Aix her peerless oil, Verdun her sweet-meats,
Metz her ortolans, Pithiviers her larks
and almond cakes, Alençon her fat geese,
Orleans her vinegars, Cognac her eau-de-vie,
Bordeaux her anisette, Montpellier her cream
of Mocha, Cette her oil of roses, Brignolles her
preserved plums, Ollioules her plums and figs.

Many scientific brains, and many artful hands,
have for centuries experimented on French
cooking, which, if less solid than English, is
more appetising, more alluring. Science will
doubtless continue to be devoted to this great
art, which has done much to extend peace,
binding families and nations by a common tie
of social interest which no inroad of barbarians
can snap.

DOLES.

MY old college chum, Tom Bradshaw, had
recently been appointed rector of Doleshurst,
and wheedled me down to spend a week's
vacation with him. The day after my arrival,—at
breakfast-time too—he startled me with this
question:

"Can you guess what I have in that leathern
bag beside you?"

"It is uncommonly heavy," said I."
Probably geological specimens."

"Wrong," he replied; "you have there three
thousand bright profiles of her gracious majesty,
impressed on three thousand florins fresh from
the mint."

"What can you want with so many florins?"

"Why, you must know that they have made
me a sort of trustee down here; that is, the
clerk, the sexton, and the keepers of five
beershops, met the other day, and unanimously
elected me a trustee in place of my predecessor.
A worthy old dean, leaving the world in peace
three or four hundred years ago, bequeathed
an estate, which now produces more than three
hundred pounds a year, to be given away in
charity. Now, it strikes me that this three
hundred pounds just serves the purpose of
the 'potation money,' which, you know, fell
to our lot as Blueboys at the old school of
Winterbourne. I am told that for two or
three days after this dole is distributed, there
is an unusual proportion of black eyes and
broken heads in the village. The money, it is
said, is all spent in tippling, and I will find out
whether that is the fact."

The morning of the next day was a busy
time with the clerk, the sexton, and the five
publicans. They distributed little tickets to all
comers—old, young, and middle aged. It was
a day of idleness to the ticket-seekers. They
lounged in groups, or sat outside the village
inns, and smoked and drank their ale contentedly.
In the evening the ticket-holders passed one
by one through a room where my friend and
I sat; I took the tickets from each, and for
every ticket he gave a florin. The claimants
were chiefly labourers or peasant children. I
thought that the dole, though small to each,
might be a help where the family was large.
There were some, however, whose dress and
bearing proved that they did not need the dole;
and I noticed that all the broken-down
delinquents of the neighbourhood were present.
The business was done quickly, however, and
without confusion. There were, indeed, some
sounds of strife outside, and rough voices
demanded of crying children the coin they had
received. But that was soon over, and my
friend and I gladly returned to the rectory and
its waving trees.

That night there was little sleep at Doleshurst.
We strolled out into the darkness, and
passed through the straggling town. The five
beershops were all lighted up from basement to
attic, and broad bands of light fell from their
windows on the street. Sounds of contention,
complaint, entreaty, and drunken passion, mixed
with choruses of tuneless song. Now a door
would be opened, a struggle would be visible in
the passage, a knot of men tangled together
would be ejected into the street, and then would
follow curses, threats, and blows. Here a
weeping wife supported a staggering husband;
there, little children, pulling the unwilling hands
of the maundering father, led him away.

Next day my chum and I went on a curious
errand. We visited the five beershops in
succession, and told the five keepers that we
wanted a large number of florins. In all the
beershops there were piles of florins, soiled
wet florins sticking together. The bright silver,
with the exception of a very small percentage,
had found its way within twelve hours into the
publicans' tills. Thus, the dole, like the old relief
given at the monastery gate, produced poverty,
idleness, and vice, and more was lost by the
labourer who received it than the wages he
forfeited in seeking and spending what was
designed to afford substantial relief to deserving
but poor men.

This incident at Doleshurst set me upon a
search, and I soon found that dole funds are very
numerous, and that, almost without exception,
this kind of charity does nothing but mischief.
Parliament has recently contributed to blue-book
literature a series of twenty-four ponderous
octavo volumes, of several hundred pages each.
It is named the Report of the Commissioners on
the Endowed Grammar Schools of England. In
the first volume of the series, I found a brief
record of some of these ancient doles and their
results. At Almondbury, four hundred and fifty
pounds are annually distributed to the poor in
sums of five or six shillings; and the vicar says,
"the beneficial effect is neither seen nor felt
longer than two or three days at most." The
vestry of another parish distribute five hundred
pounds a year, and the vestrymen appoint
tradesmen as distributors. When a baker is
elected distributor, the dole is given in bread;
a coal factor thinks there is nothing like coals;
a publican distributes ale and gin. In another
parish for "two weeks before and one week
after the distribution, extra waiters are put on
at the beershops." At Bewdley, in North Worcestershire,