Thursday 18 February 2016

31 January 1880 - Answers to Correspondents - Housekeeping

ANXIOUS - Certainly you need not mind assisting in the house, by dusting the drawing-room, attending to the lamps, and performing any duties within your strength. If you are to grow into a useful and helpful woman, you must begin your training with such things as these, and, in time the whole routine and ruling of the household will be learnt, without trouble to yourself, by constant training.

BROWNIE - The best way of taking off rust is to rub the steel with rotten stone and oil. This will also generally restore the polish.

MARY - Mix a teaspoonful of ammonia with a quart of water; it will extract all the grease from woollen stuffs, but it will not take out stains.

AT HOME  Why not have all your floors stained and varnished, if you cannot manage the turpentine and beeswax - although we do not know what your difficulty can be. We find it simple enough. If the floors be varnished, they can be washed over, at any time, with cold water, and rubbed dry with a coarse rubber. Otherwise, as a rule, they will only require dusting, like the rest of the room, using first a damp duster to take up the particles of dust, and then a dry one. Do not forget that dust is matter, and if you dry-dust it away, without removing it entirely, it only flies to some other place, and settles there instead.

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