The Home

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4, 25 January 1906, Page 29

The Home

By ' Maureen '

Wedding Presents. The wedding present pest is every year assuming larger proportions and becoming harder to cope with. It is the cause of innumerable heartburnings, ill-feelings, jealousies, debts, and kindred other evils among fiuends and acquaintances where each is trying to go one better and outdo the other in the quantity and quality of gifts, regardless of consequences. The custom is also regarded as responsible for the production of such articles as deal-mahogany, tin-silver-backed brushes, wooden-marble clock's, paper-silk draperies, and various other counterfeits of the genuine article which present a bold front and catch the passing eye, and winch enable people with small means and big'notions to get a prominent place in the Ipresent list. But when 'in a short tome the gilt wears off the gingerbread and the deal shows through the mahogany, nasty remarks are made, which reach the ears of the donors — through the means of wireless telegraphy— and in many cases life-long friendships are severed DRINKS FOR THE SICK. Drinks, properly prepared, are quite as important to the sick room as food. Especially during the summer season, and when suffering from febrile conditions, will the value and advantage of cooling and refrigerant drinks be appreciated ; while mucilaginous demulcent fluids will be found soothing to irritable states of the alimentary canal and pulmonary and urinary systems. Imperial Drink. Dissolve from two to three drachms of cream of tartar in a quart of boiling water, add the juice of one lemon and a little lemon-peel, and sweeten with sugar. When cold it may be | taken freely as a cooling drink and diuretic. A valuable drink in threatened sunstroke and passive congestion of the brain. Lemonade. Pare thinly the rind of a lemon, and cut the lemon into slices. Put the peel ami sliced lemon into a jug with an ounce of white sugar, and pour over them one pint of boifing water. Cover the jug closely, and keep until cold. Strain or pour off the liquid. Citron may be used instead of lemon, and likewise furnishes a grateful and refreshing refrigerant beverage. Milk Lemonade. Sugar, l£lb, dissolved in a quart of botiling water, together with half a pint of lemon-juice' and 1£ pints of milk. This makes a cooling, agreeable, nourishing beverage. Barley Water with White of Egg. Take a tablespoonful of coarse barley and wash well with coldwater, rejecting the washings ; then boil for an hour or more with 1£ pints of clean water in a covered vessel or saucepan. Add a pinch of salt, enough sugar to render palatable, and strain. To four or six ounces of barley water thus prepared add the white of one egg. The value of this preparation in gastro-intestinal inflammation and irritation is not easily^ overestimated. In the entero-colitis of very young infants, its exclusive administration for thirty-dix and forty-eight hours will often relieve when all other measures have failed.