A word about the mushroom. Although said to be of enormous value in sauces and ragouts, I shall always maintain that the mushroom is best when eaten all by his quaint self. His flavour is so delicate that 'tis pitiful to mix him with fish, flesh, or fowl--more especially the first-named. I have seen mushrooms and bacon cooked together, and I have seen beef-steak (cut into small pieces) and bacon cooked together, and it was with some difficulty that my Irish host got me out of the kitchen. If ever I am hanged, it will be for killing a cook. Above all never eat mushrooms which you have not seen in their uncooked state. The mushroom, like the truffle, loses more flavour the longer he is kept; and to "postpone" either is fatal. "The plainer the meal the longer the life." Thus an eminent physician--already mentioned in these pages. "We begin with soup, and perhaps a glass of cold punch, to be followed by a piece of turbot, or a slice of salmon with lobster sauce; and while the venison or South-down is getting ready, we toy with a piece of sweetbread, and mellow it with a bumper of Madeira. No sooner is the mutton or venison disposed of, with its never-failing accompaniments of jelly and vegetables, than we set the whole of it in a ferment with champagne, and drown it with hock and sauterne. These are quickly followed by the wing and breast of a partridge, or a bit of pheasant or wild duck; and when the stomach is all on fire with excitement, we cool it for an instant with a piece of iced pudding, and then immediately lash it into a fury with undiluted alcohol in the form of cognac or a strong liqueur; after which there comes a spoonful or so of jelly as an emollient, a morsel of ripe Stilton as a digestant, a piquant salad to whet the appetite for wine, and a glass of old port to persuade the stomach, if it can, into quietness. All these are more leisurely succeeded by dessert, with its baked meats, its fruits, and its strong drinks, to be afterwards muddled with coffee, and complicated into a rare mixture with tea, floating with the richest cream." Hoity, toity! And not a word about a French _plât_, or even a curry, either! But we must remember that this diatribe comes from a gentleman who has laid down the theory that cold water is not only the cheapest of beverages, but the best. Exception, too, may be taken to the statement that a "piquant salad" whets the appetite for wine. I had always imagined that a salad--and, indeed, anything with vinegar in its composition--rather spoilt the human palate for wine than otherwise. And what sort of "baked meats" are usually served with desert? _How the Poor Live._ An esteemed friend who has seen better days, sends word how to dine a man, his wife, and three children for 7½d. He heads his letter _The Kent Road Cookery_.