ABOUT HOUSE CLEANING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 229, 28 September 1898, Page 6

ABOUT HOUSE CLEANING.

An exchange editorial kindly assumes that 'there must be some good in an annual house , cleaning-, else women would not be so superlatively happy when they are" about it, and so thoroughly satisfied when it is done. Any institution which contributes. to the delight of a sex which confessedly has the hardest time of in this world is one which society cannot afford to let go, even though it involves turning the house upside d&wn and fathers and brothers out of doors. Besides, it will be admitted that as a topic >ol conversation it is of more general interest than the weather, and that it makes an excellent safety valve for the grumbling kind.' Now this was written by a man, obviously, whose dull perceptions can never see that what the woman enjoys is not cleaning the house, but having- the house cleaned. The delight of her heart'is not in turning the house upside down, as the grumbling husband declares, but in the restoring it to order again, clean and neat, even in 'each remote and unseen part, and all pervaded with the refreshing and reassuring odour of soapsuds. Her happiness comes not in the arduous labour of doing, but in the satisfaction of the thing clone. When, after the toil of days, she can say, as Mrs Carlyle did, 'Soul, take thine ease, or at all events thy swing, for tho-u hast carpets nailed down and furniture rubbed for many days,' the bliss that pervades her being has been fairly earned. It is, moreover, a joy that no man can take from her by any amount of grumbling and sneers. Nevertheless, it seems to us that the necessary, if mot the actual, terrors of the house cleaning season have beeii exaggerated. When a room is kept in tidiness and fair order from week to week, the annual cleaning task is bard, but not appalling in difficulty. Then, no housekeeper blessed with any systematic faculty attempts to do the work in one day, or by one mighty effort; she does it by degrees; that is to say, by days. Marshalling- such help as she can command, the work is begun by taking up one or two carpets. These are thoroughly beaten,, and the room is then cleaned throughout; floors, windows, and woodwork are washed, and the walls rubbed. down with a cloth or soft brush, or repapered. When this is done, the carpet is put down again, the furniture then rubbed, article by article, with a soft cloth a-nd a little oil or polishing liquid, and each piece put back in its proper place. Lastly, the curtains and all other draperies of the room are hung up again. Whereever sufficient help can be had, a room cun be thus thoroughly cleaned and restored to order in a single day, with the exception of the cleaning of the curtains, which should always be done before hand. However, whether one or two days are taken for the cleaning of a room matters not; the important point being that the work is accomplished in instalments; one being quite finished before the next is bjegun. Perhaps it may take a littJe longer to clean a house'in this deliberate manner, .but the plan is such a saving of excessive exertion, of ueedless disorder and exasperation of temper, that no one who has ever tried this plan would willingly go back to the old way of disarvangirig all her rooms by one tremendous upheaval, and then essaying the herculean task of evolving order from absolute chaos.