SIR,--May I put in a mild _caveat_ against excessive indulgence in
potato-cakes, based on an experience in my undergraduate days at
Trinity College, Cambridge, when WHEWELL was Master? One Sunday I was
invited to supper at the MASTER'S, and a dish of potato-cakes formed
part of the collation. WHEWELL was a man of robust physique and hearty
appetite, and I noted that he ate no fewer than thirteen, considerably
more than half the total. Whether it was owing to the unlucky number
or the richness of the cakes I cannot say, but the fact remains that
the MASTER was seriously indisposed on the following day and unable
to deliver a lecture on the Stoic Philosophy, to which I had greatly
looked forward. I cannot help thinking that PYTHAGORAS, who enjoined
his disciples to "abstain from beans," would, if he were now alive,
be inclined to revise that cryptic precept and bid us "abstain from
potatoes," or, at any rate, from over-indulgence in hot potato-cakes.