HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1919, Page 9

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

If eggs are packed in salt they TfiH toep for a long time. Add a little blue to the! water yon Wash mirrors in and it will keep the flies from marking them.

To prevent any disagreeable smell when boiling greens, put a piece of pars-Ifc-y in to boil with them.

If a thin baking sheet be placed over the large, gas ring several irons can be heated simultaneously. Add a little washing blue to the soap and water in which glassware is being washed. This will make it nice and clear and sparkling. To prevent grease splashing on the stove when cooking, sprinkle a little salt at the bottom of the pan.

Sal-ammoniac will clean a furred kettle. Fill the kettle with cold water, add a little sal-ammoniac to it, and boil. All the fur will dissolve. Well rinse the kettle afterwards.

Fruit stains are quite easily removed from linen if the clotli is held over a basin of hot water made milky with good soap poured through the stain. When baking fruit pies or tarts, before putting in the fruit brush over the lining of pastry with milk. This causes the flour to cling together and the juice will not run out.

To render house shoes noiseless, cut a piece of dark felt or thick cloth to the shape of the heel of the shoe, rub a little seccotine on the heel and press the felt to it. This is better than a rubber heel for house wear.

New patent leather shoes, rubbed all over with a little vaseline put on with a piece of soft flannel, and polished, will never crack. Patent leather should be kept in a warm, dry place, and should not be worn on wet days. Matting will look all the brighter if it is washed with salt and water. Use about a pint of salt in half a pail of water, and wash over the matting quickly, not allowing the wet to sink in too much. Dry it quickly with a soft cloth.

Cayenne pepper is excellent to rid cupboards of mice. The floor should be gone over carefully, and each hole stopped up with a piece of rag dipped in water and then in cayenne pepper.

To prevent a copper from iron-mould-ing the clothes empty the copper while It is hot, and then rub all over the insiuewith soap. The soap will not bo wasted, as it will make a good lather for washing the next time the copper is used.

To wash brushes and combs, put a teaspoonful of ammonia in a basin of hot water, and dip the brush up and down in it, letting the comb remain in the water for a few minutes. In this way all the grease will disappear, and after rinsing in cold water both brushes and combs will be perfectly clean. ■ People often find it difficult to rid the room of the smell of cooking. One way is to pour a few drops of oil of lavender into a pint of boiling water, open the windows, and carry the water round the room in a hnndbasin. The odour of cooking soon disappears.

Rub the stove over while hot with a newspaper dipped in a little; soot, and easily, rub thein with a piece of lem«m before applying the blacklead, aud they will polisli brilliantly. To clean brass flower-pots or trays tub them with a piece of lemon, then pour boiling water over them, and finally polish with a soft cloth. Ebonv-backed Brushes.—Before washing ebony-bucked brushes smear a little really good vaseline over the backs. Then, if the ammonia or soda and water in which they nse washed touches them, it will not harm' the ebony. The vaseline must afterwards be' carefully removed, and the back polished with a succession of clean, dry cloths. Very few people seem to know that mint grows well in water. Fill a jar with water, and place the. mint in it, and you will find that the shoots will grow continually. When picking the mint, the sprigs from the top should be taken in preference to those growing lower down.

It is almost impossible to clean a white tagel- straw hat satisfactorily. After cleaning, the diiiorence between the parts that were, covered by trimming and the uncovered parts is always noticeable, but these hats take a good hat-dye well, and if a dark dye is used the color will be even. If the hat is too shiny when finished, it may be dulled by brushing it lightly with methylated spirits.

. Carpets will get shabby looking, however well they are cleaned. Next time you find yours looking faded and old, take it up and beat it well. Lay it down again and sponge it, a small piece at a time, with hot water to which a good handful of kitchen salt has been added. If you cannot use a sponge, work with" a pad of stuff that is not at all fluffy. Dry the carpet by rubbing it firmly.

To keep cheese, wrap it in a clean, fresh ..cloth that has been wet in vinegar, and then wrung out aa dry as possible; enclose in a paper bag and put in a dry place. If preserved in this manner, the cheese will not dry up or mould for a long time.

A fuel used very much in France, and particularly in towns, is composed of little egg-shaped pieces of compressed coal dust. There is said to be a little tar in their composition and some sawdust. But the '"boulet," of whatever it is made., is a pleasing thing, burning long bright, and giving out considerable tvarmth. A grate well filled with boulets, with a little of their own ash over them, it is said, burn for twelve hours, which must be very convenient for those who go out for a long time. They cost half a crown a hundred-weight; but they are far cheaper to burn than coal. They are lighted easily; but that is partly owing to the practical French way of setting firewood with the ends dipped in resin.

New walking shoes often blister the heels of the wearer by slipping a little with the movement of the foot. To prevent this, rub the inside of the shoes at the heel with soap just before putting them on. "

The housing problem is becoming desperately acute in Masterton, and married men are daily leaving the town because they cannot find anywhere to live. The Masterton agent for the workers' dwellings informed an Age reporter that he was besieged with workmen anxious to secure homes. Only that day a man had com? to his office and almost gone on his knees in his pleadings to be provided with a home. The man had been in hospital for 12 months, and was anxious to secure a home so that he could get to work again. " He had scoured the town, with fruitless results, as dozens of others were doing daily