Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1902-09-18

auu Inc beaten whites of one or two
eggs to each pint of cream. This gives
IL body and richness. Continue beat
ing, adding at the last sugar and
havoring to suit the taste.
The ideal dumping, light, feathery,
delicate, is seldom met with, more,s
the pity. Tho next time you want a
veal or chicken potpie try making your
dumplings in this way: Mix thoroughly
by sitting one pint of flour, saltspoon
OF salt and a heaping teaspoon OF bak-
ing powder. Rub into the -four a tea
spoonful OF cold butter, using the tips
Of the fingers Stir into the prepared
flour Just enough milk (skimmed milk
will answerl TO make soft dough
not stif enough to roll out. Take the
meat up on platter and with table
spoon drop pieces of the soft dough
about as large as small biscuit into
the boiling broth. Cover closely and
cook eight minutes without uncover
ing or allowing the kettle to stop boil
ing. Serve at once.
With the growing fancy for collecting
Indian baskets and rugs, a word of
| caution: ANY one who has ever been
among the Indians realizes the unsani-
| tary conditions prevailing in their
| wick-i-ups or hogans Filth and
disease of all sorts are much more
apt to be the rule than the exception.
Among the aborigines of the South
west particularly water is almost an un-
known quantity. They have to depend
| upon the irrigation bitches through
their reservations and 1.-TWO hours
run" of water every eight or 10 days
with no vessels to conserve the precious
fluid for use in the meantime, gives
small leeway for water to be used for
cleansing purposes. The beautiful
Pinea and Apache baskets will all bear
a good scrubbing with some disin-
fectant in the water. The Navajo
rugs, IL new, may be disinfected with
sulphur or formaldehyde il they
show signs OF any wear-wash thor
oughly. The native wool blankets
colored with vegetable dyes are i'm
proved, not injured, by washing. Those
made of Germantown, where mineral
dyes are employed are not only an
offence against good taste, but much
more liable to fade or shrink
| In this connection, word to on.
courage the preservation of these
beautiful native crafts in their original
integrity. The Navajo rugs honestly
made are not only practically indie
structible, but rarely beautiful in de-
sign and coloring. Yet, since the ad-
vent of the trader with his spirit OF
eommercialisn, the art has deteriorated
and is in danger of being lost. These
rugs were formerly made of the pure
native wool, like the best Persian and
Turkish. The coloring was vegetable,
laboriously gathered from roots, bark
and herbs on mountain and desert.
There was no fade to it. Every stitch
was knotted by hand and beaten down
so closely that the fabric would mold
water. The designs were taken from
sky and cloud, the forked lightning,
the markings on snake and lizard, or
the Oldest of NEUROLOGICAL symbols, in.
Guiding even the Swastica, supposed,
until recently, to belong to India alone.
But with the advance of civilization
has come the theory anything goes,
SO long as 1t sells. . In place Of the
thick, fine fleece, there is Germantown
wool, all ready prepared, that can be
purchased OF the trader; in lieu Of
the rich vegetable dyes, red and blue,
there are crude greens, yellows, puppies
and "greenery yaliery''-the output
OF mineral dye house. Art, too, has
lost its Significance the tomato can,
the railroad train and Pearls soar
labels have taken the place of the old.
time beautiful designs. Nor is the
work what it used to be. A modern
Navajo, made to sell, is light in
weight, sleazy, imperfect II the day
comes quickly that an intelligent, art.
loving public hdemands a return to the
old honest work, and shows it BY :
disposition to pay what it is worth,
then, and not until then, will this
wonderful native craft be preserved tt
us in its integrity.
In another generation the art ma,
be irrevocably lost
Emma Paddock Telford.