HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10130, 13 May 1896, Page 3

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

THE TABLE. USEFUL SEASONINGS.

The following seasonings will greatly add to the flavour of stews, soups, gravies, and pies, and can be prepared at a email cost by any careful cook. The ingredients should be pounded separately, then mixed together, and passed through a wire sieve, before being placed in stoppered bottles. Sweet Spice for flavouring cakes and puddings: Two ounces of cloves, two ounces of nutmeg, one ounce of ginger, two ounces of cinnamon, one ounce of mace, and two ounces of sugar. Gravy Spice: Half a pound of black pepper, four ounces of ginger, two ounces of grated nutmeg, two ouuce3 of allspice, two ounces of cinnamon, half an ounce of cloves, and three-quarters of a pound of fine dry salt,. Herb seasoning for soups: Two ounces of dried shallots, two ounces of dried parsley, sweet marjoram, thyme, winter savoury, one ounce of dried lemon rind, and one ounce of dried eweet basil. These herbs will, of course, be well dried and stalked before pounding. Savoury spice, suitable to use in the place of ground allspice: Two ounces of dried thyme, two ounces of bay leaves, one ounce of majorara, and half an ounce of rosemary. These should all be mixed well to gether. Then pound separately two ounces of cloves, two ounces of black pepper, one ounce of Nepaul pepper, and two ounces of grated nutmeg. Add to the herbs, and weigh. To every ounce of the above add three ounces of salt, and half an ounce of the above will be found a great addition to every pound of forcemeat.

GENERAL NOTES. Blacking.— simple blacking for boots may be mado by mixing equal parts of black ink and sweet oil. Apply this to the boots with a piece of sponge, and then polish. Old Paint.—To remove old paint before applying a new coat, use the following mixture One pint of turpentine and two pints of ammonia. Shake well together, and rub the paint with it. By so doing the paint will be softened, and can then be easily scraped off. White Satin Shoes.—White satin shoes can be easily cleaned at home with spirits of wine. Dip a piece of flannel in the spirits of wine, and with it rub the shoes, being careful to rub the right way of the material, When the flannel is dirty, take a fresh piece, and continue rubbing until the shoes are quite clean. Coral. —To clean coral, first carefully j blow off any dust there may be, and then put the article in a pan of boiling water, with some small pieces of white soap and soda. Boil for a few minutes, then rinse in clean water, and leave until dry. Polish with a chamois leather.

A Good Cement for Qlam and China. —Take t» quarter of an ounce of gum mastic and one ounce of pulverised white gam shellac. Put these ingredients into one ounce of sulphuric ether, and add aquarter of a pint of alcohol. When the gum and shellac are quite dissolved the cement is ready. Before applying it. to the broken article heat the two edges. Gilt Frames.—When these have been ornamented with water gilt nothing can he done with them except re-gildine. If oilgilt has been used, however, they may, when dull and worn-looking, be improved with a little careful washing. Make ft lather with some good pure soap and warm water, and gently sponge the frame over with it, then wipe it with clean warm water, and dry with a soft cloth, 'Fkuit.--Always wash fruit before using it, especially oranges and apples and fruit of this description, which is very often covered with tiny black specks. These are the shells of tiny insects which feed upon the fruit, and are most unsightly. Put the fruit into a basin of water, end scrub the skin well with a small brush. By doing this its appearance on the dinnertable will be greatly improved.

THE GARDEN OF THE HEART.

A SONG. I made myself a garden where the sunshine gleamed and glowed, And strewed it o'er with living seeds and heartsease in it sowed, And when the day, departing, died away into the night, I sent my glad voice upward, crying, crying in delight— " Come, oh rain, with dropping beads, Cool iny lilies, wake ray seeds ; Come, oh sun, with gleam and glow, Warm my flowers till they grow; Come, ol) wind, with gentle breath, Turn the air to Life from Death." But my flowers died and withered, faded into swift deciy. I watched them, sad, and wondered as day followed after day; And when ths day, departing, died away into the night, I sent my sad voice upward, crying, crying In delight— " Come, oh rain, with dropping beads, { Cool my lilies, wake my seeds; Come, oh sun, with gleam and glow, | Warm my flowers till they grow; Come, oh wind, with gentle breath, Turn the air to Life from Death." At last an angel whispered why my. lowers ever died, " 'Tis for lack of love, not sunshine, that they fade thus side by side; Call her when the day is coming, breaking earth- ; wards into light," And I sent my glad voice upward, crying, crying in delight— " Come, oh rain, with dropping beads, Cool my roses, wake my seeds; Come, oh sun, with gioam and glow, Warm my flowers till they grow ; Come, ohl-ove. divinest put, , ■ ' Keep this Garden of my Heart!" • She came, my love, my darling, gentle-lipped and smiling-eyed, ' Kissed my erring hands, and laboured with me by my side: And when, the day, departing, died away into the night, We sent our voices upward, heavenwards, crying in delight— " Come, oh rain, with dropping beads, Cool our roses, wake our seeds; Come, oh sun, with gleam and flow, Warm our flowers till they grow ; Come, oh Love, divinest part, Keep this Garden of the Heart." M, Mmo BEALE.

I WANT YOU/ I want you. in the Springtime sweet and tender, To be with me when earth it thrilled and stirred With all the gathering mystery of Life— To watch with me the birth of bud and bird. I want you, in the fall and radiant Summer, To share with me its opulence, mine own; In a rose kingdom there to crown you Queen, And kneel before you on your flower throne. I want you, in the sad and splendid Autumn, To reap with me its harvests— and red; To watch it light its forest-fires, and mourn Together o'er things beautiful—but dead.

I want you, must (;? all, in Winter dreary; _ That ne together may make warmth and light J Holding aloft Lore's quenchless torch, until . Its flame illumines all the gloom and night. ; . Itfaufc you-Oh ! I want you, now and iverl., Hail J a million tongues, they could bat cry, ■ "I want you!" All the hunger of ray life ' > Speaks in these words. Am Ito lire or die J

M, Hbpdeewick Browne, In Chambers' Journal,

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. GHOSTS! ' V" 5; The ghost that has appeared at Wellington - , may portend a general rising. It is usually : so, and whether it be from spiritual communication among the 'themselves, or from an epidemic in mundane circles chiefly affecting young men of a playful turn, the appearance of a ghostly visitor in one place is usually followed by an oatbreak of apparitions. We may therefore anticipate hearing of the performance being duplicated, and if a ghost appears in the suburbs of Auckland, it will be in teresting for people to know all about it. The " one at Wellington is "clothed in white from head to foot," which is the conventional garb of ghosts, and it bounds over fences like a "spring-heel Jack" It has been frightening a large number of people, " chiefly women," it being in the nature of ghosts when on such missions bent to keep clear of men. Sometimes these ghostly appearances have a good run of it, and the amount of terror which they can inspirerfrhen once the nervous system of & community, especially the more timoroui half of it-, is excited to severe tension, is sometimes prodigious. It will therefore, perhaps, be interesting to some to knoy the readiest way that lias been found for layitif a ghost. It is said the devil can only be shot with a silver bullet, but these ghosts that walk the suburbs have been found to be amenable to salt. Everyone knows that to catch a willy wagtail you have only to put salt on his tail, and a little salt in the tail has been found equally effective if not in catching at least in driving away s ghost. The best method of application is with a shot gun, and a perambulating spectre that has once got a dose of sail from a shot gun in his tailor any other par) of his incorporeal anatomy, usually makes himself scarce ever after. More than this it. has been found, that when it is known that there are a number of young fellow* about at night lying in wait with shot guns charged with salt, in the quarters wher« ghosts pursue their pastimos, the moral effect on the ghostly nature is immense and the ghosts forsake their beats. The hint my be taken in Wellington, but as one ghost usually makes many, and Auckland in the nature of things may have a ghost too, if will bs well to remember the recipe of the salt and the shot gun.

THE TRAGEDY AVERTED. The invasion of Hawick by the volunteers at the Easter manesuvres, and their disturbance of the everlasting silence there by their popguns, have taken a good while to work up the appropriate emotions. But revenge has come at lasb, and Mr. Aldis is on the warpath. In a letter to the Herald he tells of their "torn-

foolery" as they "started from Howicb after nine in the morning, marched with pipes in their mouths to Tamaki Bridge, fired a volley or two," and then sat down and grumbled at their breakfast. But strangely enough with this characteristic sneer at our citizen soldiery, the writer goes on to present one of the most convincing arguments that could be drawn from history as to the salutary effects o( preparation for war. For he had just picked up an old newspaper, he said, of date 1847, in which he read that the Duke of Wellington bad been dilating on the defenceless state of England, and had uttered the prayer. " I hope (she Almighty may protect me from being a witness of the tragedy I cannot persuade my contemporaries to avert." And then, adds Mr. Aldis, " All but 50 years have passed since thab letter was written, and the dreaded tragedy has never come." Good: and wherefore! Because England started up with a sudden realisation of the peril she was in. At sight of danger 100,000 citizen soldiers sprang to their feet in one short year, and the Volunteer movement then originated, and, regarded as unique in the history of nations, has given to the country a force that has secured respect from its enemies, and revealing a latent military spirit thai astonished the world, has made the shores of England inviolate to this day. That is why " the dreaded tragedy has never come." Besides, since then the fleet of

England has advanced from strength to strength until it dominates every ocean on the globe, and the idea of invasion may be laughed at. And the grand old Iron Duke, whoso closing years on earth were saddened ab the sight of the decay of England's defences, if lie now looks down from the battlements of Heaven, will see such a revival of the old true fighting spirit of the race, and such an aggregate of strength by sea and land to resist all the men and devils that can conspire against God and England, as will make his old grizzled to palpitate with joy.

PONSONBY AGAIN. The lively interest of the people of Ponsonby in the cause of education is again in evidence, and apparently they could give points and beat the Board of Education itself. The prospect of finality in the satisfactory settlement of the moot point of who shall rule is remote, the free and superabundant ozone in that elevated suburb being hostile to the calm cultivation of the amenities that make for peace. In the peculiar circumstances of the district and its inhabitants there appear two or three ways out of the difficulty that may suggest themselves. The Board might exercise its prerogative and appoint Commissioners, or the rival factions might clear decks and Fettle the matter vi et amis.

This is the dernier remrt among nations, as it is in the poultry yard, where the intervention of an outside power is thrown away until the rival roosters have settled the point of pro • eminence between themselves. The Ponsonby cocks are sure to resent any interference with their rights of belligerency, and for its own peace the Board will refer the question back to the constituency. This, of course, will only perpetuate the disturbance, while if the Board is pleased to appoint, Commissioners—well we pity the Commissioners. Only one real solution can be given to the Ponsonby war, and that is dismemberment. The district is too large, and the schools too many, to be managed by a single Committee. Let it be broken tip into as many separate districts and committees as there are schools, and let one ol the fighting cocks be placed on the perch of each of the committees, and there may then be peace. DEATH IN THE CUP.

Tho appalling increase ot typhoid at the Hospital is a fact that ought to move the public anxiety. Never in the history of the city has the number of patients been so great, or the prevalence of a high rate of sickness been so persistent. It is known that the Hospital eases are but a small proportion always of those occurring in the homes of the people, but the ebb and flow of the tide in the Hospital wards are a fair register of the general sickness Viewed in this light typhoid has attained abnormal proportions, and as there never has been an effect without a cause, the reason ought to be sought for this condition of things. Many reasons have been given, each of which probably accounts for some proportion of the general result, but may it not be that too little regard is given to the condition of our water supply? That! supply is so convenient, so cheap, so plentiful, and so limpid in its look, that the public are very tender on the subject, and are loth to disparage our drinking water, and it has defenders in authority, mainly, perhaps, because it would require ; so large, a sum to provide an adequate substitute. But we cannot close our eyes to the fact that at this hour the acknowledged gathering ground of that water is largely built over, and that all the drainage and sewage from those hundreds of residences has no other escape but through ths ! reservoirs that supply the Western Springs. Nobody doubts that sooner or later, with the spread of population, the present sources of the city supply must be abandoned. The assertion only is that that stage has not yet been reached. Bub this is just the point that ought to be carefully considered—have settlement and consequent contamination reached that stage at which the volcanic catchment area may become a source of pollution The exceptional increase of typhoid, despite all the' advances made in the sanitation of the city shows an exceptional cause, and may its be that this cause 13 in the sewage gathered by the volcanic crevasses 'and loosely-thrown scoria boulders that are known by everyone to be the conducting channels that carry the rainfall over the Mount Eden district to the pumping station of the Western Springs!' The General.

If' you see a gentleman particularly courteous, obliging, and good-natured, relaxing into smiles, rest assured h# imokea Indian Chief" Cigarette,