St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-02-21
A GOOD WORK.

The present week many OF the ladies
In one of the most fashionable residence
districts in the city will gather at a
stately church edifice and commune
with each other, seeking inspiration
and counsel from the versatile and cult
ured upon the practical features of
culinary art and science. There have
been and possibly still are many spirit
ual-minded people who look upon it as
gross and degrading to connect the
economy of the stomach with that of
the traditionally immaterial scope of
the church eGifice. They would have
these good women gather in the sacred
portals to prepare tracts to send
to the japanese, or to fit out
missionaries to supplement the cargoes
of Christian rum inflicted upon the sus-
ceptible and untutored deniZeIs of At
rlca. There is no disparagement of such
altruistic efforts, but in practical Chris
tianity there is wide, in fact almost ex-
haustless field in the cooking art. One
might presume that, in the numberless
thousands of years that people have
been eating cooked articles of food, the
processes would have grown into such
defnitenesS and perfection that there
could hardly be further advance. Still,
it is as far from eXhauStlng the posi-
bilitieS of improvement as the medical
schools are from infallibility and COM
plete knowledge in all that pertains
to physical ills. 1t is a wholesome
tendency in the later times that leads
the mistress to rival the DINAHs and
RpJnnEnc II ia lnra hot 70.
ternal cheer and salubrty, 1t has been
Rittily said that, had CLEoPATRA'S nose
$een an inch shorter, the history of the
world would have been changed. The
'dy psia and indigestion of bad cook
ing have made sheol present realiza-
ton in the history of countless millions.
Possibly NAPOLEON would not have
lost the battle of Waterloo had he not
had fit of indigestion that hampered
his mental processes and prevented his
exercising his wonted alertness and skill
in his combinations and maneuvers.
The Chicago socialists who thought
to overthrow society with bombs mixed
their raw pork with beer that was badly
matted. Ii they had not fed upon a
bulldog diet they would not have been
anarchists. Who ever heard of a person
that lived upon vegetables and we'll
cooked yiands becoming turbulent and
dangerous. He will fight forp patriotism,
home and principle, but the bad blood
does not get into the head and incite to
social and political phrensy. A large
part of the people who commit sui
eide or go to the madhouse, have
some of the disposing causes in
the miseries of bad cooking. There
has been great progress made in
this art of late years. In fact, it
is probable that the extension of the av
erage life is more the effect of better
culinary methods than of any other sim
gle cause. But duration is less impor-
tant than conditions and quality. Long
life is only desirable when it is sweet,
kindly and useful. The serenity of do
mestic life is largely involved. There
are no statistics at hand, but, when the
causes are ferreted out, it will be found
that men are often led to vicious habits
by the uncomfortable condition of the
stomach induced by indigestion as the
result of bad cookery. Stimulants are
taken as temporary relief, and in
temperate habits contracted. 1t is
not romantic assumption that
many of the divorces are more
or less due to this cause. But when
dyspepsia and internal acidity reach the
pulpit the effects are the most lugubri-
Gus and distressing. Without philoso-
phlzing, it may be not entirely a fanci-
full conceit that the turning down of an
cient dogmas in the latter eras affords
something of an index of progress in
this most important art. Those who
eat In public places are presumed
to have the fruits of high skill and
training before them, and yet it is rare
that one feels pursuaded that the best
Is not yet to be learned by the culinary
agents. All the movements toward
greater attainment are worthy of the
encouragement of the women, and will
have the earnest Endorsement of the
men.