The Topeka state journal., 1922-06-29
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY E. HOUSE,
(From Philadeiphia Public Ledger.)

The princes greeting to viscount
LascelIes, whom he met for the first
time" says the esteemed cable. Con
sisted of formal handshake, with no
effort at conversation. The situation
seems fraught with conjectural pos
sibilities: sbut international etiquette
being what it is, we may only indicate
that they exist. You'll have to write
your own sub-titles.
The United Confederate Veterans.
who have just closed their reunion at
Richmond, believe the war between
the States was deliberately and per-
sonally conceived and inaugurated by
Abraham Lincoln, and have adopted
a resolution to that effect. Since no
outburst OF public indignation fol-
lowed the adoption of the resolution
in question, we take it that the Civil
was is finally and irrevocably over.
The way we think about it, and we
take the liberty of speaking for the
North, is that il it makes the Con-
federate Veterans feel better to believe
Lincoln started the war. let them go
ahead and do it. The Confederate
Veterans are old men They don't
have much fun If they can get a
little pleasure out of a notion, who
wants to stop them?
Writing IN the current number of
the Cosmopolitan, George Ade the
lucky stiff, makes an impassioned plea
for home cooking, and enumerates GER
tain astronomical effects in which
hotel and. restaurant chefs register
failure In the main. Mr.. AIDES posi-
ton is entirely sound, but he lives a
great deal of the time, we imagine, in
hotels and has been misled to some
extent by his boyhood memories.
Home cooking, taking it by and large,
isn't nearly as good as Mr.. AIDE thinks
it is.
Taking it as it comes and striking
an average, the best cooking in this
country is done in the better hotels and
restaurants There is some good home
cooking, but much Of it is mediocre
and not a, little of 1t is criminal The
average of hotel cooking is high and
knows no sectional lines. 1t is about
as good in Spokane as in New York
Neither Phila de1phia nor New Orleans
has much on Portsmouth or Columbus
Mr.. AIDE is entirely right in his con-
tention that no hotel chef can fry
chicken or make biscuit All a hotel
chef does to lusty cockereI is ruin it
for human consumption. The good
fried chicken is prepared in the home
and eaten there. No hotel chef ever
made good biscuit It is an art be-
yond him, the secret of which he NAV
never hope to penetrate.
The secret of the perfect biscuit
may be learned only by a woman
cooking for those she loves and cher
ishes. 1t is achieved by a combination
of middle western gastron nomicaI skill
and a jar OF sour cream. Poets have
sung of less than the sour-cream bis
cult of the Mississippi valley. Masters
have painted subjects less worthy of
their genius.
We have referred to Mr. Ade as a
lucky stiff. Well. he's a bachelor,
owns more money than he knows how
to spend and has his own golf course.
We notice, incidentally. that a num-
Der of the ladies are wearing knickers
and that some of them can do so.
Life is full of vain aspirations and
un rofita Bile mental specuIations. If,
as an instance, we had the money
Adelaide saved by making a lamp
shade a year ago last fall, we could
buy her a fine birthday present on
May IS.
It would help some if we could To-
cate the tidy sum accumulated thru
her thrifty reluctance to buy new
linoleum for the kitchen floor.