Tuesday, 29 October 2013

17 April 1880 - Answers to Correspondents - Housekeeping



EMMELINE H.R.- Could you not take some lessons from a good ironer. You will find that practice is the chief thing.

A.K. OSBORNE – You should not have tried two such different methods with your mahogany table. Have the varnish scraped off, and apply a good polich such as is sold for the cleaning of dining room furniture.

J.U.T. – We do not understand what difficulty there can be in repainting your bedstead.

DAISY – 1. Wash the crewel-work in bran-water. 2. We have no recipe by which you could remove marking-ink from linen, without destroying the material.

M.S.T. – To remove stains from white marble. Mix common whitening to a paste with warm water, in which you have first dissolved a piece of soda the size of a filbert. Rub the stains well with this on a piece of clean flannel, wash off with Hudson’s soap powder and water. If this does not remove the marks, leave the paste on the stains for twenty-four hours, then wash off as above directed, and polish well with a soft duster or silk handkerchief.

DAISY J – Stains for deal may be purchased at any oil shop.

F.G.E. – Keep no food in your bedroom, and the mice will probably desert it. If you kept a scrap of toasted cheese on your bed, very likely the mice would manage to climb up there, but we do not think they would bite you (as you seem to apprehend) when they had the choice of eating the cheese. We never heard that the bite of a mouse was fatal.

USEFUL – In spite of the style of your grammar, as exemplified on your post-card, we commend your desire to be useful. To “make your collars and cuffs look like new”, after you have washed them yourself, try stirring the starch when boiling with a wax candle.

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