for 2s. or 2s. 6d.

These receipts are intended for a family consisting of a man and wife, and two children under ten years old.

Dress the shin as follows:

Cut off the meat into slices, break the bone into small pieces, and cut up the whole into a saucepan, covered with a pint of water, until it boils. Then skim off the grease (but do not throw it away, as it will afterwards serve for frying), and add two quarts of water, two large onions, carrots and turnips cut into small squares, and a few grains of whole pepper, with sufficient salt to season

it. Put the saucepan then on one side the fire to simmer gently until the meat is tender, which, although it will take from four to five hours, yet does not require any attendance. The bones should be again stewed down in a small quantity of water, to add to the soup. The whole cost for the two days will be (supposing the vegetables to be purchased),

Meat, 4 lbs. at 24d. per lb.
Vegetables, pepper and salt

Other receipts will follow.

s. d.

0 10

REMEDY FOR A COUGH.

MR. EDITOR, AT this time of year, when colds and coughs are almost universal, it may be useful to mention to your readers a remedy which I have found very effectual. In the village in which I live it is a great favourite, and I am constantly applied to for it. I always keep a quantity in the house; and I think I may say that I never gave it to any one who did not find benefit from it. The receipt for it is as follows:—

Syrup of Squills,

Syrup of White Poppies, Syrup of Horehound, Clarified Honey;

Equal parts of each.

A tea-spoon full of the mixture should be taken in a wine glass full of warm water at night, and in the morn

ing also, if the cough is very troublesome; but in ordinary cases it will probably be sufficient to take it at night.

I gave some of this once to a woman in the village, and a few days after, happening to be calling on her next door neighbour, she said, "Oh, Madam, will you give me some of that wonderful stuff you gave Mrs. Baker: she used to have such a dreadful cough, and our chambers being so close together, I could not get a wink of sleep for the noise of her coughing; but one night all was still, and I quite wondered how it could be; so next day, I remarked to her how much better her cough was; and she said, 'yes, indeed it is, Mrs.

gave

me something to take for it, and it has done me a surprising deal of good;' and I am sure, Madam, it must be wonderful stuff." I could relate a number of other cases, but will not trespass longer upon you.

I am yours, &c.

J.

CRIMES COMMITTED DURING DRUNKENNESS.

AT York assizes, two young men were convicted of a highway robbery. On the night of the robbery, it appeared that they were in a state of intoxication. The jury found them both guilty, but recommended them to mercy. The judge said to the young men, that if the jury had considered the mischief and crime arising from the use of liquor in excess, they would hardly have thought that to be an excuse for their offence. It is this horrible habit of drinking that brings on half the misery of our land. The judge remarks, that, if it were not for the cases where offences are brought on by drinking, the courts of justice might be nearly shut up. great deal more than half the time of criminal courts is taken up in consequence of offences that have something to do with liquor. The old law said, that if a man killed another when drunk, he should be hanged when sober. It must not be, for a moment, heard of, that intoxication is to be any thing like an excuse for crime.

A

LAUDANUM AND OPIUM.

ARDENT spirits and malt liquors are not the only intoxicating drinks. They are often spoken of as if they were; but this is not the case. There are others now in use which are quite as powerful, and quite as injurious; consequently quite as sinful in their abuse. There are certain medicines, long known to physicians as having great power in relieving pain and in creating sleep, when disease prevents that necessary refreshment to nature from being enjoyed by the suffering patient. These are laudanum and opium: the former is made from the latter by the addition of what is called spirit of wine; a strong spirit, but of no pleasant flavour, and which is used entirely as a medicine, or an ingredient in mixtures prepared by the chemist. Like all other medicines which are useful in treating the diseased and suffering body, laudanum must be looked upon as a merciful gift of Providence to mankind for that purpose. It often gives ease to the pain which seems too great to be borne; it frequently diffuses a pleasant sleep over the brain which has been wearied without ceasing with the agonies of restlessness for many days and nights. But it is only to be viewed as a gift of Providence when it is used for its right and proper purpose. Unhappily it has also been turned to very unlawful purposes, by the never-ceasing self-indulgence of man's sinful nature. Having been found to produce pleasing sensations to the body when in sickness, it has come to be used by those who are in health, and who are in no want of it, in no reasonable want I mean, and who, therefore, ought not to think of it. The pleasure it produces is of the same kind as the intoxication of strong drink; and as that is an unlawful and unholy pleasure, so it must be when produced by laudanum or opium. Many persons use it for the very purpose of inducing the feeling of drunkenness, and lulling their reason to sleep. Women are seen in the streets of towns, and even in villages too, which are considered more innocent and simple in the habits of living, walking about with that kind of vacancy in their eye, which

proves that they have been taking something with an intoxicating influence. They are unable to give a proper and steady answer to what is said to them. They are in a sort of dream. Their reason is almost as much overcome and degraded as that of a person half-drunk; and they have themselves wilfully produced this state, for the purpose of the sinful pleasure it gives them. Which of their duties are they then capable of rightly performing? Are they in a state to pray to God, or to read with profit His holy Word? As well might you ask if a drunken man is capable of these blessed employments. They are in a perfectly stupid and helpless state, as to all the highest and best occupations of the mind. If they are able to use their hands for their household work, it is all they can do. They are unable to give the parent's instruction to their children; to lead them to the exercise of prayer, or to do any thing else which requires the mind and spirit to be free, and clear, and lively. Nothing can be a good excuse for putting oneself into this condition, or into any thing approaching to it. Those who practise it will have hereafter to give an account to God of those talents of mind and thought which they have buried and lost in this sinful manner; and of that immortal soul which has been debased and ruined by rendering it incapable of communion with God.

After having shown the bad effects which the use of these mischievous drugs produces on the higher and better part of our nature, it may seem to be taking too low a ground, if we say much on the destruction of the bodily health which it also as surely brings about. But it would not be right to omit altogether that which every medical man will readily explain, that laudanum taken unnecessarily is a most injurious thing to the health of everybody using it, as the extract here inserted abundantly proves :

Insanity caused by Opium Eating.

Amongst the lower class of women who apply for entrance into parochial infirmaries, a large proportion of them are addicted to the daily use of ardent spirits; and, from some inquiries which I have instituted during the

last three years, I have found that the habitual consumption of opium amongst the same class is to a far greater extent than is generally supposed by the public. I have been surprised at discovering how universal the practice has become, and to what an extent in some cases this drug is taken by them with impunity, or rather without immediate fatal effects. It is not at all an uncommon circumstance in the infirmary for the head nurse to discover under the pillows of the patients a phial of laudanum, or a box of opium pills, secretly put there for daily use; and several young girls even have stated, on being questioned, that they are in the habit of purchasing daily their pennyworth, or more, of laudanum, as a dram, and that there are favourite druggists' shops at which they get better measure than elsewhere. I may be allowed to state, that in the last eighteen years, during which period I have had to sign the certificates of all those who are received as insane into the infirmary, previously to their being transmitted to the various lunatic asylums in the county, I have frequently of late been struck with the increase in number of cases of general insanity, which is certainly disproportionate to the annual increase of population; the habitual use of opium amongst this class may perhaps explain the fact."-Dr. Winslow's Journal of Medicine.

In

Even when it is given under the best advice, and in cases of decided necessity, to relieve the most violent pain, or give sleep to the restless patient, it very often has another effect, which helps to retard recovery, and to inflict a different kind of distress and uneasiness. this way it is even sometimes perfectly unsafe to persist in its use; and the advice of a skilful physician is required to decide how far it is to be employed, and when it is to be entirely given up. But when this powerful agent is taken into the hands of those who know nothing about it except that it gives them temporary pleasure, how extremely dangerous is it likely to prove to their general health! Not only is it likely, but certain, that the worst effects will follow. They will lose all energy and vigour of body; they will become nervous and mise