Domestic

New Zealand Tablet, 20 July 1911, Page 1377

Domestic

By ‘ Maureen.’

How to Treat a Hat When Wet. Should you bo unfortunate enough to be caught unprotected in a heavy shower and return home with your best hat a mass of drooping roses, chiffon, and ribbon, do not be dismayed, but give the hat this treatment: Shake the hat well, suspend it from the chandelier or other convenient place, upside down, and leave it till quite dry. The flowers, trimming, etc., will dry in an upright position, and the hat itself may look fresher for its impromptu bath. A Cleaner’s Secret. A cleaner gave away enough of his secrets for renovating materials to prove very valuable to one woman. If benzoline, naphtha, or benzine is the cleaning fluid, the amateur cleaner finds often that the last state of the cloth is worse than the first. Around the spot will be a ring of discoloration that marks the stain more thoroughly than did the original spot. To prevent this the fabric should be cleaned with a piece of the same material, the cloth rubbed lengthwise, and with the weave. Continue rubbing until the material is perfectly dry. If these directions are safely followed it is safe to clean the most delicate materials. When Screws are Tight. If one is annoyed by the top of a fountain pen or the screwed-on lid of a box sticking too tightly, a simple device wall remedy the trouble. Take a strong elastic and wrap it several times around the offending article. This will give a grip equal to a pair of pincers yet without possibility of hurt to the pen. The cork of a bottle may be removed easily in the same way, even after it has stuck so long and so fast that breaking it seemed the only possible way to get at the contents. If no elastic is at hand a string or a dampened piece of strong yellow paper used in the same way will often answer the same purpose. Care of the Eyes. Too strong a light is as great an evil as one too dim, and when reading, writing, or sewing, the light, whether natural or artificial, should come from the left. It should never fall full in the face, but upon the work. Daylight is best when'not sifted through curtains, and artificial light should be clear, steady, soft, and white. The craze for coloured lamp shades has injured many eyes. The eyes should never be steadily employed by artificial light, especially after a day hard use; and to strain them in fading twilight or by reading in cars or trains is an injurious practice. Forced Feeding. •ii To foice anyone to eat or rest against his wish or will is absurd and injurious. In health this is true, but .in disease it does not always hold. Instincts and appetites may be blunted or perverted ; many persons do not know how to interpret their needs correctly. Delicate persons who require to be well nourished often experience a sick, weak feeling when they need food in lieu of the vigorous craving felt by the healthy. If you ask such a one if he is hungry, let him come within eight or smell of cooking operations or seat him at a table supplied with coarse abundance; he is revolted. But bring him a dainty lunch and tell him he must eat, and he will do so with pleasure and benefit. There are persons in whom appetite must be cultivated, and digestive power must be built up by a sort of forcing process The plethoric man, with plenty of red blood corpuscles, may be safely starved to an appetite, but the delicate, anaemic patient must be alternately coaxed and driven The withholding of food in such cases may be followed by intense weakness, cyncope, collapse but it does not call out healthy appetite.