The superior quality of the food cooked with a perfect appliance of this kind when compared with the best results obtainable by the native system, is another strong recommendation in favour of the range. Take one item of daily consumption - our soup. It is not exaggeration to say that, as a general rule, the native cook takes nearly double the amount of meat and bone necessary to produce this article of food. His doing so may be attributed, of course, in a great measure to ignorance; but he can also plead as an excuse the want of a proper kitchen equipment. His practice, if left to himself, has been explained at page 41. Now, independently of the ignorance there exposed of the elementary principles of soup-making, observe the wanton wastefulness of fuel.

The extraction of the nutritive elements of meat and bone requires, we all know, that slow process of cookery called simmering - a process as readily carried out with an English range, as it is almost impossible with the open brick and mud fire-places of the cook-room. At least, it stands to reason that - be the tunny -catch never so careful - the low fire, at an even degree of temperature, which simmering requires, can scarcely be maintained for hours together by the eye and hand alone.

With a range in our kitchen, therefore, all we should have to do would be to explain the simmering system, and point out how easily it can be managed. Then, as soon as the native cook discovered that all that was necessary was to pull his soup kettle so many inches back upon the hot-plate, he would do so, for the new plan would not interfere with his customary absence for "rice." In the end we should get a soup of superior quality extracted from about half the quantity of meat that we formerly issued.

In like manner all dishes requiring slow cookery, hashes, stews, sauces, - even our curries, which are often sent up tough from being too quickly cooked, - would be easily prepared, and certainly be far more digestible. The cleanliness of the system need not be dwelt upon, smoke would become a thing unknown, and ashes could no longer be wafted by every breeze into our food.

With so much to be said in favour of the kitchen range, it seems strange that its cost should be considered prohibitive by so many well-to-do people in India. If properly used the economies it effects must, in the end, repay its purchase, while it ought to be at all times a very saleable article. Why, 1 repeat, should we hesitate to provide ourselves in India with an appliance that in England is regarded by people of ordinary respectability as a common necessary of life ?

Ingenious and painstaking persons who hesitate to go to the expense of an English range may, as I said before, effect a material improvement in their kitchen system by putting together a fire-place upon home principles. I know of a case in which an experiment of this kind has been crowned with success. The method followed may be briefly described as follows:

A fire grate was first contrived by iron bars in the style of a cresset, rectangular in shape, and supported on four iron props; it was made the full length and height of an English kitchen grate, but one-third less deep at back. Embedded in masonry on one side of this fire grate was an iron bazar-made boiler; the side of it nearest the fire had no masonry, and it fitted closely to the iron bars. The boiler was furnished with a brass tap. On the other side of the grate, set firmly in masonry, with its side towards the fire exposed, and with a close fitting door was a bazar-made iron oven. The props of the cresset fire-place were set in masonry and cemented; they were sufficiently long to sustain the fire about the average height from the ground that kitchen fires are fitted in England. Over the top of the fire a flat sheet of iron connected the surface of the oven with that of the boiler, forming a very fair hot-plate. This iron sheet was movable at pleasure. The topmost outer bar of the cresset was also movable to allow a space for the admission of fuel when the hot-plate was fixed. The smoke was made to pass into a flue contrived with a few feet of ready-made stove piping, which passed through the wall of the kitchen at the back of the fire grate, and was then led up the wall to the roof.

But by far the best thing introduced in this locally designed kitchen was an English roasting "jack." The "jack" itself was imported from home at a cost of half a sovereign; the fire screen, and dripping pan were made by the bazar tinman; the "jack" was hung from a beam fixed in the wall at a convenient height above the fire grate. Every joint was in this manner roasted more Anglico. Dripping, a thing previously unknown in the establishment, became a highly valued commodity; and the meat was invariably sent up full of gravy, and with that crisp browning that can only be obtained by carefully roasting. A little more charcoal was used in the " jack" system than in the old way with the spit, but the expense was more than balanced by the dripping gained, the good gravy, and the additional juiciness of the meat. Charcoal was used for roasting work, and good dry wood was found sufficient for soups, and all common boiling operations, when no roasting was needed. The strange thing was that both the butler and the cook were as delighted with the innovation as children with a new toy. I hope that this may encourage some of my readers to carry out a similar scheme.

I have spoken of the American cooking stoves fed by mineral oil, in Chapter XXX (Camp Cookery). The popularity of these very excellent domestic articles is increasing daily, and I need scarcely point out their value in the reformed kitchen system that I have endeavoured to discuss. One of them could, for instance, find a place in the indoor "working-room" I have recommended, and provide a handy little kitchen for all delicate operations, especially for fancy baking.

Finally : with a range (if possible), and with an arrangement, such as I have tried to describe, giving us a clean, nicely equipped room for the preparation of our food, and a kitchen, entirely separated from godowns and stabling, easily accessible from the house, and consequently continually subject to scrutiny and wholesome discipline, I think that the back-bone of the evils I have spoken of would be broken, ladies would find the supervision of their domestic economy a pleasure rather than a penance, and we should be able to congratulate ourselves upon having really laid the foundation-stone of true reform at last.