These gastronomic grievances are solely due to neglected education. M. Alexis Soyer, with a touch of that quiet irony which imparts to satire its sharpest sting, dedicated his last Cookery-book ‘to the daughters of Albion.’ Having some acquaintance with their deficiencies, he laid his book slyly at their feet to drop such a hint as is conveyed when a dictionary is handed to damsels who blunder in orthography, or when watches are presented to correct unpunctuality. It is to be feared, however, that ‘the daughters of Albion’ were too busy with less useful—though to them scarcely less essential—accomplishments, to profit by his hint. Cookery is a subject they have never been taught to regard as worthy of their attention: rather, indeed, as one to be avoided; for it is never discussed otherwise than apologetically, with a simpering sort of jocularity, or as something which it is ‘low’ to know anything about. When a certain diplomatist was reminded that his mother had been a cook, he did not deny the fact; but assured the company, ‘upon his honour, that she was a very bad one.’ People in the best society do not hesitate to bore others with their ailments, and talk about cures and physic; but conversation respecting prevention—which is better than cure—and wholesomely prepared food is tabooed. Young ladies of the leisure classes are educated to become uncommonly acute critics of all that pertains to personal blandishment. They keep an uncompromisingly tight hand over their milliners and ladies’ maids. They can tell to a thread when a flounce is too narrow or a tuck too deep. They are taught to a shade what colours suit their respective complexions, and to a hair how their _coiffure_ ought to be arranged. Woe unto the seamstress or handmaiden who sins in these matters! But her ‘good plain cook’—when a damsel is promoted to wedlock, and owns one—passes unreproached for the most heinous offences. Badly seasoned and ill assimilated soup; fish, without any fault of the fishmonger, soft and flabby; meat rapidly roasted before fierce fires—burnt outside and raw within; poultry rendered by the same process tempting to the eye, till dissection reveals red and uncooked joints! These crimes, from their frequency and the ignorance of ‘the lady of the house,’ remain unpunished. Whereupon, husbands, tired of their Barmecide feasts—which disappoint the taste more because they have often a promising look to the eye—prefer better fare at their clubs; and escape the Scylla of bad digestion, to be wrecked on the Charybdis of domestic discord. All this is owing to the wife’s culinary ignorance, and to your ‘Good Plain Cooks.’