The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1909-01-20
1HE L0MLY ONION.
odoro, Joys, Virtues and Superstition
Of The Punsent Bulb.

al London real estate agent says
that the smell of onions cooking IN
an apartment house is source OF
annoyance to the great majority
Of the fiat dwellers. In the novels
of George Gissing there are con,
slant illusions to the smell OF fried
fish in the houses where his half
starved authors and poverty strick-
en- women were obliged to live.
Now, as it seems, one onionized fiat
makes whole house wretched.
There are boarding houses so
charged with the smell of rank
cooking perpetrated for years that
the very walls emit it, as in the
memorable pension where Rastignac
became acquainted with Vautrin,
but the onion is not here the chief
offender. The smell of onion soup,
dear to the Partisan concierge, still
fingers gratefully in the nostrils OF
the American after many years as
he thinks wistfully of his student
days. No reflective person as he
climbs the stairs of an apartment
house is offended seriously by smell
of onions as he passes a door. He
thinks of the glory of beefsteak
smothered in onions, of onion
cooked in cream, of onions dry, but
unfolding their hearts, of fried on
ions as side dish for heroes. He
thinks and signs, for his own Ara
bella cannot endure the smell, not
knowing that fine line, "husband
and wife defying the world with
mutual onion"
The ancients frowned on the bulb
as food and classed it with garlic
and leeks, as of an acrid nature, OF
unwholesome juices. "When twice
boiled they give little nourishment,
but when unboiled they do not
nourish at all, says Paulus Aegine-
to, and Burton, advising as to the
diet of the melancholy dismisses
the onion as troublesome to the
head.
The people at large pay no heed
to these sayings. To the man who
smiles at the conflicting opinions
Of dietists the onion is healthful
when plainly boiled. AS child he
was taught that it was good for
cold. These same ancients thought
highly of lit as a medicine. 1t occa.
sions rapid growth of hair, 1t
breaks hard tumors. Chewed, 1t is
beneficial in paralysis of the
tongue. 1T is eminently rubefa-
cient. It's juice is useful in suffu,
sion and dimness of vision from
thick humors. Dioscorides recon-
mends it as cataplasm with salt,
rue and honey for the bite of mad
dog. There are many today who be.
lieye that onion juice is of assist
ance in deafness. Italians in the
north end heat the insides of little
onions and stuff them in aching
ears of their children. They leave
them there for weeks. An onion
put under the pillow will bring
dreams Of the loved one. The thick
ness of its skin determines the mild
ness or severity of the coming win
ter. But to dream Of onions is a
bad sign. In some countries it pre-
sages sickness. What says the home
ly poet3
To dream Of eating onions means
Much strife in thy domestic scenes,
secrets found out or else betrayed
And many falsehoods made and said.
The French maiden looks for
ward to marriage that she may read
the ingenious novels of her coun;
try. Are there not American maid
ems who would fain be wives that
they may eat onions without the
thought Of disquieted, too fastid-
ious wooer2 Happy the nan That
finds one! Else, like the children
of Israel, no will remember tear
fully the Egypt of bachelorship,
"the cucumbers, and the melons,
and the leeks, and the onions, and
the qarlic."-Boston Herald.