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

to look upon the ice chest as a luxury which is altogether beyond their means. But, as I have said elsewhere, I am firmly persuaded that if the price of ice were brought down to one-halfpenny per pound, and if a company were formed to deliver such a small quantity as six pounds per day, or every second day, it would be a great boon, and moreover a wonderfully profitable speculation. A very small and suitable ice chest could be constructed, to sell at a few shillings, solely to preserve the butter in a congealed, and therefore palatable, state, for children as well as for adults. The former would take it with great avidity, and the benefit to health resulting therefrom would be incalculable. Even in some of the better-class houses ice is looked upon too much as a luxury, and not, as it should be, a necessity; indeed, the money saved from gas during the summer months might well be expended in ice. Not only is this fatty breakfast a necessary feature in the diet of everybody, particularly of the young and growing population, but it is likewise a most important matter with all brain workers. If the business or professional man can put in a liberal breakfast, consisting largely of butter, fat bacon or ham, he can go on all day with a feeling of energy and buoyancy. It is in this aversion to fatty matter, in any shape or form, that the bilious and dyspeptic are so fearfully handicapped. And not only is it necessary for an active mental worker to be supplied with a good proportion of fatty material, but, as I have just said, it is essential that his breakfast should be a substantial one, in which his food is not stinted in any way. As Dr. Milner Fothergill said: "I would always back a good breakfaster, from a boy to a game cockerel; a good meal to begin the day is a good foundation." So, too, Mr. Christopher Heath, the well-known London surgeon, in his advice to house surgeons and other medical officers living