From Kitchen to Garret. By J. E. Panton. (Ward and
Downey.) —These "hints to young householders" have been collected from articles contributed to the Lady's Pictorial, and from answers to correspondents which have appeared in the same periodical. The readers for whom it is intended will find it very useful, though they must not trust it implicitly. Mrs. Panton, for instance, is very hard on smoking. Young wives will very probably make a serious mistake if they attempt to wage against this habit the war which she suggests, if she does not actually recommend. She is emphatic in praise of milk as against beer, and we are inclined to agree with her; but it is very doubtful whether there will be any saving effected by following her advice. Milk costs is. 4d. per gallon, as against Is. for beer. And it is easy to drink more of it. A woman, and it is for women both in the parlour and the kitchen that Mrs. Panton recommends it, might easily drink a pint of milk at a meal, while she would think, and possibly feel, a pint of beer to be an excess. Here it is on the question of finance only that we differ from the author, but when she recom- mends her readers to bring up their babies on cows' milk, we differ on principle. Her plan is against Nature, and, though she may havo found it answer in her own case, it is against common experience. There are grave reasons which make it bad for the mother, while, as for the child, it is well known that the recupera- tive power in a nursed baby is much greater than in one brought up by hand. With these reservations, we can recommend "From Kitchen to Garret."
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