And now for a few words about kitchen ranges and equipments. Until almost the other day, so to speak, an English range was regarded as too expensive a luxury for people in India of ordinary means. The expenditure of from two to three hundred rupees upon such a thing was looked upon as an extravagant freak. This strange opinion must have been born and bred in Hindustan a generation or more ago, and handed down to as together with numerous other baseless nostrums in the usual course of things; for people could scarcely have forgotten - even forty years ago - that dwellings built for persons of three hundred a year at home were considered uninhabitable unless equipped with a kitchen range that at least cost thirty pounds.

Of course, there was an excuse for the economy, one indeed, that is readily pleaded, I dare say, to-day: - An English range would be thrown away upon a native cook, he could never appreciate its advantages, and would fall back upon his own way of doing things the moment he was left to himself. With this ingenious subterfuge numbers of people have been contented, and have willingly closed their eyes year after year to the wastefulness, and barbarity, of the native system.

The consequence is that we now find ourselves in a somewhat anomalous position. Whereas our taste have undergone a complete change for the better; whereas men of moderate means have become hypercritical in the matter of their food, and demand a class of cooking which was not even attempted in the houses of the richest twenty years ago, - our kitchens have been in no way improved, neither have their appliances or equipments undergone the change that is necessary to keep pace with the requirements of the times. Dinners of sixteen or twenty, thoughtfully composed, are de rigueur; our tables are prettily decorated ; and our menu cards discourse of dainty fare in its native French. But what "nerves" we all have to be sure! Could we but raise the curtain, and examine our cook-rooms, and all that in them is, just before we lead the way to the banquet, should we not be actually dumb-foundered at our own audacity ?

Setting aside the things which I have already enlarged upon, it is no exaggeration to say that not one Indian kitchen in twenty possesses a proper equipment. The batterie de cuisine of people with incomes of two thousand rupees a month, and more, is frequently inferior to that of a "humble cottager in Britain," the total of whose means does not exceed four hundred pounds. Bat while the latter lives with consummate modest}-, and thinks his establishment by no means equal to the strain of a dinner party of six, the former sits down, invites fivc-and-twenty people with a light heart, and expects everything to be of the best !

The nakedness of the land is easily discovered at the auctions of our highest officials, where the contrast bet ween the "furniture principally by Deschamps" in the drawing-room, and the "few useful kitchen sundries" in the back verandah, is often very striking.

The loan system is also eloquent of the inefficient equipments of our neighbours. To meet the culinary wants of a dinner party at Robsons', the Dobsons' ice-pail, fish-kettle, and sieves, are requisitioned ; and vice versa, when the Dobsons invite their friends, the Robsons1 kitchen is pillaged to the extent of a border mould, a ham boiler, and the pastry cutters.

I need say no more about equipment's: those who are interested in the matter will find a list of kitchen necessaries at page 21.

Having, I hope, satisfactorily demonstrated that a kitchen range should surely find a place in the category of things to be "devoutly wished for" by all who take any interest in their cuisine, let me now point out a few of the advantages to be derived from the use of one.

After having once set up a good range, the purchaser ought, in the first place, to experience a marked diminution in his fuel account. The native cook's objection "too much firewood taking" is, let me observe, a downright perversion of fact. If properly understood, and utilized to its full extent, the English range, with its one fire, must surely consume less fuel than do the numerous open fires in an Indian cook-room. This is self-evident. According to the method that is followed in the latter system, a separate fire is required for each thing: - for the bath water, the kettle, the oven, the sauce and stew-pans, etc, etc. A range provided with a hot-plate, an oven, and a boiler, supplies with its one fire all these wants at once. Vessels, the contents of which require rapid boiling, are placed over the fire-hole, while things needing slow treatment, like soups, stews, etc, find a place upon the hot-plate, or flat surface of the range. The oven is, of course, always kept hot, and the boiler, if correctly filled, must contain an unceasing supply of hot water. If however these opportunities of economy be neglected, and if the cook be permitted to make up little fires, in addition to that of the range, here and there in the kitchen in his native fashion, the saving in fuel will, I grant, be small.

I know that the "Duff's cooking ranges," which are set up for the use of British soldiers in the barracks of this Presidency, are generally condemned by the men as requiring too much wood. But then they are not utilized in a way by which economy is attainable. T. Atkins requires no soup ; he is not particular regarding the tenderness of the stew he eats; and he rarely wants hot water. He finds the oven alone necessary, for "Jack," the barrack cook-boy, can use the chatty, the grid-iron, or the frying-pan, in the verandah, over a small charcoal fire, with sufficient cleverness to satisfy his many masters. Yet the ranges in the hospital kitchens are thoroughly appreciated. Hot water is in constant requisition there, soup must be made daily, and meat has to be very carefully cooked. In order, then, to find English ranges economical as fuel consumers, people who buy them must take care that they are turned to their proper and full account.