Litchfield enquirer., 1874-09-17

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 certainly fatal. have not the slightest claim to be a proehet;. have knows too many prophets to be anxious tl vaticinate On my own accoCnt. I a:n not so sslpersti- tions. hope, as to have deprecated De Groofs attempt on the ground that 1t vas
 tempting Proyldence"' to try to fly. One
 might well say that the steam engine and the electric telegraph, that printing and photography, were SD many tempta- tlOns of Providence. De Groof's leading errors were that he tempted Nature by
 wrsstilng with inadequate. means against
 ascertained forces; that his process of
 mechanical reasoning was not inductive
 from successful experiments, hut deduc- tive from numerous failures: and that there was not really one atom of novelty Ill his so-called invention. Abating the
 wax, his wings were Icarian, anal nothing more. Why vas led to conclude that
 he would perish was simply for these rea- sons: first, that during many years had attentively studied the economy of all constructions of the parachute order. and had arrived at a sufficiently mathematical persuasion that the chances of your com ing down safely in one of these machines were sllghter than those of the precise number coming mp on which you have put stake at roulette q do not speak of rouge ct noir-therein the chances are frequently and strongly ill favor of the playerl; and secondly, because had once come down Ill parachute myself, and that the fact of my having accomplished the feat Gas involuntary as that of the cat Tn Hogarth's picture of which I spoke anon) without having been dashed to pleces, haf rather strengthened than en- feebled my convictions as to the untrust- Worth1ness of parachutes generally. The poor Belgian only fell eighty or hun dred feet or so into the street at Chelsea: It was my lot to fall five thousand two hundred and eighty feet-that is to say. mile. Half of the distance was accom-, pllshed Ill balloon. the other half ir q parachute, yet I am alive to tell the tale; and we had but .One machine be- tween us in which to s'do" the entire dis l tance.
 The thing happened in this wise. just three-and-twenty years ago At that De- riod-it was the year of the Great Exhi- bition-the site of the Albert Hall at Ken 1 slngton Gore was occupied by a very cu- rious establishment called the s'Sympo- slum. huge restaurant devoted to the practical illustration of the Cookery of All Nations, and conducted by the late l Alexls Soyer, who had gained considera- Die celebrity as chef to the Reform Club. as the inventor of variety of sauces and culinary appliances Che may be consider ed as the father of gas-stoves and s.kitch- eners, and did an immense deal more good than he was ever thanked for in teaching the poor to make that soup which they still refuse to eat. because it IS associated in their prejud1ced minds with the workhouse and tine iaiD; and a very ingenious, versatile, faciie. and up- right man, who was not in reality a uuack (any more than was Doctor Kitchener. although he dressed and talked and wrote ID quack-hke manner. This, so far as style and manner are concerned, was like wise the failing of the amiable and cru dlte Kitchener. | have had cooks in nv time who (wonderful to relate) were with out prejudice, and who were quite willing to be taught; but never could find one who could learn anything out of the Cooks Oracle" They broadly stigma tized 1t as '.rubhidge." or as .sa lot of talk about nothing at all" The same ob- Jectlons, Tn other terms have been urged against Soyer's ''Gastronomic Regenera- tor and his other works on cookery and domestic economy. Yet both the Doctor and Alexis were thoroughly practical cooks, and their works contain q vast number of really excellent recipes. the ntiiity of which IS unhappily, in multi tude Of cases. absolutely marred by the veribage and the fim-fam of jocosity with which they are overlaid. You may be as funny as you like over plum-pud- I,1I
 have got 1t we'll ont of the pot it should be treated in very serious manner. And Tn thls connecticut may remark that Mrs. Glasse tor rather the Scottish physician who wrote the cookbook attributed to that good lady) never perpetrated the bald witticism about s.frst catch your hare. Mrs. Grasses instructions as to roasting puss commence thus: s.First take your hare when it is c0sed. " that is drawn and jointed, and ready for truss- ing.
 Poor dear old Alexis was a very good friend of mine, with whom I had had many pleasant business transactions of a litera- " and artistic nature; and one brilliant afternoon ln the summer of 1851 vent up to Gore House to see how he was %. ing on, symposiacally. He was not pro- gresslng very prosperously. Gore House llt had once been the residence of William Nllberforce, and afterwards that of the Countess of Blessington and of Count d Orsay) was just hundred yards on the wrong side of the Exhibition building. the visitors to which, when they were sated with the marvels of the Indian court. and Osler's crystal fountain, and the wonder tul creatures from Wurtemberg, were gen. erally more anxious to proceed in an easterly than Tn westerly direction; that IS to say, towards London proper than to- wards Kensington, Hammersmith, and Turnhan Green. Had the Symposium been situated at Knights-bridge or at Hyde Park Corner, it would probably have become great financial success: as 1t was, 1t was only visited for the sake of its quaint decorations by curiosity-hun- ters who did not come again; and it was out of the way of the general public. The poor chef and his partners, they are all dead, so that am making no indiscreet revelations, who had invested many thou sands of pounds In an unremHnerative en- terprise, were fain to do their best to ren- der the place more attractive by convert ing 1t into kind of Cremorne. There were 1llnmlnations, fireworks .fstes de nasit at shilling a head admittance, and so forth, and these junketings aroused the ire of those very punctllious censors of metropolitan morals, the Middlesex magistrates, so as to imperil the tavern license of the Symposium altogether.
 On the afternoon of my arrival, in the company of a brother long since dead. at the Symposium, balloon ascent was on the point of being made from a large mead ow atat the rear of Gore House, to which Soyer had given the whimsical name of s.Le Pre- d. Orsay." The machine, projected by some inventor whose name I cannot recall,- think he was a surgeon,-pre. sented some novel features in shape, but none Tn its machinery. It was cylindrical rather than spheroidal in form; that is to say. 1t resembled huge horizontally sail ing sausage, instead of vertically direct ed pear with the stalk undermost Still. thls sausage was ineased in the ordinary network and dependent shrouds. encir-. cled by the ordinary hoop, and sustain ed the ordinary cara big circular basket capable of containing four persons com fortably. I am not, at this length of time oe,@ @r,x x1' r.Z