The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken

that home for ever. But this is an old story, yet, unfortunately, it is a true one; and it will continue to be true until a clearer perception of what a domestic training should be is more universally recognised. I am sure that I do not exaggerate when I say that millions of our English-speaking race are living this life without the slightest glimmering of what domestic content might be theirs. Surely the word "home" for the artisan should signify something more than a place where he is badly fed. Still, it is a solemn fact that no more concrete definition of the word has ever been forthcoming. Now, such a state of affairs cannot be excused on the score of expense, for the crowning triumph of good Cookery is its very cheapness. It has already been mentioned that the late Sir J. Risdon Bennett did not think it beneath his dignity to write a prefatory note to a Cookery Book. He has also pointed out that Cookery is a subject which deserves more attention at the hands of those who have the welfare of temperance at heart. He believed that a knowledge of wholesome Cookery would do much to make home happy; to keep the men away from dissipation and intemperance; and to make the children healthy and cheerful. The same idea is expressed by Sylvester, who remarked that Cookery should be most popular, because every individual human being is directly interested in its success. As he says, the real comfort of the majority of men is sought for in their own homes, and every effort should be made to increase domestic happiness by inducing them to remain at home. And long, long ago a quaint old book, Markham's English Housewife, published in 1637, contained the idea in a nutshell, as the following quotation will show: "To speak, then, of the knowledges which belong to our English housewife, I hold the most principal to be a perfect skill in Cookery. She that is utterly ignorant therein, may not, by the laws of strict justice, challenge the freedom of marriage--because,