results of investigation, and the presentation of the facts in the most acceptable manner.

Every parent must experience occasionally some perplexityas to the best method of dealing with difficulties, large and small, which will present themselves in the best-managed families. How shall we act in cases of accident or sickness? What course can we adopt to make our income go farthest in supply of good household necessaries? Can we feed, clothe, and educate the little ones on a better method than we have hitherto seen our way to do? How, in brief, can we make our homes happier, more healthful, prettier, and brighter than, with all our exertions, we have as yet, from imperfect knowledge, been enabled to make them? "Consult my pages," says THE ENQUIRER'S ORACLE.

Home Management and Home Culture are by no means the only subjects on which the Oracle will afford instruction. Facts of many kinds, historical and scientific, national as well as domestic, are included. If any person is disposed to suspect that our statements are exaggerated, let him look at the Index to the book, and after doing so, he must be sceptical indeed if he then fail to believe in our claims.

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BUMSTED'S

ROYAL BRITISH TABLE SALT.

Be sure and ask for it, and take no other.

In Jars and Paper Packets, not in Bags.
N.B.-Kitchen Salt is in Bags.

D. BUMSTED & Co.,

36, King William Street, London Bridge.

THE ENQUIRER'S ORACLE;

OR,

What to Do and How to Do It.

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COURTSHIP, MATRIMONY, AND MARRIED LIFE.

THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF EACH PERIOD.

nary people that, somehow or other, get married, and are most likely to get married, at any given age, little attractive as they may appear to presumptuous critics.

3. Worth Better than Beauty.

1. The Beginning of Courtship. -What is more like the opening of a new book than the initiation of a courtship? To uninterested observers it is an inevitable subject for joke and banter. To fond parents it is matter for the deepest anxiety. For the in--The ordinary course of love, to the dividuals most intimately concerned it dreamy a mystery, and to the shallow is a time of flutter, and doubt, and philosopher something that " no fellow awakening, and hope. With most of can understand," vividly illustrates and those who are personally involved it is brings into prominence the sterling the making or marring of the whole truth that worth of character is superior future-the beginning of a new life. to the most conspicuous beauty. Hence, when we hear a person say, 66 However could he have married such a fright? "Whatever she could see in him is

2. Unexpected Courtship. There is nothing affecting human destiny in connection with which it may be more confidently said, "Never despair;" for it is not the most beautiful nor most accomplished that are the

most successful in love-rather the reverse. Whether it is that beauty and accomplishments make their possessors capricious, or whether they deter the advances of the majority, and so diminish the chances, may be matter for doubt; but it is not so very unusual for the belle of the family to lapse into the old maid, or for the Apollo of an admiring circle to remain in the frigid zone of bachelorship until he becomes the subject of merriment as the veritable "old beau" of the party. Be that as it may, it is the plain and ordi

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beyond comprehension,' we may be

sure that there are virtues and merits

that are more than sufficient to compensate for any supposed inferiority of appearance.

4. Pleasing and being Pleased. -Success in courtship, no less than in other passages of sublunary existence, depends, for the most part, upon the greater or less degree of ability for pleasing that may be possessed by either party. This ability is more or less innate or deficient in the constitution of every individual. There is a manner about some people that makes every look, and smile, and act, and word, ai element of satisfaction to others. OL

NOT TO OFFEND IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS PLEASING.

LITTLE BOATS SHOULD KEEP NEAR SHORE.

the contrary, there are some unfortunate | nor desirable to measure the effect too people who, with the best intentions, critically of everything to be said or or, more likely, without any intentions, are always contriving to do or say something or other with a malappropriateness enough to make a cat laugh if it could indulge in such an evidence of emotion, or, otherwise, that might make angels weep if they happened to be sufficiently interested in the consequences. Of such are the contrasts of personal conduct that often govern the results of a courtship.

5. Choice of a Partner for Life. -Grave things are sometimes said about choosing with reference to matrimonial intentions, and the importance of regulating the choice wisely and

well. Serious reflections thereon are amongst the delusive conceits of which some men and women seem to be the victims. In the majority of cases, choice has nothing whatever to do with it. True love is no more within control than is to-morrow's weather. If a marriage is to be one of love, it is an instinctive sentiment beyond the power of choice; if it is to be a mercenary marriage, it is not the choice of a partner, but of a fortune. The only legitimate exercise of choice is in the negative direction. You may suppress love, but you cannot inspire it as a matter of choice. If it be really true that there be deliberate choice in some cases, and it be acted upon, it is hardly an assurance to the chosen one of the undivided affection that should accompany such a union. We may depend upon it there is no more real choice in such matters than there is in the precise position of the paintings of a lily.

done. Too much study of that kind is calculated to induce an artificial love that can hardly be desirable; but that is no reason why inappropriate words or acts should be said or done in sheer wantonness and disregard of consequences. It is possible in such relationships to be over-confident, and to be seriously misunderstood; for though love, like justice, may be blind, it is not necessarily deaf, as Jacques remindeth us, with some appropriateness, in the "Honeymoon ;" and what is true in the honeymoon is equally true in the courtship. It should be borne in mind that, in such contingencies, a very small cloud may cause a very inconvenient eclipse.

7. Love Letters.-Many a love letter, as disclosing the deficiencies of the writer, has effectually extinguished the love it was presumably intended to fan. Oh! unhappy writer in such a pass, especially if it be the first letter ! Unfortunately, education is so partially spread in some quarters, that a showy girl, of good social position, with some powers of engaging conversation, may be totally unable to write a presentable letter; and the smart fellow who has been prosperous enough in business to live in style, or has inherited enough to be independent, whose correspondence has been limited to counting-house inanities or the briefest memoranda, may feel at a loss when for the first time entering upon the agonies of inditing a few lines extending beyond the customary phrases relating to the dryest matters of trade and finance. Out of

such elements ridiculous and sometimes fatal love letters grow.

8. Disclosures in Law Courts.

6. Too much Confidence.-Speaking of the malappropriateness of what one may say or do, there may be a kind of confidence in courtship that pre--Judging from the love letters that sumes too much; and where a word or an act may seem to convey an idea of carelessness of consequences calculated to prevent the growth and permanence of the loving sentiment that will not thrive without some cultivation. Where there is a growing confidence and advancing intimacy, it is neither possible

come before judges, and get into the papers, they are the most ridiculous of all documents; and if they were any reliable criterion of the generality, the best course would be to refrain from them entirely. It is beyond the conception of sensible people to imagine what could induce anyone to call.

VESSELS LARGE MAY VENTURE MORE.

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