Household Hints.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 117, 21 December 1908, Page 3

Household Hints.

A weak solution of chloride of lime and water applied by means of a small brush will remove traces of ordinary writing ink from paper. When the mark has disappeared, wash several times with clean, cold water, drying between each application with clean, white blotting paper. Brass lacquered bedsteads should 011 no account be polished with metal polish, as the acid it contains is liable to destroy the lacquer. Wash your bedsteads with plain soap and hot water, and then rub well with a dry chamois leather. Bedsteads treated in this way retain their brightness for many years.

A little vinegar added to the water in which fish is boiled makes it more digestible, but it should not be added to the water in which salmon or trout is boiled, as it spoils the delicate colour. Poached eggs are likewise more easy of digestion if a little vinegar is added to the boiling water. An excellent polish for reviving an old black straw hat is made by adding half an oz. of powdered black sealing wax to four tablespoonsful of spirit of wine, and leaving it in a warm place until the wax is dissolved. Brush the hat to remove the dust, and apply the polish with a soft brush.

Aluminium articles should be cleaned with whitening, ihoistened to a paste with methylated Spirit, and when dry polished with a soft cloth. Vinegar should on no account be used in cleaning aluminium, nor should vinegar ever be boiled in an aluminium vessel, since the acid acts on the surface, so that it is impossible to keep it bright. The best time to kill old hens or to sell them to dealers for killing, is just as they begin to moult, for they will then have ceased laying and yet will not have lost condition. But if they are allowed to run for two or three weeks after the moult has set in, they become thin and scraggy, and are of very little use for eating. It is not always possible to know by the appearance of fowls as they run about the yard whether moulting has begun or not; but the signs, other than the actual casting of the feathers, by which a hen in moult may be recognised, are mopishness, loss of appetite, and paleness of head and comb. If the brids are examined while on the roost, those moulting can be detected, because their crops will be only half full, whilst hens which are in full lay, and have not begun to moult, will have full crops at roosting time. To keep rooms cool in hot weather, when the windows are exposed to a hot sun, an excellent method is to cover the glass with the following mixture: —Water, six pints; whitening, three pints; blue colour in powder, three-fifths of a pint; linseed oil, one pint. The mixture can easily be washed off the glass before winter. To remove finger marks from door knobs and locks, use pure soap and old cheesecloth.

Fish arescailed and fowls are plucked more quickly if dipped in boiling water for an instant. To clean windows use warm water and a little borax. Wipe dry, and polish with crumpled newspapers. If a little butter be rubbed round the spout of a teapot, it will prevent the tea from trickling down when it is poured out. Have a small horse-shoe magnet fastened to the end of a tape or ribbon of sufficient, length, so that it can be dropped to the floor to pick up scissors and needic.s. For scalds, an application of glycerine is most useful. Strips of linen or lint, well soaked in glycerine, and gently laid over the scalded skin immediately after the accident, will afford relief from pain and has been a cure.

It is not generally known that wringing out a cloth in hot water, and wiping the furniture, before putting on furniture cream, will result in a very high polish that will not finger mark.