A sounder knowledge of the risks to health associated with unwholesome food would surely check the growing disposition to purchase provisions over the telephone, instead of by personal inspection and careful selection; for the risks associated with stale vegetables or with "woolly" fish would be recognised, in the light of this fuller knowledge, as too serious to be encountered by any one responsible for the health of a household. Again, cold storage is so justly credited with the numerous and unquestionable benefits which it confers upon the housewife, that she is apt to forget the coincident dangers; only through tardily acquired experience does she become aware that foods which are thawed after freezing possess a singular faculty for rapid deterioration, and undergo subtle and detrimental changes when so preserved over a long period. No excuse for continued ignorance as to the changes responsible for such deterioration is now permissible; neither can it be condoned in connection with the "flora" of the refrigerator, now known to be accountable for the unpleasant and all-pervading flavours of the food stored in such a receptacle, and itself the product of defective cleanliness. The idiosyncrasies of different groceries, as regards temperature and receptacles, have hitherto received no attention, though the art of preserving fruits, fresh as well as dried, is better appreciated than was formerly the case. It would be easy to show, too, did space permit, what ample scope there is for the application of sanitary science in the storeroom, as well as the true hygienic inwardness of frequent coats of limewash in larder and scullery, not to mention the worth of impervious coverings to their wall surfaces and shelves. This suggests the inquiry: How many women to-day are versed in the external tests, simple as some of them are, which can be applied to tins containing foodstuffs, with the object of gauging the quality of their contents; or who among our ordinary housewives understands the reasons for the employment of reliable, _domestic_ methods of preserving the contents of the larder, such as sterilisation by the use of heat, or why fat, sugar, salt, or vinegar are preferable to the seductive yet questionable chemicals, so attractive to the producer and purveyor of provisions?