HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVII, Issue 2549, 29 June 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

TO POLISH SILVER. Never rub silver with soap, as oven the best kitchen soap is too coarse to be used on anything which shows the scratches as easily as silver. Tho best way is to dissolve the soap in boiling water and wash the silver in the suds. Rinse in clear hot water, dry, and rub with chamois leather. When silver-cleaning day cornea, the silver should bo washed and dried in suds prepared as above. Then pure whiting, moistened with alcohol, should be applied with a soft rag, rubbed off with another, brushed to remove the dust from the chasing, and finally polished with clean chamois leather.

For cleaning silver bangles, hat-pins, hair-pins, and mirrors, prepared chalk, alcohol or ammonia, a flannel rag, a brush, and a piece of chamois leather are tho necessary apparatus. A little paste of ammonia or alcohol and chalk, applied with flannel, allowed to dry, and brushed out, will make even a heavy-chased bit of silver or plate bright and glittering.

A SIMPLE DISINFECTANT. One of the simplest disinfectants of the sick room is ground coffee, burned on a shovel so as to fill the atmosphere of the room with its pungent, aromatic odour. If two red-hot coals are placed on a fire shovel, and a teaspoonful of ground coffee is sprinkled over them at a time, using three teaspoonfuls in all, it will fill the room with its aroma, and it is said to have the hygienic effect of preventing the spread of various epidemic diseases. The odour is very agreeable and soothing to a sick person, where other disinfectants prove disagreeable. FINGER NAPKINS. A very simple way of setting up finger napkins so that they help to ornament tho table is to carry out the fan shape, and stand the napkin in a tumbler.' Take the serviette lengthwise, it is usually threefold thus, and bend it over to and fro, turning back about an inch and a-half each time, pinch it tightly together, and then spread it out in the glass, when it will be in approved fan shape. If the carver is inclined to splash, and ruin the snowy whiteness of the napery, place a table napkin where the .dish of meat will stand, and draw it off when the sweets come on. If the serviette is thus rendered unfit for further use, it costs less to wash again than a whole tablecloth. TO DRY UMBRELLAS. Most people dry their umbrellas handles upwards. This gathers the moisture at the top whore it is closed, rusts the wires which secure tho ribs, and rots the silk. After the umbrella is drained, it is better to invert it handle down, and dry in that position. TO PREVENT DRAUGHTS. To prevent draughts under doors, tack a strip of old carpet (Brussels, being stiff, is best) across tho bottom of each door. Cut this carpet four and a-half inches wide and two inches longer than the width of the door on which it is to be fastened, so that the carpet may extend an inch beyond the door on each side. Tack the strip of carpet across the bottom of the door, placing the carpet so that half of its width will lie on the floor, the other half being attached to the door.