mutton, or occasionally of roast beef, which should be well cut into
very small pieces, and mixed with a mealy _mashed_ potato, and a few
crumbs of bread and gravy; either _every_ day, if he be delicate, or
every _other_ day, if he be a gross or a fast-feeding child. It may be
well, in the generality of cases, for the first few months to give him
meat _every other_ day, and either potato or gravy, or rice or
suet-pudding or batter-pudding on the alternate days; indeed, I think
so highly of rice, of suet, and of batter-puddings, and of other
farinaceous puddings, that I should advise you to let him have either
the one or the other even on those days that he has meat--giving it
him _after_ his meat. But remember, if he have meat _and_ pudding, the
meat ought to be given sparingly. If he be gorged with food, it makes
him irritable, cross, and stupid; at one time, clogging up his bowels,
and producing constipation; at another, disordering his liver, and
causing either clay-coloured stools--denoting a _deficiency_ of bile,
or dark and offensive motions--telling of _vitiated_ bile; while, in a
third case, cramming him with food might bring on convulsions.

137. _As you are to partial to puddings for a child, which do you
consider the best for him_?

He ought, every day, to have a pudding for his dinner--either rice,
arrow-root, sago, tapioca, suet-pudding, batter-pudding, or
Yorkshire-pudding, mixed with crumbs of bread and gravy--free from
grease. A well boiled suet-pudding, with plenty of suet in it, is one
of the best puddings he can have; it is, in point of fact, meat and
farinaceous food combined, and is equal to, and will oftentimes
prevent the giving of, cod-liver oil; before cod-liver oil came into
vogue, suet boiled in milk was _the_ remedy for a delicate child. He
may, occasionally, have fruit-pudding, provided the pastry be both