at meals. Sousing the stomach at meal-time with a cold
_douche_ is only harmful. After the food has had time to digest and pass
out of the stomach, then, if one is a great water-drinker, take a glass,
or so much of a glass as you think is required, and it will be of
benefit. Make the heartiest meal come at noon, and eat a light supper at
night, using bread and butter for the most part.

_Things to be remembered and observed in eating_, are slowness and
thorough mastication; never wash your food down with any drink. Talk and
laugh, taking as much time to do this as you do to eat. A noted
humorist says that "every time a man laughs he takes a kink out of the
chain of life, and thus lengthens it." That is true philosophy, and it
is little understood by our nervous, rushing people. We grin and snicker
enough, at ourselves and others, but downright hearty laughter is a
stranger to the most of us. It should be cultivated till, in an honest
way, it supplants, at least, the universal snicker. There is both
comfort and health in rousing peals of laughter.

_Things to be avoided in eating_, are hot, fresh baked breads of all
kinds; also avoid all manner of pies as you would a pestilence, likewise
cakes, of every description; they are the crowning curse. Women will
make it and children will cry for it, probably, for all the generations
to come, as they have in the past. But more truthful epitaphs should be
inscribed over them than is now done. It is strange how fashion rules in
diet as in dress. Why, the Koohinoor diamond of Victoria is not more
valued than is a steady supply of poundcake by most of women and
children. We know of a family who make it a boast that _they_, when
young, had _all they wanted_; which either implies their mother to have
been unwisely indulgent, or else the children to have been
over-clamorous. It certainly does not imply wealth, and, least of all,
culture, for the poorest families have usually the largest display of
these things, while those with enlarged means and sense dispense with
them out of good judgment.

Travelling on the cars, a short time since, we had for a companion a
shrewd Yankee who had the honor to be postmaster of his city, and at the
same time was engaged in the boot and shoe trade; one of those stirring
men who, if he did not possess genius, had its nearest kin--activity,
and illustrated the fact that a man _might_ do two things well at one
and the same time. He gave us samples of hu