In the house of a _Kayasta_ or _Sudra_, whose female members, it must be observed, are generally more indolently inclined, and whose style of living is consequently more luxurious, the food offered to the guests consists chiefly of different kinds of sweetmeats, fruits, _loochees_, vegetable curries, &c. Four or five days before the Poojah begins, professional Brahmin sweetmeat-makers are employed to make the necessary arrangements at home, the principal ingredients required being flour, _soojee_, _chattoo_, (gram fried and powdered) _safeyda_ (pounded rice) sugar, spices, almonds, raisins, &c. Not a soul is permitted, not even the master of the house, to touch and much less taste these articles[68] before they are religiously offered to the goddess in the first instance and afterwards to the Brahmins. In these "feast days" of the Poojah in and about Calcutta, where nearly five hundred _pratimas_ or images are set up, every respectable Hindoo, as has been observed before, is previously provided at home with an adequate supply of all the necessaries and luxuries of life that would last about a month or so, it being considered unpropitious then to be wanting in any store, save fruit and fish. This accounts for a general disinclination on the part of the well-to-do Baboos to partake of any ordinary entertainment when visiting the goddess at a friend's house, but to the Brahmins and the poverty-stricken classes this is a glorious opportunity for "gorging." The despicable practice to which I have alluded elsewhere of carrying a portion of the _jalpan_ (food) home is largely resorted to on this occasion. It is certainly a relic of barbarism, which the growing good sense of the people ought to eschew.