well saturated with pure alcohol. Between the pungency communicated to
the taste by the horse-radish and the fumes of the spirit invading the
nasal avenues, the illusion of a good "square drink" will be complete.

* * * * *

An instance of singularly vitiated taste has just come to the knowledge
of PUNCHINELLO. A caterer in Baxter Street provides juvenile boot-blacks
with the hind legs of rats, and declares that his guests eat them with
great avidity and experience no ill effects. They are rolled in
pulverized crackers, and cooked in lard. The dish is considered a great
dainty, and is only within the reach of the aristocratic portions of
that community. One chief cause of this culinary success is the fact
that the provider keeps the knowledge of it to himself, going upon the
French principle of "eat what's put before you and ask no questions."
Fried horse liver has risen to great popularity with Americans in Paris,
owing to the adoption of a similar caution. Fastidious tourists have
been known to smack their lips over horse tenderloin, under the
impression that the peculiarity of its flavor was to be attributed
entirely to the devices of a Parisian _cuisine_.

This pleasant hypothesis has unquestionably prevented many a stomach
from revolting, and increased the reputation of French cooks. It is
related of the astronomer LALANDE that he often ate caterpillars and
spiders, affirming that the former tasted like almonds and the latter
like walnuts; but no American who ever feasted inadvertently on horse
liver or a savory sirloin of the same flesh, has yet been found to
acknowledge the fact, much less to promote a taste for it by any
seductive comparison. The Baxter Street purveyor imitates the Parisian
_restaurateur_ in the mystery with which he surrounds his art, and so