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DINER DU 7 FÉVRIER, 1867.

Printanier à la royale.
Purée à la Jussienne.
Feuillantines grillées.
Crêtes de coq à la Villeroy.
Bars, sauces cardinale et aux huîtres.
Dindes à l'impériale.

Escaloppes de filets de chevreuil aux olives.
Suprême de poulets à l'écarlate.
Homards en bellevue, sauce Mayonnaise.
Punch à la Romaine.

Faisans rôtis, sauce Périgueux.
Pâtés de foies gras de Strasbourg.
Cardons à la Moëlle.

Haricots verts sautés au beurre.
Pains d'ananas aux pistaches.
Coupes garnies de soufflés glacés.
Glaces.

From Spain, I have the authority of our Minister, expressed in the most unqualified terms, that an hour and a half is ample time for any dinner. To some of the Ministerial menus I have added one purely Spanish, as a specimen of the different customs in eating of different countries.

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Jerez, Valdepeñas tinto y blanco, Manzanilla, Arganda, Rioja, Málaga, Malvasia, Champagne.

I am told that at Buckingham Palace her Majesty's dinners are entirely concluded within the hour; but it must be remembered that the Queen's habits in this particular appear to have been formed without much reference to social requirements. Her Majesty partakes of a good luncheon and tea, and makes her dinner a short meal.

To return, however, to my subject of considering dinners as a means of promoting social intercourse in its most

agreeable form. No one can deny the importance which is attached to this subject in London society, when it is remembered the infinite trouble taken by many in the arrangement of the company to be asked as well as in the decoration of the table, and other matters connected with the entertainment. Much pains are bestowed, and much money spent, in endeavouring to give agreeable dinners, and both are often thrown away by an attempt to do too much. Nothing is more true than the old saw of "enough is as good as a feast." More food than anyone can enjoy, more wit than anyone can listen to, are alike to be avoided. People are often so much exhausted by the heated atmosphere of a dining-room, and by long sitting during and after a protracted dinner, that conversation languishes when the adjournment to the drawing-room takes place, and the only anxiety is to get away either to some fresh scene of overcrowded amusement, or to bed, worn out instead of refreshed by the so-called evening's entertainment. It is to be hoped that hereafter the custom may be adopted, which obtains everywhere but amongst the AngloSaxon race, of ladies and gentlemen leaving the table together; so that conversation may go on without a break, and the grouping of gentlemen in one part of the room and ladies in another be avoided. It also enables those who wish to go elsewhere, to leave at an earlier hour-which is of more consequence, however, with foreign habits than with our own. Abroad people visit in the evening when they wish to find their friends at home, and thus avoid a great amount of card leaving and loss of time. I heard the present American Minister, General Schenck, observe that London visiting might be arranged more effectually and economically (as to time) by a system of visiting-clearing-houses, one for each district; boxes, like post-office letterboxes, bearing the names of all one's acquaintance being arranged round a room, with a key belonging to the respective families, into which cards or invitations could be dropped, the boxes

to be emptied each day by some one sent from each family. Our Transatlantic brethren are certainly far ahead of us in practical suggestions, and might perhaps give us valuable hints upon the subject of the present article, as well as upon the art of visiting, or rather card leaving. In this country it is difficult to prevent politics from forming too large a portion of conversation; the addition of music or cards in the evening tends to prevent this, and to give a fair chance of amusement for all tastes.

A few words before I conclude, about the arrangements of the dinner-table. Although a dining-room should be well lighted throughout, the brightest spot, the high light of the picture, should be the table itself. Wax candles are the most perfectly unobjectionable mode of lighting, the most pleasing to the eyes, and without the distress to the organs of smell which may arise from lamps. Small shades upon the candles throw the light upon the cloth and table, and prevent any glare upon the eyes. Gas light is to many quite intolerable, at least as managed in England, for it frequently produces a feeling of weight on the head, and general discomfort, even if discomfort to the olfactory organs can be avoided. The present fashion of flower decoration is extremely pretty, and can be carried out without any great expense if bright colours and general effect are more considered than mere cost. All table ornaments should be kept low, so as not to intercept the view of any one by all the other guests. For the number of dishes for a party of twelve or sixteen, I recommend the Russian menu No. 3.

Having now gone through what seem to me the defects of the present system of London dinners, and pointed out some of the remedies, thinking that most people admit that some reform is desirable, I must leave the matter in the hands of those able and willing to head the great reform movement. A clever author who has written upon the art of "putting things," says that if you want to commend a subject to a Tory leader, you talk of it as a sovereign remedy; if

to a Whig, you call it a radical improvement, so that in my wishing to please all parties I have been perhaps injudicious in calling a diminution of the hours and the quantity of food at dinners, a reform movement. A moderate constitutional change would best express what I want.

The question now is, who is to bell the cat, who is bold enough to reform the present system by shortening the hours and decreasing the quantity of food at our London dinners? Will the movement originate on the Liberal side? I remember hearing a remark made by a gentleman in the House of Commons, whose eyes were directed from the front bench on the Conservative to the Liberal side, "Is it possible that a ministry formed by those men can stand? I do not believe they have a cook amongst them who can dress a good dinner." If this be so, we must look elsewhere. there no lady of high rank, no Baring or no Rothschild, who with cooks about whose merits there can be no difference of opinion, will set an example of constitutional reform in this matter by

Is

1st. Limiting the number of guests to twelve or fourteen;

2nd. Keeping the dining-room cool and well-ventilated;

3rdly. Sitting down to dinner at 8.15 without waiting for guests who may be absent;

4th. Returning to the drawing-room by 9.30 to 9.45;

5th. Reducing the present number of dishes?

If this were done, London dinners might be, what they ought to be, from the materials to be collected in London society-the most agreeable reunions in the world; and much useless expense would be avoided, so that these entertainments might be within reach of even very moderate fortunes, and our nation be rescued from the reproach so often cast upon us by foreigners, of preferring quantity to quality, and a large party to a sociable and lively dinner. A French gentleman once said to me, "En Angleterre on se nourrit bien, mais on ne dîne pas."

THOMSON HANKEY.

A WEEK IN THE WEST.

PART V.

FROM A VAGABOND'S NOTE-BOOK.

"You can't think what an odd kind of half-sentimental feeling the name Sioux city stirs up in me," said the optimist, as we rolled down a gentle incline towards the biggest town we had seen since leaving Dubuque.

'Thinking of Natty Bumppo, and Uncas, I reckon?" inquired the potentate.

"Yes. But let's see-it wasn't Uncas? No, Mahtoree was the name of the Sioux chief. Mahtoree is a wise chief,' don't you remember? Do you think we shall see any Sioux about?"

"Well-likely you may see one or two half-tamed, drunken savages on the levee. What's left of the tribe is well away to the West. But there are not more now than a few hundreds, I believe."

"It's a shocking thing the way you are getting rid of these Indians," said the optimist. "Don't you really think that anything better can be done with them than poisoning them with bad whiskey, and shooting them down like wolves? When I was in Philadelphia I met several gentlemen who had been amongst them themselves, and were in correspondence with the Quakers, who are in the West trying to save the little remnants of the tribes. They all said, that the Indian is fit for anything with decent treatment, and has nearly as much to teach the white as the white has to teach him. Do you think the Quakers likely to succeed?"

"I don't know but what they might if they only had time," said the potentate. "They have a way of getting hold on the red-skins, these Quakers, ever since Penn's time. All the churches and all the sects have tried their hand at it, more or less; but it never amounted to much. They never could get the

hang of it, though they sent good men enough, and spent piles of money."

"But how do you account for it? Why should the rest fail and the Quakers succeed?"

"I don't know much about it," said the potentate, "but, from what I can learn, the rest began by talking about the devil and their sins. Now the Quaker has been bred to begin at the other end. So he comes, and sits down by the red-skin, and asks him what the Great Spirit has been saying to him, and that fetches him at once. But I'm afraid it's too late. They talk now about getting them all off into a separate State, and letting them send senators and members to Congress. But you can't locate them any more than you can the buffaloes. They're bound to go out."

"I hope not," said the optimist. "I'm told their numbers don't fall off over the border. There ought to be room enough in the great West even for buffaloes, let alone the original proprietors. And now that you have passed the constitutional amendment, red, and black, and yellow ought to have a chance."

"And your cattle would be none the worse for grazing by a herd of tame buffaloes," remarked the struggler.

I think the potentate was glad to get away from the Indian question.

"Now you seem to kind o' take for granted," he said, "that we don't care for breed in our cattle. You never made a greater mistake. Why, there are Squire Burnett, and half-a-dozen other New England men, with as fine herds as you can find in any Duke's park. And they give the highest prices for the best English stock too, and take the pick of it out of your farmers' mouths."

"Last time I crossed," said the President, "I came back in the same boat

with a short-horned bull, for which one of our breeders had given 1,000 guineas."

"Why, yes, as long back as the colonial times we used to get your bulls over. There was Brigadier Ruggles's English bull. Ever hear of the Brigadier?" "Never."

"Well, he got made Brigadier in the French war, somehow. A sturdy old Tory he was, and went over to Nova Scotia after our war broke out. He wouldn't fight against the colonies, but King George and the old country had the strongest pull on him, and he couldn't live squarely under a new flag. However, before '76, Brigadier Ruggles kept a good house in Berkshire, Massachusetts, furnished pretty well all through from England. Half the chairs and tables had a history; but the piece he was proudest of was a tall old mirror, bevelled at the edges of the glass, and set in a carved ebony frame, which some of his wife's folk-Madam Ruggles they called her -had sent over as a present from old Berkshire. Madam Ruggles's mirror was the finest thing inside any house in Massachusetts, and stood in the hall right opposite the front door, so that everyone who came to the house might see it at once. And Brigadier Ruggles's English bull was a long way the first beast in New England, at least so the Brigadier said, and the up-country farmers used to come miles out of their way only to get a look at him. At last one of them, after he had seen the Brigadier's bull all round, guessed he knew a Vermonter who had got a home-bred bull, alongside of which the Brigadier's bull was of no account. This made the Brigadier rile up; but as they could not settle it by talk, and the Vermonter was coming down to a fair at Boston in the fall, it was agreed he should bring his bull along, and stop a night with the Brigadier. Well, accordingly, Saturday night before Boston fair, sure enough the Vermonter came along with his bull. It was too dark to judge much about the beasts that night, so the Vermonter's bull was put in the next pen to the Brigadier's bull, and they went in to

supper. All night Brigadier Ruggles tossed about, thinking of the Ver monter's bull; and next morning he was that bad with a fit of colic, that, though he was an elder, Madam Ruggles thought it best to let him stop away from meeting. Accordingly, she and the Vermonter went off in the waggon with the farm-servants, and left the Brigadier by the fire, with a book of Cotton Mather's sermons, and a chalk draught at his elbow. Somehow, they hadn't been gone more than a quarter of an hour, when the Brigadier began to feel better. After reading a spell, he seemed to think a little fresh air might set him all right, so he gets on his thick boots, just to stroll out in the garden. Sure enough the air was just what he wanted, and presently it came into his head just to drop over to the pens, and see if it was all right with the bulls. So he opened the garden-gate, and stepped across, and looked over into the pens. There was his bull, all in a lather, marching up and down one side of the fence, and the Vermonter's bull on the other, both of them moaning to themselves in a low tone, as if they were swearing, and nothing but a gate on the latch to hinder them getting at one another. The Brigadier took up a prong, and leant over, and tried to coax his bull, who was tame enough to him, to come and be scratched between his horns. But the bull took no notice, and kept marching up and down. So the Brigadier watched them both, and fell to comparing them, and thinking, 'Well, that Vermonter's bull ain't of any account after all alongside of my bull-he ain't so straight in the back, nor so square in the barrel, nor so thick in the neck-he don't weigh, now, not, I should say, within a hundredweight of my bull.'

"Somehow, as he was going on thinking of the bulls, the Brigadier kept on tip-tapping at the hasp of the gate, and not minding what he was at with his prong, till all of a sudden he just gave a tip too much at the latch, and the gate between the pens swung slowly open, just as the Vermonter's bull came opposite it. Next minute the bulls were

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