The Household

A correspondent calis the attention of all consumera of kerosene oil to the prnicious and unhealthy practice of using lanips filled with that article with the wicks turned down. The gas which should be consumed by the flames is by this means left heavily in the air, while the cost of the oil thus saved at present prices would scarce be one dollar a year for the lamps of a household. His attention was called particuiarly to this custom by boarding in the country, where kerosene was the only available light. A large family of ohildren living in the same house were taken ill one night, and on going to the nursery the mother found the room nparly suffocating, with a lamp turned down, whereupon the physiciau forbade the use of a lamp at night unless turned at fu!l head. He says he could quote niany cases, one of a yonng girl subject to fits of faintness, which if not induced were greatly increased by sleeping in a room with the lamp almost turned out. Besides the damage to health it spoils the paper and curtains, soils the 7uirrors and windows and gives the whole house an untidy and unwholesome odor. GIYE THE CHILD A LIGHT. If a child wants a light to go to sleep by give it one. The sort of Spartan firmness which walks off and takes away the candle and shuts all the doors between the household cheer and warmth and the pleasant stir of evening mirth, and leaves a little son or daughter to hide its head under the bedclothes and get to sleep as best it can, is not at all admirable. Not that the mother means to be cruel, when she tries this or that hardening prooess, and treats human nature as if it were clay to be moulded into any ahape she may please. Very likely she has no idea whatover of the injury and suffering she causes, or perhaps her heart would ache ; but she perseveres, thinking she ia doing right. COOK VEGETABLES IX SALT WATER. If one portion of vegetables be boiled in pure water, and another in water to which a little salt has been added, a decided difference ia perceptible in the taste and odor, and especially in the tenderness of the two portions. Vegetables boiled in water without salt are vastly inferior in flavor. This inferiority niay go far in case of onions that they are almost entirely destitute of odor or taste, though when cooked in salted water they possess, besides the pleasant salt taste, a peculiar Bweetness and strong aroma. They also contain more soluble matter than when cooked in pure water. Evidently the sait, by adding density to the water, binders the solution and evaporation of the soluble and flavoring principies of the vegetables. This explains the advantages of an addition of salt to the boiling water. And it is impossible to correct, by after additions of salt to the vegetables, the want of flavor in such as have been boiled without it.