ON THE EATING OF ASPARAGUS.

There were twenty-three ways of eating asparagus known to the ancients. Of
these the best known method was to suspend it on pulleys about three feet
from the ground and "approach the green" on one's back along the floor; but
it was discontinued about the middle of the fourth century, and no new
method worthy of serious consideration was subsequently evolved, till the
August or September of 1875, when a Mr. Gunter-Brown wrote a letter to the
_A.A.R._ (_The Asparagus Absorbers' Review and Gross Feeders' Gazette_),
saying that he had patented a scheme more cleanly and less unsightly than
the practice of tilting the head backward at an angle of forty-five degrees
and lowering the asparagus into the expectant face, which is shown by
statistics to have been the mode usually adopted at that time.

Mr. Gunter-Brown's apparatus, necessary to the method he advocated,
consisted of a silver or plated tube, into which each branch of asparagus,
except the last inch, was placed, and so drawn into the mouth by suction,
the eater grasping the last uneatable inch, together with the butt end of
the tube, in the palm of his hand. Asparagus branches being of variable
girth, a rubber washer inserted in the end of the tube furthest from the
eater's mouth helped to cause a vacuum.

The inventor claimed that the edible portion of the delicacy became
detached if the intake of the eater was strong enough, but he overlooked
the fact that the necessary force caused the asparagus to pass through the
epiglottis into the oesophagus before the eater had time to enjoy the taste
(as was proved by experiment) and so all sense of pleasure was lost.

More prospective marriages have been marred through the abuse of asparagus