manner, the experience of others, whether written down in books or not, is of very great value, to polish and improve and assist our own experience.

I have made these remarks as an introduction to what I am going to say to the young wife whose education has been so defective, as to leave her ignorant on the subject of house-keeping. I would have her study the subject—and that, too, most thoroughly. Such works as the " Frugal Housewife" are valuable, and will afford her great aid. But something more philosophical will still be necessary. She needs a profound knowledge of domestic chemistry, as well as of the intimate structure and laws of life, or animal and vegetable anatomy and physiology.

Although the whole of our life does not consist in mere eating, yet our food, in its quantity and quality, has much—very much—to do with our health and happiness; and the good housewife should pay special attention to this department, as one of great importance to a family. The books in this country-at least, all I have seen-which treat on this subject, embody so much of human experience in the preparation of foolish or hurtful mixtures, that I am sometimes disgusted with the whole of them, and led to believe that they do more harm than good. And yet treatises on the important art of cooking, in the most healthy manner, plain

and appropriate articles of food-treatises, I mean, which are founded in true science, or are the result of extensive practice, can never be too numerous. Among this class is a small work on "Bread and Bread Making," lately published in this city, with which every house-keeper who undertakes the work of reform, either with a view to her own happiness or that of others, ought to be familiarly acquainted.

CHAPTER XXI.

SOBRIETY.

Definition of the term. Something more than temperance. Tea drinking. Effects of tea and coffee. Physiology of their effects. Nervous excitement-compared with intoxication. Proofs of the author's views. Sobriety at feasts. Sobriety in company. Other forms of sobriety.

LET not the reader startle, as if he supposed I was going to charge the female sex with the grosser forms of intemperance-with downright drunkenness. Far enough from that. Not but that there are individuals among the sex who have sunk thus low-a few, even of those who are dignified with the sacred and responsible name of wife. But such cases, in our New England community, are so rare, and in general, so inaccessible, that I will not spend strength or time, at least at present, in dwelling upon them. Not one in ten would ever read my remarks, and not one in a hundred who did would be benefited by them.

But there are some forms of intemperance, properly so called, to which females-some too who are in general truly respectable-do not hesitate

to descend. There are even a considerable number who use, or who countenance the use, as a beverage—which is nearly the same thingof several sorts of fermented liquors. There are those who drink wine, cider and beer, and give it to their friends; and there are also those who laugh at what they call the squeamishness or the ultraism-but which may, for aught they can know, be the conscientiousness-of those who do not. But I am willing to pass over this also, for there is another form of intemperance still more common, and in which most young wives with whom I am acquainted participate.

I allude here to the use of coffee and tea, those common beverages of New England. I maintain, whatever may be thought to the contrary, that the use of these articles, for any other than medicinal purposes, is neither more nor less than a species of intemperance.

They excite the brain and nervous system, just as other intoxicating liquors do. And what difference does it make whether the excitement be produced by one drink or another? If rum, gin, brandy, whiskey, cider, beer, coffee and tea are each and every one of them drunk for the sake of the excitement they produce on the nervous system, why is not one as much an intoxicating liquor as the other?

I do not mean to say that a single cup of tea or coffee, or a single half pint of cider or beer, will produce as great a degree of intoxication as the same quantity of rum or brandy-for every one knows better. But I do mean to affirm that people use these drinks chiefly, if not wholly, on account of the exciting or intoxicating properties they contain; and that no female who uses any of them freely can be, in the fullest sense of the term, a person of sobriety.

Does any

Does any person believe otherwise? one suppose she drinks these beverages to quench thirst? Does any individual believe she would drink them long, if their intoxicating or exciting properties were omitted, though the rest of the properties of the beverage were to remain ?

Much is said about their giving strength; and yet they make not-they never did make-a particle of blood. There is no nutriment in tea or coffee at least, so far as we consider them as mere drinks. But suppose there were;-we need not use them for the sake of that nutriment, since we could get the same or a much greater amount of nutritious matter, by eating a small quantity of solid food.

But I say again, we do not drink coffee or tea for the sake of the nutriment they afford. We drink them to excite us. This excitement may,