Enquire Within Upon Everything Part 57

x. In cold weather a leg of mutton improves by being hung three, four, or five weeks.

xi. When meat is hanging, change its position frequently, to equally distribute the juices.

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. Skim the pot well.

xv. When sheets or chamber towels get thin in the middle, cut them in two, sew the selvedges together, and hem the sides.

xvi. When you are particular in wis.h.i.+ng to have precisely what you want from a butcher, go and buy it yourself.

xvii. A flannel petticoat will wear as nearly as long again, if turned hind 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 cellars until it is cold, otherwise it will harden into a lump.

xx. Never put away plate, knives and forks, &c., uncleaned, 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 a.s.sisted.

xxiii. In mending sheets and s.h.i.+rts, put in pieces sufficiently large, or in the first was.h.i.+ng the thin parts give way, and the work done is of no avail.

xxiv. When reading by candle-light, place the candle behind you, that the rays may pa.s.s over your shoulder on to the book.

This will relieve the eyes.

xxv. A wire fire-guard, for each fire-place in a house, costs little, and greatly diminishes 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 at night with candles. Thus you escape grease spots, and risks of fire.

xxvii. Be at much pains to keep your children's feet dry and warm.

Don't bury their bodies in heavy flannels and wools, and leave their arms and legs naked.

xxviii. Apples and pears, cut into quarters and stripped of 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.

x.x.x. After was.h.i.+ng, overlook linen, and st.i.tch on b.u.t.tons, hooks and eyes, &c.; for this purpose keep a "house-wife's friend," full of miscellaneous threads, cottons, b.u.t.tons: hooks, &c.

x.x.xi. For ventilation open your windows both at top and bottom.

The fresh air rushed in one way, while the foul escapes the other. This is letting in your friend and expelling your enemy.

x.x.xii. There is not any real economy in purchasing cheap calico for night-s.h.i.+rts. Cheap calico soon wears into holes, and becomes discoloured in was.h.i.+ng.

x.x.xiii. 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 sheel of white paper before you.

x.x.xiv. 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.

x.x.xv. Never allow your servants to put wiped knives on your table, for, generally speaking, you may see that that have been wiped with a dirty cloth. If a knife is brightly cleaned, they are compelled to use a clean cloth.

x.x.xvi. There is not anything gained in economy by having very young and inexperienced servants at low wages; the cost of what they break, waste, and destroy, is more than an equivalent for higher wages, setting aside comfort and respectability.

x.x.xvii. No article in dress tarnishes so readily as black c.r.a.pe tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, 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 c.r.a.pe.

[GUARD THE FOOT, AND THE HEAD WILL SELDOM HARM.]

475. Domestic Pharmacopoeia.

In compiling this part of our hints, we have endeavoured to supply that kind of information which is so often wanted in the time of need, and cannot be obtained when a medical man or a druggist is not near.

The doses are all fixed for adults, unless otherwise specified. The various remedies are arranged in sections, according to their uses, as being more easy for reference,

476. Collyria, or Eye Washes

477. Alum.

Dissolve half a drachm of alum in eight ounces (half a pint) of water.

_Use_ as astringent wash. When twice as much alum and only half the quant.i.ty of water are used, it acts as a discutient, but not as an eye-water.

_Note_ that this and the following washes are for _outward application_ only.

478. Common.

Add half an ounce of diluted acetic acid to three ounces of decoction of poppy heads.

_Use_ as anodyne wash.

479. Compound Alum.

Dissolve alum and white vitriol, of each one drachm, in one pint of water, and filter through paper.

_Use_ as astringent wash.

480. Zinc and Lead.

Dissolve white vitriol and acetate of lead, of each seven grains, in four ounces of elder-flower water; add one drachm of laudanum (tincture of opium), and the same quant.i.ty of spirit of camphor, then strain.

_Use_ as detergent wash.