MRS. 60LDE NOT IMPRESSED
TEADILY grossing to- signifi
cance year by year and in the
fame of its appetizing attri
butes the American Thanks
giving dinner has become
very much of an institution.
It might almost be said that
it has become more of an in
stitution than the American
Thanksgiving, Itself.' At least
if the feast does not over
shadow the holiday at home
it does In foreign parts. For,
be is known, the American
Thanksgiving dinner , is now
eaten around the world,
and in these detached realms
of American soil or sentiment
the dinner Is decidedly the most important fea
ture of the program, for, of course, there is no
football game and no matinee such as many
Americans rely upon for Thanksgiving diversion,
and in the case of many the exiles who ob
serve Thanksgiving oversets there is not even a
Thanksgiving religious service such as is uni
versal at home.
It is not merely, either, that the officers and
men of our army and navy have introduced the
Yankee Thanksgiving dinner to benighted lands
long in ignorance of its delights. To be sure the
epicurean bluejackets and the lads in khaki
nave been responsible for much of this gastro
nomic "missionary work," but it is also a fact
that American diplomatic and consular officials,
and indeed all classes of Americans .resident
abroad, have done their share to preserve all
the traditions of the Thanksgiving dinner as a
reality in every transplanted home. Especially,
where there is a little "Ameri??..T colony" in an
alien environment, is the Thanksgiving dinner
right, jealously guarded.
But whereas the American Thanksgiving din
ner has been winning its way around the world
it has likewise come to enjoy more and more
prestige at home. The one jarring note in any
present-day eulogy of the Thanksgiving dinner is
to be found in its greatly increased cost over
the expense Involved for a corresponding menu
a few years since. No person who grasped the
Import of the "high cost of living" issue in the
recent political campaign can fail to realize
that the matter is a very grave one to the aver
age housekeeper, and especially when it ob
trudes itself in connection with a holiday repast
which ought to be an occasion for care-free feast
ing instead of domestic perplexities.
The one consolation, if not compensation, In
this situation is to be found in the knowledge
that our Thanksgiving dinners in this day and
generation are vastly better than the like holi
day spread of years gone by. It is not so much
that the dishes that go to make up the bill of
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)are for the November holiday have been
greatly increased in number or variety. Your
hearty diner demands on Thanksgiving the es
sentials such as turkey and celery and cran
berry sauce and pumpkin pie, which were the
Btand-bys of the feast in the days of his father
and his grandfather before him. The point is
that some of the eatables are unquestionably
more flavory than were their counterparts of
eeveral decades ago, and with all due respect
to the kind that mother used to make some
of the modern recipes seem to put it all over
the- old-timers in garnishes and the prepara
tion of puddings and pastry, etc.
And, speaking of the changes that have
come about, take the case of the toothsome
turkey, headllner of the whole holiday menu.
It would ,be futile to try to convince the high
liver of the twentieth century who revels In
his milk-fed or chestnut-fed turkey from Rhode
Island or the middle west, that his forefathers
ever enjoyed anything so delicious. Certainly
turkeys have increased in size, too, judging
by the average weight those that find their
way to market. However, this latter develop
ment is clearly traceable to the tendency of
turkey raisers to devote themselves almost
exclusively to the Bronze, the largest of the
six standard varieties of turkeys.
However, there are two sides to this turkey
story, and the housewives who preside over
small families are the ones who have had
brought home to them the disadvantageous
side of this boom in the size of turkeys. With
the big bronze birds weighing from 16 to 36
pounds apiece and usually nearer the latter
than the fnrmpr fip'iirp p.rnwrilne th market
It is becoming every year more difficult for
the buyer of a family of two or three people
to find a satisfactory six, seven or eight pound
turkey. It really begins to look as though the
small families would to driven to hotels on
Thanksgiving or else be compelled to take in
boarders or entertain all their friends at the
holiday dinner,
Turkey buying, too, 13 the phase of the
Thanksgiving marketing where the increased
cost 'of living most severely pinches the man
with the stationary income. A dweller in 'ny
cf our large cities may consider himself de
cidedly in luck these days if he succeeds in
' getting a tender turkey at Tlfanksglving for
25 cents per pound, and he Is much more likely
to be asked any figure up to 38 or 40 cents per
pound, which prices have prevailed every
Thanksgiving in Recent years i.the New York
and Boston markets for the choicest brds.
The people of rte central west rave an lpa-
vantnc-R over eastern turkey tatefs, becaufe
t
Illinois, Indi
ana, Ohio and
other states
along the
backbone of
the country
are the great
centers of the
turkey indus
try, although .
ttMMec?Jvrifc? &w less surprise
t- a. tsg; ss&fysia? Bome of our
readers to
learn that Texas leads all the other states in
the Union in the number of turkeys produced.
Proximity of the market to the rural dis
trict whence it draws Its supply of holiday
fowls is a highly important consideration now
adays, because the mistress of a city home
. can no longer purchase her Thanksgiving tur
key from a farmer who drives up to her door
marketing the products of his own farm. All
the turkeys are handled nowdays through com
mission merchants, which means, of course,
that there is a middleman's profit to be paid
by the ultimate consumer. Another secret of
the present high prices of turkeys is found
in the fact that the live birds are shipped long
distances. If they are transported by express
the expense is considerable, and If they make
the Journey by freight the trip Is nearly as
costly, inasmuch as the live birds are sent
by freight only la carload lots, which involves
flclent for at least a couple of
pies for the modest sum of four
or five cents. The newspapers
have given prominence this year
to the exploit of an Indiana farm
er who has raised a pumpkin as
large around as a wagon wheel
and weighing 150 pounds. How
ever, the record in pumpkin
growing is claimed by a Colorado
planter, who gets credit for pro
ducing a few years ago a pump
kin weighing more than , 300
pounds.
Cranberries are a Thanksgiv
ing commodity the price of which
fluctuates widely in different
years. And yet we feel that we
must have them, almost without
regard to price, for If Thanks
giving is incomplete without the
turkey, certainly the turkey is
Incomplete without the cranber
ry sauce. Cranberries are culti
vated to any extent In only three
states, namely, Massachusetts,
Wisconsin and New Jersey, and
the producing area being thus re
stricted it naturally follows that
when . there comes a lean year
the shortage of the ruddy ber
ries is quickly reflected in the price. However,
cranberries are never so very much of an ex
travagance because it requires such a modest
portion to make up a batch of cranberry sauce.
When cranberries are plentiful they sell whole
sale as low as $2 per barrel, but a few years
ago, when there was a cranberry famine, the
price went as high as $20 per barrel.
The business side of the problem of supplying
a Thanksgiving dinner for the American people
is by no means the least interesting phase of
this subject. .The city of Chicago alone re
ceives during the week or ten days before
Thanksgiving as many as half a million turkeys,
valued in the aggregate, at wholesale prices, at
much more than a millions dollars. From Cape
Cod, Mass., the greatest, cranberry growing dis
trict, there are shipped each autumn more than
one-third of a million car loads of cranberries,
and the major portion of this harvest finds its
way to Thanksgiving dinner tables. Many car
loads of celery from Michigan and other states
swell the total cost of our Thanksgiving dinner
to millions.
the rental of a special
type of car for the jour
ney and pay for the
services of a man who is
sent along to feed the
birds en route.
Owing to the mount
ing prices of turkey and
an occasional shortage
of supply although
there is no prospect of
a turkey famine this
year has induced an in
creasing number of fam
ilies all over the coun
try to substitute chicken,
duck or goose for the regulation Thanksgiving
fowl. The cost is much less and the satisfac
tion equally great once a householder has
freed himself from the tradition that Thanks
giving without turkey would not be Thanks
giving. Then, too, the increasing number of
vegetarians and persons who have adopted a
diet of nuts or other meat substitutes, have
devised some very ingenious proxies for the 1
Thanksgiving dlnner-non-meat dishes thai $W6WM9
ven simulate the annearance of a 'turkey. if
However, these new-fangled dishes can scarce
ly be recommended as cheap, owing to the
amounts of nuts and the number of eggs the
recipes call l?r.
In the face 01 soaring prices in so many
food lines, it is gratiryVae to note one Thanks
giving indispensable, the tost of which re
mains virtually unchanged. Tw is our old
friend, the pumpkin, dear to youth1 tmd old
age alike, in the form of the pumpkin pie. No
person has ever attempted to "corner" the
pumpkin crop, and probably no person ever
will undertake such a miracle. The fact that
the great golden globes with their luscious
"fillin' " can be raised in every section of the
United States, and that, too, without any
trouble, once the vines are planted, is doubt
less responsible for the moderate prices that
always prevail. Probably there is no town or
city in the country where a good-sized pump
kin cannot be purchased for 50 cents, and in
most American markets one may buy a small
pumpkin an orb of joy with ammunition suf-
The Cat's Thanks
giving Soliloquy
3 M pnn or first inanKSffivmff reasi -s
P -
What did our Puritan ancestors dine on at
their first Thanksgiving feast? Surely they
did not sot the standard which is being fol
lowed today ,on the Tharskglving dinner
menus.
We know that some things were lacking that
they must have greatly missed. There could
have been no butter, cream, milk, cheese, or
any dish that is principally made with milk,
because there were no cows in New England
until 1623, when John "Winthrop. later their
worshipful governor, brought over four cows
from England. The butter and cheese that
they took with them on the Mayflower were
long since consumed. I hardly think they had
chicken pie forthe feast, for the fowls were
served as a rare delicacy fot the sick. They
could have had eggs for their pies and pud
dings. Since they raised pumpkins they might
have had pumpkin pies. 1 they made them
with water. -
In the ocean there was great abundance of
fish, oysters, and other shellfish. Of course,
there was none of their national dish, prime
roast beef, no veal, lamb, mutton or pork.
There was plenty of deer, which would be a
good substitute In vension. Hut they bad one
thing that we like better luan anything else
on Thanksgiving day. Wild turkeys were very
abundant in the woods and fields about Ply
mouth, and the Indians went out and shot a
large number of them, and made them their -contribution
to the feast. Governor" Bradford
says in his history that they were delicious
to eat. How fitting it is that the bird that is
the crowning glory of our Thanksgiving board
should have been the favorite meat of that his
toric flrBt Thanksglvig dinner!
There were, doubtless, onions, beets, pars
nips, cabbage or colewort, squash, and perhaps
other vegetables, for a good variety of seeds
were brought ovet from Holland. Perhaps
there was succotash, and the Indians must
have made it, for it was something that the
Pilgrim cooks had never heard of before, and
we know that they learned later from the In
dians how to rrakf it. Now, what did they
have for dessert, ; wonder? I think they may
have had some "r' of pudding with huckle
berries for plumK I doubt If they had much
sweetening for their pudding and pumpkin
pies, as their stock of sugar and molasses was
very limited. Perhaps they had a substitute.
There were fine wi'd grapes In the woods, and
they had doubtless dried a store of wild straw
berries, cherries and plums. They surely did
not have any mlncp pies, since the Pilgrims
thought mince pies were very wicked, and
savored of Romanism. So they condemned
those who afterward made and ate them.
P
I'm just about tired cf waiting
For my Thanksgiving treat;
I see them about the table,
And they eat nd eat, and eat.
1 They do not think of poor pussy.
Who has had so long to wait;
Why doesn't some one remember
That it's growing very late.
And haven't I smelt that turkey
Since into the oven it went?
If they'd give just one drumstick.
Why, then I'd be content.
But no, they sit there talking
And laughing aloud with glee;
I wish that some one among them
Would throw down a bone to me.
There's that greedy little Teddy,
Three times he's passed his plate;
And that turkey's growing smaller
At a very rapid rate.
And see Jack's face! 'Tis shining
With gravy up to hla eyes.
I wonder they take no notice
When they hear my hungry cries.
Oh, dear! There's dessert to follow.
The puddings and pumpkin pies
And the fruits and nuts and candy.
And oh, how fast times files!
Ah, there's gentle little Ethel,
She's so loving and so kind,
She's bringing me some turkey bones
And a grateful cat she'll Jind.
FRANK II. SWEET.
THANKSGIVING
I thank thee, Life, for many, many gifts;
For wealth of bloom and tender song that lifts
My life the heated highway's path above;
But most of all I thank thee, Life, for Love!
I thank thee for the body's health; for friends;
The dally bread thy kindly bounty sends;
For all the goodly things that are or were;
But most of all I thank thee, Life, for Her!
; T
For Her I count of good thine utter store
That surfeits avarice. Thou hast no more.
No boon to win one covert sigh from me
When I have that whose giving beggars thee.
Agent's Talk of the Efficiency of
"Touch" Merely Amused Old
'.' . Man's Darling.
Laurence A. Tanzer of the Citizens
union, was condemning In Albany cer
tain features of the proposed New
York charter.
v"I don't want to see the city in the
power of the bosses," .ho . said. "I
don't want to see the city placed 'ia
the position, of old Gobsa GQlde.
"Gobse Golde, you know, married In.
his old age a beautiful young actress-;
a very regrettable thing.
' "The fair young Mrs. Gobsa Golde
story hotel cf cream-colored stone one
day, and the hotel manager was point
ing out the suite's manifold conveni
ences. - "You touch a button,' he said, 'and
this onxy bath fills automatically. You
touch a. button, and the temperature
of each room rises or falls. You touch
a button, and a motor car is at the
door.- You touch a button
."But Mrs. Gobsa Golde, ' nodding
mischievously toward her aged hus
band, said:
Vv'Oh, I have no use for .your silly
little buttohs. I. only need to touch
my husband, and diamond - necklaces,
yachts, ropes of pearls anything I
want appear.' " -
PHYSICIAN ADVISES
CUTICURA REMEDIES
"Four years ago I had places break
out on my wrist and on my shin which
would itch and burn "by spells, and
scratching them would not seem to
give any relief. When the trouble first
began, my wrist and shin itched like
poison. I would scratch those places
until they would bleed before I could
get any relief. Afterwards the places
would scale over, and the flesh un
derneath would look red and feverish.
Sometimes it would begin to itch until
it would waken me from my sleep,
and I would have to go through the
scratching ordeal again. '
' Our physician pronounced It "dry
eczema." I used an ointment which
the doctor gave me, but It did np good.
Then he advised me to try the Cutl
cura Remedies. " As this trouble has
been in our family for years, and is
considered hereditary, I felt anxlousi
to try to head it off. . I got the Cuti
cura Soap, Ointment and Pills, and
they seemed to be just what I needed.
"The disease was making great
headway on my system until I got
the Cuticura Remedies which have
cleared my skin, of the great pest.
From the time the eczema healed four
years ago, until now, I have never felt
any of its pest, and I am thankful to
the Cuticura Soap and Ointment which
certainly cured me. I always use the.
Cuticura Soap for toilet, and I hope
other sufferers from skin diseases will
use the Cuticura Soap and Ointment."
(Signed) Irven Hutchison, Three Riv
ers, Mich., Mar. 16, 1911. Although
Cuticura Soap and Ointment are sold
by druggists and dealers everywhere,
a sample of each, with 32-pa&e book,
will be mailed free on application to
"Cuticura," Dept. 17 K, Boston.
MERE SUGGESTION.
Miss Antique I have so much on
my mind; I wish I knew what to do
for relief. .
Miss Caustique Why not remova
your switch?
Poor Conversationalist.
"Is your husband a good after-dinner
talker?"
"No, indeed. As soon as he's had
dinner be lies down on the couch and
falls asleep, and I never get a word
out of him."
Important to Mothers
Examine carefully every bottle of
CASTORIA, a safe and sure remedy for,
Infants and children, and see that it'
Signature of dT j
In Use For Over 30 Years.
Children Cry for Fletcher's Castoriai
Tenses.
Teacher Tom-mle, what is the
ture of "I give?"
Tomraie "You take." Life.
fu-
APTER THE DOCTOR FAILED.
Even the most stubborn cases of
malaria yield to Elixir llabek.
, "In the summer of 1896, I contracted
the disease known as Malaria. After a
year's fruitless treatment by a promin
ent Washington physician, I was en
tirely cured by your Elixir Babek," 1
Brasle O'Hagan, Troop E, 6th U. S. Cav.
It is equally grood for bilious disorders.
ElUIr Babek, 50 cents, all druggists, or
Kloczewskl & Co., Washington, D. C.
The bright side is sure to be the
right side. Mary D. Brine.
Dr. Pierce's Plasant Tellets regulate 1
and invigorate stomach, liver and bowels.
Sugar-coated, tiny granules, easy to Uksi
a.s candy.
The man who Is envious of evildo-
ers will soon ha one hlmselt