Ladies' Column.

Wairarapa Standard, Issue 2067, 13 May 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Ladies' Column.

Forbidden Kisses. “ Remember, ” said a physician to his wife, as he was leaving home for a few days, “and do not let the children kiss any one.” “Is it possible,’’asked a surprised third party, who was present, “that you consider it necessary to give such instructions as that ? Where is the danger ?” “ The danger is so complicated and yet so certain that it would take too much time to describe it here,” said the doctor, looking at his watch. “In my case, all kinds of people come to my house and consult me, and they often wait hours. If one of my children happens to come in they are almost certain to talk to it, and you know almost the first impulse with people who notice children is to kiss them. Bah! it makes me shudder—tainted and diseased breaths, lips blue with cancer, foul and decayed teeth. You would kill a stranger who would waylay your young lady daughter and kiss her by force, but the helpless six-year-old child, susceptible as a flower to every breath that blows, can be saluted by every one who chances to think of it. I tell you it wasn t Judas alone who betrayed by a kiss. Hundreds of lovely blooming children are kissed into their grave every year.” “ But, doctor, how can a mother bo so ungracious as to refuse to allow people to notice her sweet little children 1" “There need be no ungraciousness about it, or, if there were, which is the more important, the safety and well-being of the child or the permitting of a habit of ill-breeding and doubtful morality at best 1 Let the mother teach the child that it is not a kitten or a lap dog, to be picked up and fondled by every stranger, and instruct it to resist every attempt to kiss it. Why there are agents, pedlars of household wares, who make it a custom to catch up a prattling child, kiss and pot it, and so interest the mother that she will buy something she does not want. I tell you there is death in the kiss ! The beloved and lamented Princess Alice of Hesse took diptheria from the kiss of her child and followed it to her grave. Diphtheria, malaria, scarlet fever, blood poison and death lurk in these kisses There ! I shouldn’t winder if I lost this train. Remember, no kisses 1” and waving his hand, the doctor drove away.

The Care ot China. To season chiuaware and glasses to sudden changes of temperature, so that it will remain sound after exposure to sudden heat or cold, is best done by placing the articles in cold water, which must bo gradually brought to the boiling point, and then allowed to cool very slowly, taking several hours to do it. If the wares are properly seasoned in this way they may be washed in boiling water without fear of fracture, except in frosty weather, when care must be taken not to place them suddenly in too hot water. All china that has any gilding upon it may on no account be rubbed with a cloth of any kind, but merely rinsed, first in hot and afterwards in cold water, and then left to dry. When the plates, etc., are put away in the china closet, pieces of paper should be placed between them to prevent scratches on the glaze or painting, as the bottom of all ware has little particles of sand adhering to it, picked up from the oven wherein it was glazed. The china closet should be in a dry situation, as a damp closet will soon tarnish the gilding of the best crockery. In a common dinner service it is a great evil to make the plates too hot, as it invariably cracks the glaze on the surface, if not the plate itself. We all know the result—it comes apart. “ Nobody broke it, it was cracked before.” The fact is, when the glaze is injured, every time the articles are washed the water gets to the interior, swells the porus clay and makes the whole fabric rotten. In this condition they will also absorb grease, ami when exposed to further heat the grease makes the dishes brown and discolored. If an old ill used dish be made very hot indeed, fat will be seen to exudo from the minute fissures upon its surface. These latter remarks apply more particularly to common ware.

The Wife and Mother. No class of men arc more indebted to their wives for the success that comes to thorn, than the farmers. The wife and the mother who has the courage to go out with the husband of her choice, and commence the struggle of life with him in the hush, or on a new farm with but little capital except that boundless capital of lu*d and heart, is worthy to stand by the side of the Spartan woman upon whom poets have exhausted their words of praise. I’pon her falls the brunt of the strife, no matter how hard the husband may toil ; his work closes with the day-, but her’s continues long after, and with her children, and the small chores that many of the beginners have to look after, her lot is not one to he to he envied. And when, after years of struggle success, with reluctant feet, comes’to crown her husband with honor, the brightest wreath should adorn the brow of the noble wife, who was the stay and anchor, the comfort and the source of all hope in the stormy days of trial. The wealth should crown her queen. We hear much of the man. We hear that So-and-So is making money, and he gets the credit of being a forehanded man, hut it is quite as often that the noble little woman, who has toiled and complained not, who has pinched, and saved, and murmured not, is the one to whom the State and Nation is most greatly indebted. These are the women who lead men up to that higher and nobler manhood, to that shrine where, like knights of old, they bend the knee of homage, not to beauty, but to worth and royal manhood.

Removing Stains from Cotton or Linen Goods* Curtains* Etc ■ —Grease spots are butler removed by soap ; stains from oilcolors, as » rule, do not resist the action of a mixture of soap and caustic potash. If spots of tar or axle-grease arc unaffected by soap they will usually yield to the solvent action of benzine (so-called), ordinary ether, or of butter, which may afterwards be removed with soap and water. For ink-stains, dilute hydrochloric acid, which must be subscqucntly carefully washed out, will .-onerally be found effectual. For the same opurpose oxalic acid or salts of sorrel (hydiw-en potassium oxalate) may also be employed, and that most economically, in fine powder to be sprinkled over the stains and moistened with boiling water. The action of these solvents may bo hastened by gently rubbing, or stilt better by placing the stained portion of the fabrics in contact with metallic tin. If there is much iron rust to be removed, dyer's tin salt (stannous chloride') will perform' the work at less expense than the oxalie aeid compound. Another solvent f..r such .-tains con-isis of a mixture of two pail- aigol with one part powdered alum.