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- thosethat0
450. Hints for Home Comfort.
i. Eat slowly and you will not over-eat.
ii. Keeping the feet warm will prevent headaches.
iii. Late at breakfast - hurried for dinner - cross at tea.
iv. A short needle makes the most expedition in plain sewing.
v. Between husband and wife little attentions beget much love.
vi. Always lay your table neatly, whether you have company or not.
vii. Put your balls or reels of cotton into little bags, leaving the ends out.
viii. Whatever you may choose to give away, always be sure to keep your temper.
ix. Dirty windows speak to the passer-by of the negligence of the inmates.
x. In cold weather a leg of mutton improved by being hung three, four or five weeks.
xi. When meat is hanging, change its position frequently, to equally distribute the juice.
xii. There is much more injury done by admitting visitors to invalids than is generally supposed.
xiii. Matches, out of the reach of children, should be kept in every bedroom. They are cheap enough.
xiv. Apple and suet dumplings are lighter when boiled in a net than a cloth. Scum the pot well.
xv. When chamber towels get thin in the middle, cut them in two, sew the selvages together, and hem the sides.
xvi. When you are particular in wishing to have precisely what you want from a butcher's, go and purchase it yourself.
xvii. One flannel petticoat will wear nearly as long as two, if turned behind part before, when the front begins to wear thin.
xviii. People in general are not aware how very essential to the health of the inmates is the free admission of light into their houses.
xix. When you dry salt for the table, do not place it in the salt-cells until it is cold, otherwise it will harden into a lump.
xx. Never put away plate, knives and forks, &c., or great inconvenience will arise when the articles are wanted.
xxi. Feather beds should be opened every third year, the ticking well dusted, soaped, and waxed, the feathers dressed and returned.
xxii. Persons of defective sight, when threading a needle, should hold it over something white, by which the sight will be assisted.
xxiii. In mending sheets and shirts, put the pieces sufficiently large, or in the first washing the thin parts give way, and the work is all undone.
xxiv. Reading by candle-light, place the candle behind you, that the rays may pass over your shoulder on to the book. This will relieve the eyes.
xxv. A wire fire-guard, for each fireplace in a house, costs little, and greatly diminished the risk to life and property. Fix them before going to bed.
xxvi. In winter, get the work forward by daylight, to prevent running about with candles. Thus you escape grease spots, and risks of fire.
xxvii. Be much at pains to keep your children's feet dry and warm. Don't bury their bodies in heavy flannels and wools, and leave their knees and legs naked.
xxviii. Apples and pears, cut into quarters and stripped on the rind, baked with a little water and sugar, and eaten with boiled rice, are capital food for children.
xxix. A leather strap, with a buckle to fasten, is much more commodious than a cord for a box in general use for short distances; cording and uncording is a tedious job.
xxx. After washing, overlook linen, and stitch on buttons, hooks and eyes, &c.; for this purpose keep a "housewife's friend," full of miscellaneous threads, cottons, buttons, hooks, &c.
xxxi. For ventilation open your windows both at top and bottom. The fresh air rushes in one way, while the foul air makes its exit the other. This is letting in your friend and expelling your enemy.
xxxii. There is not any real economy in purchasing cheap calico for gentlemen's night-shirts. Cheap calico soon wears into holes, and becomes discoloured in washing.
xxxiii. Sitting to sew by candle-light at a table with a dark cloth on it is injurious to the eyesight. When no other remedy presents itself, put a sheet of white paper before you.
xxxiv. Persons very commonly complain of indigestion: how can it be wondered at, when they seem, by their habit of swallowing their food wholesale, to forget for what purpose they are provided with teeth?
xxxv. Never allow your servants to put wiped knives on your table, for, generally speaking, you may see that they have been wiped with a dirty cloth. If a knife is brightly cleaned, they are compelled to use a clean cloth.
xxxvi. There is not anything gained in economy by having very young and inexperienced servants at low wages; they break, waste, and destroy more than an equivalent for higher wages, setting aside comfort and respectability.
xxxvii. No article in dress tarnishes so readily as black crape trimmings, and few things injure it more than damp; therefore, to preserve its beauty on bonnets, a lady in nice mourning should in her evening walks, at all seasons of the year, take as her companion an old parasol to shade her crape.