The Latest Tie
The Victorian tie is a cravat of white tulle, which is most becoming when tied under the chin in a handsome bow. It should be lightly, though substantially, fastened at the neck, may be worn with any gown, and is becoming to those with mobile features. The loops of the bow are spread out fan-shaped, and form billowy waves of tulle to the right and left.

A Fashionable Gown
White muslin makes the most fashionable of all gowns this season, and fabulous prices are asked for them by many of the smart dressmakers. Some of them are superb in texture, and the quantity of lace that is used makes them the most fascinating of all the gowns that women wear. The old fashion is revived of a puffed waist with entre-deux of reall lace worn with skirts composed entirely of insertions and trimmed with three or four ruffles, each of which has entre-deux and is edged with lace two inches wide. Lace ruffles down the front of the waist, lace ruffles at the hands, and deep collars and capes, all trimmed with the expensive lace, are very becoming, and of necessity cost a great deal of money. Fortunately the same fashion that says that real lace is to be worn also allows of the use of imitations, and imitations are now so excellent that they have much the same effect. These gowns require the daintiest sewing, and there is an immense amount of work on them; yet it is dainty, pretty work that can be done at odd times, and many deft-handed girls have already made themselves most fairy-like toilettes of this kind.

Cure Hams  
To four gallons of water add 2½lb. of sugar, 71b. of coarse salt, 2oz. of saltpetre. Boil together, and when cool put on 100lb. of meat. Let the meat lie in the pickle eight weeks. Another way: For a cask of hams, say twenty-five or thirty. After having packed them closely and sprinkled them slightly with salt, let them lie for three days. Make a brine sufficient to cover them, and strong enough to bear up an egg. Add one half-pound of saltpetre and one gallon molasses. Let them stay in the brine six weeks. Take out and drain them; while damp rub the flesh side and end of the leg with finely pulverised black, red, or cayenne pepper. Hang them and smoke. They will not be troubled with insects.

Braids and Fringes
The loudest cry of fashion at present on autumn gowns is for braiding. There is scarcely a walking costume worthy of being admired which boasts not braid in some form or other—narrow or wide, straight or curled, in continuous rows or in broken lines, while the boleros and Eton coats, and even the jackets which reach to the hips, are entirely covered with traceries of braid. The combination of ribbon velvet with braid is new arid effective, and the only trimming which tries to seriously rival braid for ordinary every-day wear is the inch-wide silken fringe in which our grandmothers were wont to delight. This on a black glace dress looks quaintly old-fashioned, while it is really the latest novelty, and grey cashmere dresses are to be admired when trimmed with fringe to match. Fringe may, however, not be written down among the revival of the fittest, for they are not really decorative, they gather the dust of ages with singular avidity, and they cannot be credited with the charm of cheapness.