TO-DAY'S DINNER.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 848, 21 June 1910, Page 3

TO-DAY'S DINNER.

(Specially written for The Dominion.) TUESDAY. '■ Artichoke soup. Baked stuffed rabbit. . Bread sauce. Potatoes. .Cauliflower. Apple fritters. '. BREAD. SAUCE. Ono small onion, llozs. breadcrumbs, 1 pint of .milk, 0 peppercorns, salt to taste, a small piece of butter or a lablespoonful of, cream. Simmer all gently together ' for fifteen minutes,. i and stir often. Take out the onion, and add the butter or cream before serving. j FOR TO-MORROW. One quart of red haricot beans, soaked in cold water.' Carrot. Celery. Onion, beg of mutton. Onions. Treacle, 1 egg. dinger. , ' DEEDS OF DERRING-DO'. THE CHILDREN'S PAGEANT. Of all those who are, preparing for the children's pageant to be held in July, none are entering more heartily into the spirit of the thing than the boys who. are to share ,the mimic warfare between the scarlet runners and the slug's. Quite beautiful costumes have been designed for them, and on the day of battle the scarlet' runners, brave in scarlet and green, will face an array of silver grey slugs. At present they are practising .with great energy to bo prepared for tho fray which is to take place on the floor of the Town Hall, while" bright eyes beam on theni .from the crowded gallery. llimic warfare is a gentle expression" not to be used by anyone who has seen, the boys at practice in a big schoolroom, while Miss Sybil Johnson, their directress, looks on and issues orders in a firm, not-to-be-disregarded voice, and the boys fly at each.other with waving wands or blunt wooden swords. It is recorded that one youth only consented to take part in the, contest on condition that he might "kill" a chum of his, and probably since then the chum has died many times. The boys do not always realiso it when they are killed. There will bo a furious onslaught, wands poke, wave, and slash in a most alarming manner, until one expects to see eyes and ears flying in all . directions, and one' cannot tell which is wounded, which victor, till the up-ended slug, or the scarlet runner, whichever it may be, falls to the ground and is dragged away by his heels to captivity. When it is a case of single combat the wounded slug.is slow to fall. He obviously receives a' thrust in .his heart from the cane which most of its time thrashes the air wildly, ■ and he goes on fighting till, thrust alter thrust received, ho cannot heln knowing in all his excitement that he is dead, and .probably long before that all tho scarlet runners are bellowing at him, "You're dead! You're dead!" Ho falls on the floor,'and a fierce fight between slugs and scarlet runners takes place over his body. Some, tug his feet, some his shoulders, until, disintegrating rapidly, he is borne away by his comrades or the enemy amid the shouts of their' opponents. It is a very exciting play, and if the combatants survive their strenuous practices,, their performance should be the. star feature of tho children's pageant, and, after it, an exhausted audience will long for something very soft and gentle, a flight of baby butterflies, for instance. > A WOMAN'S TREK. •'• MISS MARY HALL'S LECTURE. The audience. that assembled in the Concert Chamber last night to hear Miss Mary Hall's lecture on her trip from tho Cape to Cairo was large enough to make the lecturer feel more than justified in repeating it. " . . Lady \Vard, who presided, introduced Miss Hall, said that. the. lecture had been listened to with so. much pleasure last week that sho felt sure the audience would thoroughly enjoy the evening's entertainment. Among Miss Hall's, very fine series of pictures is a splendid view of the Victoria Tails,, and several of the ruins of an ancient civilisation in Rhodesia, giant walls, a temple with a sun tower built solid of . granite blocks. Tho history- of South Africa, so far has been that of individual great men, and, Miss Hail's stay begins appropriatcly enough near tho tomb of Cecil Rhodes, and ends with the school built as a memorial to General Gordon. In the German territory Miss Hall had the pleasantcst experiences, and a story that pleased her audience, told how at one German outpost, where she was invited 'to dinner at the commandant's house, she found the table decorated with lilac I petals, which near her plate formed her I initials. This pretty compliment ' was paid by the men, for there were no women at that post. LIFE IN A MAGAZINE. What the casual reader finds on going through the magazines (writes W. PettRidge in the "Queen"), is that a number of folk encounter in their lives incidents denied to him; he finishes . with tho melancholy feeling that he is leading a humdrum existence. Here are respectable folk being pushed, off cliffs, hand-to-hand struggles on Channel steamers, overtures to Crown diamonds at the Tower, kidnapping at Royal palaces, murderous attacks .on Cabinet Ministers (showing a distinct want of confidence in his Majesty's Government); mystery everywhere. You will observe that, whereas in real life an appeal is mado at times of difficulty to Scotland Yard for assistance, nothing so conventional and ordinary ever happens in a magazine. Love affairs in the magazines get sometimes into ■ most serious tangles, duo in , many cases to the strangely adamantine behaviour of parents, who seem to regard their daughters as heirlooms, to be preserved and kept in' the family at any. cost. Certain traditions exist in short stories, such as that young women "of twenty-three cannot wed without their mother's consent, that only one copy is obtainable of any official document, that valuable lace is subject to a Customs charge at Dover, that foreigners owning a, title can never bo trusted. Consequently the artist who wishes to get his work- dono in advance—l have yet to meet one who did this—can scarcely go wrong in drawing half a dozen pictures of a girl in tears with a mixed family eouueil standing around,- and a stolid father acting as tire-scrpen; it will be worth his while also to -preparo a few appropriate to the words, "1 cannot marry you, Harold; and you must never ask thii reason!'" The suitor in the niagn. zincs is,_ fortunately, a man who rarely takes "No I" for mi answer. A statement of undying animosity and unconquerable haired only increases his alTection for tho lady. To be called a hound and a cur and a coward increases his anxiety to marry her. Her device of escaping him by becoming a,nurse at the Metropolitan Hospital only encourages his ardour; he neatly gets himself run over in Kingsland Road. He gives up a good deal of time, and exercises an extraordinary ninount of ingenuity, and I feel, at the end of the story, that he well deserves his reward; but I cannot avoid :. lurking suspicion that, after such an exciting and tumultuous engagement, Ihe .-.erenily of married life must strike both, now and again, as undeniably dull. SIJII, there would always bo'the joys of retrospection. '' ■ '