This was a case of some importance to the public. The defendant, a walking poulterer, was summoned by the plaintiff, a widow lady residing near the Asylum, to shew cause why he did not pay back to her four shillings, which he had obtained from her under false representations. The plaintiff stated, that the defendant called at her house on Wednesday last, and inquired if she wanted a fine fowl, as he had some he could recommend. She desired he would select her one she might depend upon as being young and good. He accordingly picked our one which he said he could recommend as being a young one, and she took it upon his recommendation, and paid him four shillings. At dinner, however, to her great dismay, on attempting to carve this delicate young chicken, she discovered that so great an attachment had the bones and joints formed to each other from long acquaintance, that they successfully resisted all her attempts to separate them, and she was obliged to give over the attempt. A favourite pug--dog was then allowed to commence his operations upon the breast, but so thick was the skin, and so solid the flesh, that he, after much labour, found himself foiled, as his mistress had been before him. On the following day the plaintiff applied to the defendant, sending back the fragments of the young chicken, and desiring to have her money back again; but the defendant positively refused either to receive back his property, or to refund the money he had received; upon which refusal, the plaintiff summoned him.

Mrs. Howard's servant corroborated her statement, and added, that defendant, as he was quitting the house, desired her to boil the fowl double the time her mistress told her, because it was a large one. It was accordingly boiled more than double the usual time.

The defendant did not attempt to deny that the fowl was an old one, but said, he was himself deceived by the person of whom he purchased it, and the plaintiff having seen it be-.fore she paid for it, could not complain of any imposition being practised upon her.

The Court, however, decided that the defendant should refund the four shillings, and pay all the costs. It was plain, that when he sold the fowl he was aware of the imposition he was practising. He had given evidence of this himself, by desiring the servant to boil it longer than the usual time. At the same time, however, that the Court thus gave judgment against the defendant, they could not avoid censuring, to a certain extent, the plaintiff, and_ all those who encouraged persons of the defendant's description, by dealing with them. Little doubt could exist in the mind of any one, that most of the fowls thus hawked about the streets were stolen, at least by those who sold them to the hawkers; and whilst the thieves could find so ready a market for their plunder, there was little chance that the robbing of fowl-houses would be put an end to.

The defendant being informed, that unless the debt and costs were immediately paid, an execution would forthwith issue against him, paid the sum demanded, and departed.

If you have a well-ventilated larder, in a shady, dry situation, you will ensure much credit to yourself by ordering in your meat and poultry such a time before you want it as will render it tender, which the finest meat cannot be, unless hung a proper time; (see observations on roasting;) longer or shorter, according to the season and nature of the meat, etc, but always till it has made some advance towards putrefaction! The tendency to that takes place the moment that life is extinguished. The allowing this process to proceed to a certain degree, renders the meat more easy of solution in the stomach, without diminishing the nutritious quality of it. Before you go to market* look over your larder, and it will save you much time and trouble to make out a list of the several articles you want, because when once your kitchen business is begun, you must never leave off till it is finished; if you have forgotten any article indispensable for the day's dinner, request your employers to send one of the servants for it: the cook must never quit her post till her work is complete. .

It is not expected that the most expert artist can perform his work in a perfect manner, without a sufficient number of proper instruments: you cannot have neat work without nice tools; nor can your victuals be well dressed without an apparatus appropriate to the work required: it will be to little purpose to provide good provisions, without proper utensils * to prepare them in; therefore, after a few words of Advice to Cooks †, I begin my book with a catalogue of such articles of kitchen furniture as are indispensably necessary, in a moderate-sized family of five or six people, who occasionally entertain half a dozen friends.

* Especially on a Saturday. No well-regulated family must suffer the disorderly caterer to be jumping in and out to the chandler's shop on a Sunday morning,

* " A surgeon may as well attempt to open a vein with an oyster knife, as a cook pretend to dress a dinner without proper tools to do it." - Preface to Verall's Cookery, 8vo. London, 1759, page vi.

† A chapter of Advice to Cooks we hope will be found as useful as it is original: all we have on this subject in the works of our predecessors is the following: "I shall strongly recommend to all cooks of either sex, to keep their stomachs free from strong liquors, and their noses from snuff." - Vide Clermont's Professed Cook, page 30, 3vo. London, 1776..