text: " Wanting a little _soda_ we were presented with sub-carbonate of potash as the nearest approach to it--a substitution which suggested to us a classical recollection from Theocritus; namely that in this same Sicily 2000 years ago a Syracusan husband is rated by his dame for sending her _soda_ for her washing in place of potash the very converse of what our old drug-vender intended to have washed our inside withal