Punch (55.1868)

244

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[December 5, 1868.

TRAPPED. (A CAUTION.)

Yep.y Delightful to help Nervous Ladies in the Woods, particularly when Hounds are Running.

FUEL SAVED BY EELT.

Professor Jevons, and other men of science, differ in their esti-
mates of the time which we shall take in using up all our coal, at our
present rate of consumption. Is there no remedy for this consumption
of the coal ? Economy, if the Government could enforce it; but
Government can’t. AU that we _ can do, therefore, is to economise,
as well as we may, our own private and particular coal measures,
namely, certain quantities, deposited from sacks, in cellars not con-
taining more than a few tons. One way of doing this is that of
adopting a method of dressing meat, most truly described by a con-
temporary as—

“ Sensible Cooking.—The Norwegian felted boxes now on sale in Duke
Street, Grosvenor Square, deserves notice. When a leg of mutton is to be
boiled, instead of its being kept on the fire for three or four hours (on the good
old English method, which wastes fuel and hardens the meat), it is sufficient
to keep it boiling for only ten minutes ; and when it has been boiled for that
time, the fire is no longer needed, but the saucepan containing the meat is to
be inclosed in the felted box till three or four hours later, when dinner-time
arrives. The heat in the saucepan is prevented from escaping, as it cannot
pass through the non-conducting felt, and the process of cooking therefore
goes on gently for hours with no new application of heat. A leg of mutton
eaten by the food Committee is stated to have been quite hot three hours and
a half after it was taken from the fire and inclosed in the box.”

Another leg is said to have been brought from Paris to London in a
Norwegian box without getting cold. The Norwegians know the
value of fuel, and they have also known how to make fuel go as far as
it can in boiling meat. Their felted box is a contrivance for boxing
beat up, so as to compel a given quantity of heat to do all the cooking
that it can, and to render the generation of any additional heat
and therefore the combustion of any more fuel, needless. Your
felt, you see. Ma’am, keeps your boiling water hot. IIow ?
Because it is what you may call a cad on the step of an omnibus—a
bad conductor. The Norwegian felted box must be a real blessing to
servants as well as to housekeepers, in summer no less, if not
more particularly, than in winter. During hot weather your cook
would like to put the lire in the kitchen out as soon as possible. In

the case of boiled meat your felted box makes this possible as soon as
the meat has been boiled ten minutes. In these days there are
many persons who find it a very hard matter to make the pot boil.
The difficulty of effecting that object, occasioned by the present
extravagance in female dress, under a thousand a year, keeps many
young people single. It certainly has been simplified, and persons
about to marry are enabled to do so on proportionally lower terms, by
the invention of the Norwegian felted box.

THE MEMBER FOR GREENWICH.

The graceful Gladstone has been rejected in Lancashire for a
gentleman who is so large in the girth that when he had to be girt
with the sword it was impossible to make the ends of the belt meet.
The electors have preferred a big man to a great one. However, if
Mr. Gladstone ever condescends to stand again for the district that
has shown such bad taste, he had better previously go through a long
course of the dinners the idea of which is the only one that arises when
his present borough is mentioned. We shall have great pleasure in
dining with him at Greenwich, (at the national expense, of course,) four
times a week until further notice. The hotels are kept open in the
winter. The splendid conceptions which Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Punch will strike out during these repasts will amply repay the
country for the six or eight guineas which each may cost; and should
the latter gentleman happen to recollect any part of the conversation,
be may give it to the world in his own columns. He heartily congratu-
lates Greenwich on the honour which has been conferred upon her, and
respectfully advises her to tidy herself up a bit, as she is now going
to be Somebody._

Acts of Courtesy.

Disappointment teaches useful lessons—politeness, for instance.
How many rejected candidates during the last fortnight have been
bowing to the decision of the Electors !

A Votive Urn.—A Ballot Box.