Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/704

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686
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ally as a juror ought not to be underestimated, yet I think still greater good comes from the increased responsibility of the people at large. There will be fewer criminals when every citizen feels that he is in some sense a conservator of the peace. The direct educating influence of trial by jury has often been remarked by those who have studied the influences that mold the character of nations. Bentham, who certainly will not be charged with venerating anything because it is old, in speaking of the jury as a public educator says: "Every judicatory, of which a jury forms a part, is a school of justice; without the name, it is so in effect. In it the part of master is performed by the judge; the part of scholars by the jurymen; and what takes place, takes place in a company more or less numerous of spectators. The representation there given is given by a variety of actors, appearing in so many different parts."[1] I believe that the people will not willingly give up an institution to which they owe so much of their self-reliance and ability to govern themselves until stronger reasons than any yet suggested are presented.

THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY.

By W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS.

XXIV.

SINCE the publication of my last paper, I have learned the proper name of the Swiss compound there described as fondevin, according to my recollection of its pronunciation in Switzerland. In an old edition of Mrs. Rundell's "Domestic Cookery," it is described as fondu. A similar dish is described in that useful book "Cre-Fydd's Family Fare," under the name of cheese soufflé or fondu. I had looked for it in more pretentious works, especially in the most pretentious and the most disappointing one I have yet been tempted to purchase, viz., the twenty-seventh edition of Francatelli's "Modern Cook," a work which I can not recommend to anybody who has less than 20,000 a year and a corresponding luxury of liver.

Amid all the culinary monstrosities of these "high-class" manuals, I fail to find anything concerning the cookery of cheese that is worth the attention of my readers. Francatelli has, under the name of "Eggs à la Swisse," a sort of fondu, but decidedly inferior to the common fondu of the humble Swiss osteria, as he lays the eggs upon slices of cheese, and prescribes especially that the yolks shall not be broken; omits the milk, but substitutes (for high-class extravagance' sake, I suppose) "a gill of double cream," to be poured over the top. Thus

  1. Bentham's works, vol. ii, p. 125.