Household.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 995, 27 March 1891, Page 5

Household.

Bottles are easily cleaned with hot water and ashes.

A little borax added to the water in which scarlet napkins and red bordered towels ars washed will prevent them from fading.

Tea stains are very difficult to get ont if neglected. They should be soaked in either milk or warm water a; soon as possible, and then soaped and rubbed out. The next washing will efface them wholly.

An attractive dish is made of red and white beets. Before boiling do not cut the red ; of the white cut a piece off each end. Bail till tender ; slice and place alternately in a dish. Serve the same as cucumbers.

Save stale pieces of bread, and when an easy day comes dry them thoroughly in an open oven and with a rolling pin crush as fine as dust. These then will always be at hand for preparing oysters, cutlets, fish, &c.

To clean swansdown, make a warm soap lather and softly knead the down in this till quite clean. After rinse in fresh cold water with a little blue in it. Merely si ake the water out of it and hang it in the air to dry.

If black dresses have been stained, boil a handful of fig leaveß in a quart of water and reduce it to a pint. A sponge dipped in this liquid and rubbed upon them will entirely remove stains from crapes, bombazines, and similar goods.

Dr Gusakoff highly recommends painting the soles with tincture of iodine as an infallible remedy for offensive sweating of the feet. A single application sometimes proves to be sufficient to effect a cure of this disagreeable affection.

If the odour of cabbage is wafted to the sitting room or parlour it can be destroyed by boiling a little vinegar in a cap. which can be poured over the cabbage before it ia served, if liked, or put in a pinch of soda or lump of charcoal with the salt. To take varnish off furniture use a solution of about three pounds of common soda to a gallon of water. Apply this to the work with a common paint brush, and after allowing this to ataud for a short time the varnish can be removed with an ordinary stiff scrubbing brush. To renovate and brighten the gilt frames of pictures and mirrors that have become rusty and dingy simply wash them with a small sponge moistened with spirits of wine or oil of turpentine, the sponge oniy to be sufficiently wet to take off the dirt and fly marks. They should not be wiped afterwards, but left to dry of themselves. After carpets have been thoroughly dusted and relaid, they can be brightened very much by rubbing then all over very carefully with a damp cloth wrung out of the luke warm water to which ox gall has been added, or ox gall soap. Heavy carpet paper is an ecomonical investment, but if yon cannot compass this, and have not been able to save sufficient newspapers, cheap wall paper makes a good substitute. To take out bruises in furniture, wet tho place well with warm water, then take some brown paper five or six time 3 doubled and well soaked in water, lay it on the place, apply on that a hot flat iron till the moisture is evaporated, and if the bruise is not gone repeat the same ; you will find, after two or three applications, the dent or braise is raised level with the surface; or if the bruise is small, soak it well with warm water, and apply a red hot poker near the surface, keep it continually wetted, and you will soon find the indentation vanish.

Hard water is as bad for clothes as for complexions ; something must be added to soften it, but when this takes the form only of seda in quantities it is ruin ta the colour and texture of linen. If more rainwater were procurable we should not hear so much of the disastrous effects of chemicals, because they would le less used. Ia some parlsof England when thesupply of rainwater runs short hard water is exposed for some days to the action of the air and thus rendered more fit for use. Some laundresses, again, Dut a layer of wood ashes at tha bottom of their tub or tank and fill up with hard water. In a day or two this is materially softened and effects a considerable saving of soap.