AN AID TO WASHING.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 818, 16 May 1910, Page 3

AN AID TO WASHING.

housekeepers, especially those »ho pin their faith to the customs and ideas of their forbears, are habitually conservative to n degree, .says an Australian writer. They are quick to condemn all innovations, and even scientific-ally-proved methods are ' contemptuously classed as "new-fangled" and valueless. Especially in the matter of laundry are the old-fashioned prejudices mostly obeervable, and, it must be admitted that, to some degree, there is, or rather was, much in favour of the belief that the yaxious methods of washing clothes with chemicals, or by using ' machines, were to bo despised. However, in an article on this subject in a recent issue of the British "Lancet," it is stated that

bleaches can bo legitimately used for the purpose of washing clothes without any harm whatever, as long as they are -■ scientifically employed. The blanie so often cast on the laundries because garraonts fall quickly into holes it is said to be mainly because' of the faulty fabric itself. Nowadays,,it is common enough to find showy ready-made goods, dependent on mineral or other foreign substances, which form, so to speak, the ekeleton of the flimsy material. Should the Ekeleton yield, as it is likely'to do, under the bland influences of soap aud water, the. fabric, having lost its "bones," breaks into holos, and the laundress is denounced for having used corrosives or a tearing machine. One of the latest applications of science in aid of the weekly wash, and to which those who disparage soda, chloride of lime, or even borax, can raise no objections, is the use of diastase of malt to melt out the starch in solid starched goods before washing. This substance has the power of rapidly liquefying starch, converting it into soluble dertnn, and ultimately malt sugar, ■which is easily washed out of the fabric.