Things to be avoided in eating, are hot, fresh baked breads of all kinds; also avoid all manner of pies as you would a pestilence, likewise cakes, of every description; they are the crowning curse.  Women will make it and children will cry for it, probably, for all the generations to come, as they have in the past.  But more truthful epitaphs should be inscribed over them than is now done.  It is strange how fashion rules in diet as in dress.  Why, the Koohinoor diamond of Victoria is not more valued than is a steady supply of poundcake by most of women and children.  We know of a family who make it a boast that they, when young, had all they wanted; which either implies their mother to have been unwisely indulgent, or else the children to have been over-clamorous.  It certainly does not imply wealth, and, least of all, culture, for the poorest families have usually the largest display of these things, while those with enlarged means and sense dispense with them out of good judgment.

Travelling on the cars, a short time since, we had for a companion a shrewd Yankee who had the honor to be postmaster of his city, and at the same time was engaged in the boot and shoe trade; one of those stirring men who, if he did not possess genius, had its nearest kin—­activity, and illustrated the fact that a man might do two things well at one and the same time.  He gave us samples of human nature which is quite apropos to the general subject.  In discussing the eccentricities of merchandising, he said that usually wealthy customers entering his store would ask to see his cheaper class of boots, such as would do service, “honest material, but not the most expensive,” and from that class would make their selections; but, whenever parties entered whose means were known to him to be limited, and yet whose “pride of family” and personal vanity were in increased ratio to their decreased capital, he never ventured even to suggest the class of goods taken by the wealthy, lest offense be given.  His rule was to show to such his very best goods first.  They wished to display “a notch above their betters.”  And so with the cake question.  Some of even the poorest families of New Englanders doubtless eat more of this material than does the Royal family of England, if it could but be known.

There remains yet another article of food to be proscribed.  We refer to the pork question.  All ought to be good Jews on this subject.  Their prohibition is, we believe, founded on the intrinsic unhealthfulness of the thing itself.  Its use is universal in this country, and in the South it forms the chief meat diet.  This latter fact comes of their mode of agriculture more than original preference.  They devoted all labor to cotton growing, and had their meat and grain to buy.  The question with the planter in laying in his supplies was what would go farthest, at a given price, as food for his slaves.  Bacon and flour were always found to answer the economic