Of course we cannot use brown roux for clear soups. Now these clear soups are undoubtedly, as a rule, very poor. I would suggest the following means of improving them. Add first of all a brimming teaspoonful of extract of meat, then to every pint of clear soup take a teaspoonful of cornflour. Mix the cornflour with a little cold water in a cup, say a dessertspoonful of cold water, or a little more, and while the soup is boiling in the saucepan, add the cornflour to it. You do not wish to make the soup thick, as could be done by adding a large quantity of cornflour, but by adding a small quantity you give it what may be called a consistency. The soup, instead of being as thin as water, is more like milk, and although the soup is not in reality any richer, it conveys the idea of being exceedingly good. Another method of improving clear tinned soups in flavour is by the addition of celery. If you have a head of celery in the house, take a small stick, and with a knife cut it into very thin slices indeed. Boil this in the soup, and you will find that it will improve the flavour very considerably, that is, if the soup contains other kinds of vegetables. Another method is to boil a couple of beads of garlic in the clear soup, but then many persons object to the flavour of garlic. Still, if garlic is used with care it is not nearly so objectionable as many people think. There is a strong prejudice against the use of garlic in this country, but I believe this prejudice is brought about by the fact that English cooks as a rule do not understand how to use it. Garlic should be used to impart a slight flavour, and should rarely if ever be chopped up to be eaten. I will now go on to another class of preserved provisions, viz., fish. Sardines and pilchards are preserved in oil, and are very nice eaten just as they are, only bear in mind that cut lemon and cayenne pepper is a very great improvement to them in their natural state. A very simple method of having a nice dish in a hurry for breakfast or for dinner can be made as follows:—Open a tin of sardines or a tin of pilchards, pour the oil of the tin into a frying-pan, and add to it a brimming teaspoonful or more of curry powder, moistened in a little water. Add a teaspoonful of cornflour, also moistened in a little water. Stir the whole for a time till you get a thick, oily gravy. Now add the fish, either sardines or pilchards, and gradually make them hot in this quickly-made curry sauce, and with a spoon keep pouring the sauce over the fish. You must be careful not to break the fish. As soon as the fish are thoroughly hot through, take them out of the frying pan with a slice similar to that you use for taking out fried eggs, place them on a hot dish, and scrape all the oily curry gravy over the top.