Palm oil, though at present practically unknown in the kitchen, may easily become an esteemed material for the frying-kettle. At present, the familiar uses of palm oil in candle-making and for railway grease will cause my suggestion to shock the nerves of many delicate people, but these should remember that before palm oil was imported at all, the material from which candles and soap were made, and by which cart wheels and heavy machinery were greased, was tallow—_i.e._ the fat of mutton and beef. The reason why our grandmothers did not use candles for frying when short of dripping or suet was that the mutton fat constituting the candle was impure, so are the yellow candles and yellow grease in the axle-boxes of the railway carriages. This vegetable fat is quite as inoffensive in itself, quite as wholesome, and—sentimentally regarded—less objectionable, than the fat obtained from the carcass of a slaughtered animal. When common sense and true sentiment supplant mere unreasoning prejudice, vegetable oils and vegetable fats will largely supplant those of animal origin in every element of our dietary. We are but just beginning to understand them. Chevreul, who was the first to teach us the chemistry of fats, is still living, and we are only learning how to make butter (not ‘inferior Dorset,’ but ‘choice Normandy’) without the aid of dairy produce. There is, therefore, good reason for anticipating that the inexhaustible supplies of oil obtainable from the vegetable world—especially from tropical vegetation—will ere long be freely available for kitchen uses, and the now popular product of the Chicago hog factories will be altogether banished therefrom, and used only for greasing cart-wheels and other machinery. As a practical conclusion of this part of my subject, I will quote from the ‘Oil Trade Review’ of this month, December 1884, the current wholesale prices of some of the oils possibly available for frying purposes: olive oil, from 43_l._ to 90_l._ per tun of 252 gallons; cod oil, 36_l._ per tun; sardine or train (_i.e._ the oil that drains from pilchards, herrings, sardines, &c., when salted), 27_l._ 10_s._ to 28_l._ per tun; cocoanut, from 35_l._ to 38_l._ per ton of 20 cwt. (This, in the case of oil, is nearly the same as the measured tun.) Palm, from 38_l._ to 40_l._ 10_s._ per ton; palm-nut or copra, 31_l._ 10_s._ per ton; refined cotton-seed, 30_l._ 10_s._ to 31_l._ per ton; lard, 53_l._ to 55_l._ per ton. The above are the extreme ranges of each class. I have not copied the technical names and prices of the intermediate varieties. One penny per lb. is = 9_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ per ton, or, in round numbers, 1_l._ per ton may be reckoned as 1/9th of a penny per lb. Thus the present price of best refined cotton-seed oil is 3½_d._ per lb.; of cocoanut oil, 3¾_d._; palm oil, from 3½_d._ to 4½_d._, while lard costs 6_d._ per lb. wholesale.