The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-05-17 00:00:00

THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH EX-
HIBITION.

Describing the above exhibition the Times, in an
article, says In the long arcade, or south gallery, as
it is offleially named, which stretches almost across
the whole width of the Horticultural Society's Gardens
from the vestibule of the main entrance in Exhibition-
road, are placed the bulk of the food exhibits—both
vegetable and animal, and including under the term
" food " (pace the total abstainers from alcoholic
drinks) stimulants of an intoxicating said non-intoxi-
cating kind. The visitor will find in this, the most
nearly Completed, portion of the exhibition, more to
interest him than might be expected, for although
many of the show-cases are filled with piles or rows
of tins, packages, or bottles, with only the
labels to differentiate one display from an-
other, the greater number of the exhibitors have
shown some artistir taste and considerable ingenuity
in illustrating the matters to which they wish to
attract notice. One firm, for instance, present a well-
arranged series of specimens and models of cereals
and root crops, &c.; the naturalists have brought to-
gether, either in a clean littered farm-yard under
glass or set out in cases with backgrounds suggestive
of the native surroundings of the creatures in their
wild state, birds and beasts that are brought to our
markets for food. Here, therefore, the curious may
learn to know by sight the many four-footed or
feathered importations from Russia, Sweden, and
Norway, Holland, and the 'United States of America,
which now-a-days find their way to our tables.
Further on, those whom it may please to study the-
subject can see grouped in geographical divisions no
fewer than forty-six varieties, pending the arrival of
a sample from Martinique, of the coffee-bean, differing
in magnitude from the pea-berry Mocha to the long
and large parchment-coated Yunga berries from Bolivia
which have been added to this collection as a curiosity
by Major Sewell Galia. In this representative
gathering of the world's coffee growths it is note-
worthy that certain plantations in Mysore produce a
bean which in flavour may rank with the more
famous Mocha. Tea from China, Japan, Java, India,
and Ceylon, the mildly stimulating coca leaves, and
mate, or Paraguayan tea, occupy another side of the
same stand. Passing a stall furnished with samples
of the wines of Hungary and Dalmatia, and presided
over by a pretty Dalmatian maid, wearing the national
costume, the visitor may notice a door leading to the
vegetarian dining-room, in which, as a placard out-
sides tells, a sixpenny meal of vegetable soups and
plats can be had. A little way beyond, on the left,
are the model dairies. In one of these are dairy-
maids busied in making fresh butter, which is sold at
is. 9d. per pound. A machine running in the middle of
the first dairy shows an approved method of preparing
skim-milk for customers who are content with a cheap-
ened cream] ess beverage. The new milk, fresh from the
cows, is poured into a strainer, and as it runs through
is carried by a pipe into a small steel cylinder rotating
with a velocity of 6000 revolutions per minute. In
this machine—a separator, from Stockholm, patented
by G. De Laval—the lighter cream is by centrifugal
force separated from the milk, and in a thick yellow
stream trickles down into vessels set to receive it,
while the milk, now with less than one-quarter of one
per cent. of cream left in it, runs off, at the rate of
sixty gallons per hour, into the large pails in which it
1 is sent to the London dealer. Supposing the customer
1 to get the effluent liquor as skim-milk, and at a pro-
portionate reduction of price, the obvious advantage
to him, especially in summer, is that 'he gets it fresh.
The history of dress receives a full and minute ex-
position under the direction of the Hon, Lewis Wing-
field, who, in addition to superintending the 'prepara-
tion of a collection of costumes here displayed on lay
figures, has lent a series of drawings derived from
various sources, which will assist the student to trace
the evolution of certain garments chronologically
through many stages of development. About 70
figures are arranged in groups, generally of fours,
each representing a man and woman of high degree
and a couple belonging to the humbler classes. These
are arranged so as to show the changes of a marked
character which appeared in the dress of the people
of this country from the time of William I. to the
telgri of(Te'Orae it Waxen heads have been specially
prepared for the figures from designs by
field. Besides the opportunity thus given for a com-
parative study of civilian dress in its bearings on
hygiene at different periods of the nation's growth, A
collection of examples of the changes which have
taken place in military and naval uniforms has been
arranged in historical sequence. Another branch of
the subject closely connected with the purposes of the
exhibition is illustrated by a collection of chemicals
used to make muslin and other light fabrics non-in-
flammable, and by one of natural and artificial dyes,
both safe and poisonous.
From the National Training School for Cookery
Mrs. Edith Clarke will superintend the provision of
cheap dinners and demonstrations of cookery in the
rooms and lecture theatre fitted up for the Fisheries
Exhibition by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. On three
days in each week a fish dinner, consisting of a portion
of fish with potatoes and bread, and on alternate days
a plate of meat with the same adjuncts, will be served
for 6d. The Horticultural Society's Council Chamber
(in which last year pictures were hung, adjoining the
cookery demonstration theatre, will be placed
at the disposal of the school to be used daily
as a is. dinner room. The menu will comprise three
courses—soup or fish, meat,r&c., and a sweet dish.
Tea and coffee will here be sold at id. a cup, and with
regard to the latter stimulant, persons of depraved
taste are warned that chicory will not form part of
the contents of the coffee-pot. Twice a day lessons
on cookery, with demonstrations of the art, will be
given in tlie lecture theatre, free to the public, and
for the further education of the people in the principles
and practice of the subject. Mrs. Clarke has pre-
pared a threepenny book, entitled "Recipes for Cheap
Dinners as served in the Dining Rooms in Connection
with the National Training School of Cookery at the
International Health Exhibition."