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Telegraph wires have to be renewed every five or seven years.  The Western Union Telegraph Company exchange about one thousand tons of old wire for new every year.  The new wire costs from seven to eight cents per pound, and for the old about one-eighth of a cent a pound is allowed.

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HOW TO SELECT AND COOK MEATS

HOW TO DRESS BACON AND BEANS—­When you dress beans and bacon, boil the bacon by itself, and the beans by themselves, for the bacon will spoil the color of the beans.  Always throw some salt into the water and some parsley nicely picked.  When the beans are done enough, which you will know by their being tender, throw them into a colander to drain.  Take up the bacon and skin it; throw some raspings of the bread over the top, and if you have a salamander, make it red hot, and hold it over it to brown the top of the bacon; if you have not one, set it before the fire to brown.  Lay the beans in the dish, and the bacon in the middle on the top, and send them to table, with butter in a tureen.

CORNED BEEF—­Make the following pickle:  Water, 2 gallons; salt, 2-1/2 lbs.; molasses, 1/2 lb.; sugar, 1 lb.; saltpetre, 1-1/2 ozs.; pearlash, 1/4 oz.  Boil all together; skim, and pour the pickle on about 25 lbs. of beef.  Let it stay in a few days.  Boil in plenty of water when cooked to remove the salt, and eat with it plenty of vegetables.  It is nice to eat cold, and makes excellent sandwiches.

ROLLED BEEF—­Hang three ribs three or four days; take out the bones from the whole length, sprinkle it with salt, roll the meat tight and roast it.  Nothing can look nicer.  The above done with spices, etc., and baked as hunters’ beef is excellent.

BEEF, ROLLED TO EQUAL HARE—­Take the inside of a large sirloin, soak it in a glass of port wine and a glass of vinegar mixed, for forty-eight hours; have ready a very fine stuffing, and bind it up tight.  Roast it on a hanging spit; and baste it with a glass of port wine, the same quantity of vinegar, and a teaspoonful of pounded allspice.  Larding it improves the look and flavor; serve with a rich gravy in the dish; currant-jelly and melted butter in tureens.

ROUND OF BEEF—­Should be carefully salted and wet with the pickle for eight or ten days.  The bone should be cut out first, and the beef skewered and tied up to make it quite round.  It may be stuffed with parsley, if approved, in which case the holes to admit the parsley must be made with a sharp pointed knife, and the parsley coarsely cut and stuffed in tight.  As soon as it boils, it should be skimmed:  and afterwards kept boiling very gently.

BEEF STEAK, STEWED—­Peel and chop two spanish onions, cut into small parts four pickled walnuts, and put them at the bottom of a stewpan; add a teacupful of mushroom ketchup, two teaspoonfuls of walnut ditto, one of shalot, one of chile vinegar, and a lump of butter.  Let the rump-steak be cut about three-quarters of an inch thick, and beat it flat with a rolling-pin, place the meat on the top of the onions, etc., let it stew for one hour and a half, turning it every twenty minutes.  Ten minutes before serving up, throw a dozen oysters with the liquor strained.