HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1611, 14 January 1903, Page 25

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Before laying oilcloth, cover the floor thinly with sawdust. This will increase the wearing power of the oilcloth, aud will serve to deaden sound.

To rid vegetables of insects, dissolve a little piece of soda in half a cupful of hot water and add it to the salted water in which the vegetables are placed. Rinse them afterwards in clean water..

Mildew may be removed by dipping the articles in butter-milk .and then bleaching them in the sun. Another plan is to soap the spots and then rub them with chalk. Bleach in the sun, damping again and again as they dry. Finally, wash in the usual way with soap and water.

Fruit stains on white material may 1 e removed with spirits of camphor if applied before the material has been wetted. Afterwards wash and boil in the u’suai maimer, and the stains will vanish.

A Cheap Floor Polish.— Save all the ends of candles, put them in n jar, and melt on a stove. Mix enough turpentine to make a soft paste, and you will liave an excellent polishing material for oilcloth, linoleum, etc., which will cost you hardly anything. To prevent your eyes watering when peeling onions, put the onions into water and peel them while held under it.'

Old boot tops make excellent iron and kettle holders. Cut out a piece of the size required, cover it with material on each side, and you will have a better protection for your hands than an one of the clumsy wadded holders generally used s> Clean . enamelled baths with warm soapy water, then apply some whiting with a flannel wherever there are stains. Rinse with clean water and dry. To remove the smell of tobacco from a room which has been smoked in, leave a bowl of water in it. and in the morning the water will be found to have absorbed the smoke, leaving the room free. • To Make Brown Boots -Quite Black.— Get a pennyworth of spirits of hartshorn, and with .it rub off the polish on the boots. Then when they are dty gwe them a dressing of black ink. After that they will be ready for polishing m the usual manner with any good Hacking. A good fire extinguisher is made as follows: —-Take 101 b of common salt Sin of sal ammoniac (this will be supplied by any chemist), 3i 'gallons of water. Mix, bottle .in old wine bottles, and put in some get-at-able place, for in case of fire you will want it instantly. One or two bottles thrown and broken into a burning place will extinguish the fire.

The most valuable handkerchief in the world belongs to Queen Margherita of Italy. It is made of the purest old Venetian lace, and it is, in perfect condition in spite of the fact that it was mad© in the fifteenth century. It is probably worth £2OOO or £3OOO, if such a thing can be valued.; at any rate, there are many people in the world; who would give a tremendous sum. for it. Queen Margherita has a wonderful collection of laces; she began when she was still Princess of Montenegro.

Someone asks, “Why women cry so often?” A woman cries when she gets a letter. She also cries when she does not get one. She cries at weddings as well as at funerals. She cries when she me«ts an old friend, and she cries when she parts from one. She cries in church and at play. * She cries over the man. she married, and also in turn over all those she has not married. —“Books of To-Day.”