BROOM IN HAND.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 405, 12 April 1937, Page 3

BROOM IN HAND.

PARISIAN HOUSEKEEPING. Suspicious of Gadgets. The plaster rebel of a I ousewife, broom in hand, is a fitting figure for the doorway of the Grand Palais in Paris, where the Housewives’ Salon is now open. It is so typically French, says an overseas j jurnal. Real housewives and good servants are suspicious of all such laboursaving. devic.es rs vacuum cleaners and the hundreds of queer little gadgets , that do duty jn the kitebep, where once were only knives, forks and spoons. Of course, demonstrations are -watched and sales are made, hut only the refiigerator among modern kitchen equipment can be said to have made really rapid headway with the private coaks and careful housewives of France generally. There are so many new ways of washing clothes and dishes that the working Paripienne watches them -in operation, open-mouthed and rather doubtfully, mostly to go home and do the same things, and very creditably, too, with no machine, but some soap and water and two very tapable hands. Processes enclosed within an enamel or chromium box, or perhaps a mysterious bag, make but slow progress with the French temperament.

A return to homelier ways in lighting and furnishing is superseding the more stark and cold decorations of the Paris fiats of the last year or two. Lessons in lighting have not been learned to be cast away again, and central and electric heating are too convenient to be discarded, but wooden chairs are replacing chromium-plated tubular frames, lovely shades of green, gold and brown are replacing the flat beiges and browns of former dining rooms, blue and rose bedrooms are coming back, and here and there you may find a picture on a wall once more. The rustic vogue for Normandy check curtains and chimney corners is no longer right, though there are ail sorts of “homely” appointments tor the table, wooden bowls, plates, dishes on coloured mats or tablecloths and quaint pottery of all kinds.

With Cold —Goldsmith. More Cold —Landor. Even our poets seems to have encountered colds. In future —avoid all reference to coughs, colds, sore throats and other bronchial ailments —keep Baxter’s Lung Preserver handy! “Baxter’s” is the best cough remedy—be sure it’s. “Baxter’s.” 1/6, 2/6, 4/6, all chemists ani stores.