LADIES’ COLUMN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16044, 7 February 1920, Page 9

LADIES’ COLUMN.

USEFUL HINTS. When making’ a plain raisin pudding, use a finely grated carrot instead of an egg. It is just as good, and cheaper. Don’t bathe the face while it is very warm or very cold. Don’t bathe in hard water; soften it with a little powdered borax or a handful of oatmeal. Grass stains on clothing should be soaked in paraffin. The garment may then be washed as usual. When cutting new bread, heat the knife by dipping it into a jug of hot water. In this way the thinnest bread and butler may be cut from a new loaf quite easily. To keep moths out of upholstered suites sprinkle them with plenty of turpentine twice a year, and do the same with the carpets, and both will be kept free from moths. To keep cheese fresh, wrap it in a cloth that has been dipped in vinegar, and wrung as dry as possible. Keep in a cool place. Stains on crockery may be removed quickly and easily by rubbing with fine ashes moistened with vinegar. Equal parts of resin and beef suet melted together make an excellent wax sealing bottles containing fruit or pickles. Wooden spoons and chopping boards should bo well scrubbed with bath brick or sand in preference to soap. This treatment will effectually whiten the wood and make it smooth and glossy. If the surface has been stained with grease, it should be washed with hot soda water before it is scrubbed with sand. It is a mistake in hot weather continually to bathe the feet when they ache. Dust them over each morning with plenty of boracic-acid powder and, if possible, scatter a little of the powder inside the stockings. The larder, should always be kept scrupulously clean, especially now that the hot weather is here. When anything is upset, wipe it up directly, and see that the whole place is thoroughly cleaned out once a week. After being used for fish, frying-pans should be scoured out with salt and hot water. This removes the fishy smell better than soda and water. To Pie vent Kettles Rusting’.— When you next buy a new tin kettle, place a faii-sizcd piece of lard in it and stand the kettle on the stove till the lard has melted, shaking frequently. Then stand the kettle to one side of the stove, where it will keep just hot, but not boiling hot, and leave for several hours. Then pour out the fat and wash the kettle very thoroughly with hot soda water. For the first time of using merely use the kettle water for washing up. Kettles treated in this way never rust. Butter Paper.—Never throw away the paper in which the butter is wrapped when it is delivered. Such paper can be used as a lining for a cake tin or as a covering for a pudding which is to be steamed, and for wrapping up suet roley-polis before putting them into the cloth to be boiled. They save time, as they are greased. To Clean Doeskin Gloves.—Make a thick paste of white Fuller’s earth and warm water; put the gloves in, and thickly cover them with the paste. Then dry them thoroughly in front of the lire, and thou with a clean brush brush oft the powder. The important thing to remember is that the brush must be clean, and that the paste must be thoroughly dry before one begins to brush it. French Method.—When the ordinary cook uses dripping she is generally content to rub it into the flour, with the surprising result that both the cakes and pastry arc not nearly so light as they might bo. The French cook puts the dripping in a bowl, beats it up. with a clean kitchen knifo till the consistency of cream. This process does not take long, and the cakes, pastry, and puddings are exquisitely light and very easily digested. Plastered Walls.—To hang a picture on a plastered wall try dipping the nail into cold water before driving it into the wall. It will bite into the plaster if this is done, and therefore will hold a considerable weight without locsen-

RECIPES, JAM WITHOUT SUGAE. Experiments were made in London ot using salt and less sugar in jam making, and it was said that the jam kept and tasted as well as the jam made in the ordinary manner. The. proportion of salt is a drachm and a half, or a heaped-up tablespoonful to 11b of fruit The proportion of sugar varies according to the fruity but it is generally between 3oz to 6oz to the pound. Plums would require about 6oz of sugar, but blackberries were used satisfactorily with 3oz of sugar. An excellent honey and apple jam may be made by using 4oz of honey, loz of brown sugar, and a drachm and a half of salt to every pound of apples. CHUTNEY WITHOUT SUGAE. The absence of sugar in this recipe will greatly be appreciated at the present time. You require l£lb green tomatoes, It lb apples, 11b sultanas, lib Spanish onions, 1 tablespoonful each curry powder and salt, 12 chillies, halfpint vinegar. Peel, core, and chop the apples; peel and slice the onions, and chop the tomatoes. Bring the vinegar up to boiling point; put in the apples, onions and tomatoes; stir, and add the other ingredients. Boil rather quickly for three-quarters of an hour; poul into jars, and tie down securely. JAM WITHOUT SUGAE. The elusive subject of sugar has been before the public in many ways lately, chiefly in the air, so a thoughtful reader has supplied us with a few facts upon how to do without it. The writer says that thousands of tons of jam are made in this way on the Continent. The principal work is removing the stones from stone gruit, which is indispensable. Any stone fruit will do, but the stones must be removed first. Take the quantity of fruit (the riper the better, but sound), you intend to preserve, and stone it the night before the boiling down takes place. Start early. Fill your preserving pans two-thirds with the fruit, and boil it over a clear but not too hot a fire. Keep stirring continually, and as the fruit boils down, add fresh fruit; it is really a process of concentrating; keep stirring and boilin'” till the quantity under treatment is thick enough that a tablespoon stands upright in it, then the jam is done. Have shallow dishes ready (producing a cake U to 2 inches thick), butter the dishes aud fill them with the jam- to the thickness indicated. Put a piece of greased paper on top of your jam to protect it from dust. Put the dishes in the driest and warmest place you have in the house. After a few; .weeks the

jam will be dry enough to be taken out of the dishes and put in the pantry (edgewise against the wall), where it will further dry, and after a while it will be covered with a white powder like sugar. This jam has the consistency and can be handled like a cheese; if kept dry it keeps two years or more. When it is required for jam as we use our jam here, cut it in a very thin slice, put it into a saucepan and it will dissolve over the fire, and here is yonr jam ready for use as soon as cold. No sugar needed; there is sufficient sugar in the concentrated fruit. This is a process not known to the writer, but, if successful, would be very economical, and as the peasantry on the Continent of Europe are noted for- their thrift, it is to be hoped that some of our readers will make the experiment and inform us of the results. SOUR MILK. During the hot weather we think I anxiously of the milk. People are always giving you ways and means of keeping milk sweet, hut they seldom give you a use for milk when it has gone sour. Yet there are uses even for sour milk. In France milk is actually set aside to go sour for lots of culinary uses, such as’ rolls, milk soups, and junkets; and for people who are dyspeptic sour milk is actually better than fresh! Of course, it should be made palatable by salt or'sugar, according to preference. It is quite good sprinkled with castorsugar and cinnamon. For anyone with poultry sour milk is a good thing. Hens just love it mixed with their food, and it has a splendid effect both on their health and their eggs. Then, as a polish for leather goods, sour milk cannot be beaten, and especially for patent leather boots. Get a chamois leather to rub with, and the result will be a joyful surprise. As a freckle-remover, a complexionrestorer, or a sunburn-easer, it is invaluable. Arc your hands chapped, your skinroughened P Apply sour milk to the spot and all will be well. You need not fear to overdo it. Apply the sour milk freely with a nice soft rag and allow it to - stay on for ten minutes, and then gently rub it off and in.i' CALM LADY ASTOR. SPONSORS LIKE NEEYOUS SCHOOLBOYS. Lady Aster’s first day in the House of Common’s was a personal triumph for her. When she was waiting to go up to the table of the House before her introduction she was so calmly serene as to make the Premier and Mr Balfour, heir sponsors, look like nervous schoolboys. Her arrival was witnessed by the largest number of women who have ever come to the House of Commons. During the morning they lined up for seats, and by the time the House met there were 200 or 300 in the Central Hall waiting for admission—they had alleady filled the galleries when Lady Astor was introduced. Finding there was no chance of admission, many - of them hurried round to Palace Yard to see her arrive. The precincts were crowded with women, who gave her a shrill feminine ovation. During the evening Lady Astor was introduced to many people at .-the House, and was taken round by Sir George Younger, Sir Auckland Geddes, Mr Eyres-Monse.li, and other members. Many -of her friends came to visit her in the lobby, and .there were many inquiries for "Our Nancy,” which is the name under which she seems destined to be’ known by her intimate friends. Later in the evening she gave a small dinner party to her friends at the House, and stayed to take part in her first division on Prize Bonds.

SNUB FOR “CONCHIES.” . “The only message I can send your meeting is this: that the conscientious objectors, having saved their skins, can afford to refrain from heroic attitudes, and will show a seemly gratitude to the dead by working as hard as they can for that world settlement which the overthrow of aggressive German militarism has made possible.” So wrote Mr H. G. Wells, the novelist, to a convention of the No-Conscription Fellowship held in London. Among others, who sent messages was He it Robert Pohl, described as “founder of the German Union of Resistors to Wav Service.” He stated that he lived in Bradford until he was interned in the Isle of Man in 1918. “You will be pleased to learn,” he wrote, “that this union is the direct outcome of tlie British C-0. movement, the tragic but magnificent story of which it was my privilege to brinsr to Germany.” One delegate caused much laughter by saying, " Isupport the pacifist policy, and I support it forcibly—l mean vigorously.” RETURN OF PRINCE OF WALES. JOYOUS FAMILY KISSES. With that punctuality which is the politeness of princes, the Prince of Wales arrived in Loudon from his travels in Canada and the United State* exactly at 1 o’clock on the afternoon of Monday, December 1. He was standing up as his train ran into Victoria Station, and was on the platform the moment it stopped—a slim, boyish, fair-haired figure wearing the monkey jacket of a captain, R.N., and a sword.

The King, : : n admiral’s uniform, stepped forward to meet him. Having bowed very low, the Prince stood up, shook hands with his father, and kissed him. To the Queen he also bowed before kissing her on both cheeks, and then very affectionately he greeted 'Queen Alexandra and Princess Mary. It was a happy, unaffected family meeting, made doubly charming by the obviously spontaneous delight of the Prince at being home again. Ha appeared to be rather flushed and just a little bit embarrassed by the later proceedings. Practically the whole of the Cabinet had to be shaken hands with, the guard of honour mounted* by the Welsh Guards had to be inspected, and a small army of determined photographers to be faced. Altogether the Prince of Wales must have shaken hands with fully 50 people before he was free to step into the open carriage in which he drove away.

KISSINC CUSTOM. HIGHLAND SALUTES IN CHURCH. The practice of kissing between Highlanders who are communicants of the same Church was discussed by Lord Sands in the Court of Session, Edinburgh, in granting a divorce decree to a Stormeway (Hebrides) fisherman. His lordship. thought it had been proved that the co-respondent had not visited the respondent very late at night and kissed her both when alone and before her children. That would have been conclusive proof had not both been communists-in the United Eroe Church. There was evidence that there was a certain practice of kissing between communicants, though in deference, probably to British ideas the salutation seemed to j>ass only, between persons of opposite sexes. "STARTLING” PRACTICE. The custom seemed soniewhat startling, but it was explained by the fact that it had been the practice for only a mere handful of the adherents of the Church to take part in Hie Communion, due largely to mistranslation, or harsh of the passage in Scripture which seemed to make damnation the penalty of unworthy participants. With that fear before them it was not remarkable that pious and reverent people shrank from participation in Communion, and that it was only when the lusts of tiro tlesh had faded and the assurance of personal grace had become a settled conviction that a few elderly people ventured to approach the table. Since th-e split in the Free Church in 1900 the section that adhered to the United Free Church had tended to become much more like their brethren in the,south, and that had manifested itself, among other ways, in making younger persons become communicants. That caused an awkward complication as regarded the kissing customIt might be all very well with elderly saints to greet one another with a chaste, Oriental religious salute, but it was a different matter when it came to young married women being promiscuously kissed by casual male acquaintances who happened to be fellow-com-municants. That was accordingly viewed with disapproval by many, but still to a certain extent the custom persisted, isaid his lordship. In the case before him the co-respondent had put his arms round the respondent, and there was no justification in religious custom for that extension of tne embranoe.