Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-02-16

EFcucn ana UnlVefBal hrehH thSt-
some Noted Men Mt che MOrning
Table.
Pail Mall Gazette
TO breakfast intelligently may be
regarded as a duty, for a good
breakfast is followed by a good work
and light spirits, and, therefore, he
who has broken his nights fast, in
q rational manner, becomes, in pro-
portion, useful and agreeable to his
neighbors. There are two distinct
i've methods Of feeding in the
morning. They may be defined as
the English and the French. The
English, whether in Britain or
America or Australia, as a rule,
breakfast early, and largely, deem
ing it by no means an act Of suici-
dial tendencies to rise at s, and
dispatch breakfast, washed down
by pint of tea, at 8. The Scotch
have the same idea of breakfast in
principle, but apply 1t more gener-
ously; commence with porridge,
proceed to animal food, and wind
up with marmalade. Long years
ago DR.. Johnson's prejudices
against the Scotch race vanished at
the sight Of a Scotch breakfast. The
great photographer, as our awe
struck ancestors liked to call him,
did ample justice first to the repast
set before him, and subsequently to
his hosts. The Yankee breakfasts
much as his cousin, though he has
an uncomfortable tendency to add
iced water to his earlier not less than
to his later meals, and to indulge in
"milk toast, IAN abominable mess
which tastes like toast a day old
which has by accident been dropped
into hot water. In San Francisco
it is common to begin breakfast
with plate of fruit, which is won
derfully appetizing on q bright
Sunday morning: but after u cup
of tea or coffee has gone the same
way as the fruit, an alarming sense
of distension is produced, and there
is often a friend at hand to suggest
an early glass of curacao as the one
thing needful to set you to rights.
Therefore, a man who has any basi-
ness to transact would do well to
keep peaches resolutely apart from
buttered toast and its accompany
ing beverages.
"An English brfAkfast" are
words which call up so many pleas
ant memories, and such genuine
picture of comfort, that one hesi-
tates to stigmatize it as an utterly
barbarous institution. And yet, in
spite of the kissing urn, itself a
companion, the paper leisurely
SKINNED, the fresh morning toilets
one sometimes sees, and the pl!as-
ant gossip-it is said that u man is
never conceited till luncheon time
in spite of these attractions, our
most national meal is a violation of
all the rules Of hygiene and COM
mon sense.
In the first place the stomach is
not prepared at that early hour for
the rude exercise to which we con-
denim it, while in the second place
the mixture of tea or coffee and
meat is Objectionable for two rea-
sons, Physicians have shown that
the action Of the tannic acid in tea
upon meat is such as TO render it
highly indigestible, while coffee
added to meat is scarcely happier in
its results. 1t may, perhaps, be
urged that the English breakfast is
not always taken Immediately on
rising, a good many persons being
in the habit of getting up at yali-
GUS unreasonable hours = from 3
am. onward -and devoting the
interval to work. Here again med
ical science steps in and strongly
dissuades lis from working on an
empty stomach though one is
bound to admit that some excellent
work has been done - notably
ScOti's novels, if not hispoems-
before breakfast. But no rules can
be laid down for the guidance Of
ordinary mortals from the habits
Of genius. Schiller would lock
! himself UP at NIGHT with a bottle