FACTS FOR HOUSEKEEPERS.

Kumara Times, Issue 1519, 10 August 1881, Page 2

FACTS FOR HOUSEKEEPERS.

Parsly eaten with vinegar will remove the unpleasant effects of eating onions. Cakes, puddings, &c., are improved by making the currants, sugar, and tiour hot before using them. Lamp shades of ground glass should be cleaned with soap or pearl ash; these will not injure or discolor them. Earthy mould should never be washed from potatoes, carrots, or other roots, until immediately before they are cooked. White satin shoes may be cleaned by rubbing them with blue and stone flannel, and afterwards cleaning them with bread. ° Cold boiled potatoes used as soap will clean the hands, and keep the skin soft and healthy. Those not overboiled are the best. Charcoal powder is good for polishing knives without destroying the blades. It is also a good tooth powder when finely pulverised. Tea-leaves, used for keeping down the dust when sweeping carpets, are apt to stain light colors ; salt is best in the winter, and new-mown hay in the summer. Potato-water in which potatoes have been sex-aped, the water being allowed

io settle, and afterwards strained, is good for. sponging dirt out of silk;

Straw matting may be dialled with a large coarse cloth, dipped in salt arid water, arid then wiped dry. Dhe salt prevents the straw from turning yellow. Buttermilk is excellent for cleaning Sponges. Steep the sponge in the milk for some hours, then squeeze it out, arid wash it in cold water. Lime juice is also good. A piece of linen cloth dipped io turpentine arid wrapped round the toe On which a soft corn is situated Will give belief, and after a feW days the corn Will disappear. Steak should be broiled without salt. Salt draws the juices in cooking \ it is durable to keep these if possible. Cook 1 oVer'a hot fire, turning frequently, searing both sides. Place on a platter j halt and pepper to taste. The white of an egg, into which a Siece of alum about the size of a walnut, as been steWed Until it forms a Jelly, is a capital remedy for sprains. It should be laid over the sprain under a piece of lint, and be changed as often as it becomes dry. ' A lump of fresh quicklime, the size of a walnut, dropped into a pint of water and allowed to stand all night, the water then being poured off from the sediment and mixed with a quarter of a pint of the best vinegar, forms a good wash for scurf in the headi It is to be applied to the roots of the hair.