WASHING DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1940, Page 8

WASHING DAY

CUSTOMS OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. ’

Wash-day is wash-day the world over, and there's no getting away from it. for every housewife, whatever her nationality, has her washing to do. In these days of modern laboursaving methods we do not have to worry about getting our clothes white and doing a lot of scrubbing and cleaning over the wash-tub. but each country has its special way of tackling the week's wash.

In South Africa, for instance, the “wash-girl” belongs to a race apart, and is proud to call herself by that name. She arrives punctually on your doorstep every Monday morning to spend the day eating, talking and washing. Wet or fine, hail or shine, the buxom black "wash-girl” comes along to help you, and she'll keep you entertained the whole day through with gossipy items about herself and her friends. But a more hard-working help at the wash-tub it would be hard to find!

Many housewives in Scandinavian countries, like Norway and Sweden, would never dream .of sending their washing “out.” The working peasant woman of these countries, and also of Brittany in France, has stacks and stacks of linen to wash which she takes to the water’s edge, if she lives near a stream, and tackles it there, for in Brittany the river may run close to your back-door, and it's a simple matter to take your washing outside and lay the clothes to dry on the cobble stones. In fact, the women of many lands still wash their clothes out of doors, especially out East. In some of these countries the methods are like those of ancient Rome where the clothes were first washed in vats, then trodden under-foot—-or “tramped” as it is called, before being laid out to dry in the sun.

Buxom lassies in the Highlands of Scotland always used to tramp the blankets out of doors every time I hey were washed, and this was made a kind of “high-day and holiday.” Ihe Annual Blanket-washing. In some remote parts of the Highlands this tramping is still carried out. but not like it used to be when all the dirty woollen garments were carried in great tubs at spring-clean-ing time or in the summer to the burnside, soused in boiling soda water and trampled down in the tubs with bare, shapely legs. In Spain the women use stran'gelooking flat bowls for washing the clothes in. Wood-ashes are put into the water to make them white and the clothes are left until next day before being hung out to dry on the flat roofs of the houses. In Italy, each block of houses has a communal tank in the backyard in which the clothes are, washed every Monday, neighbours rubbing side by side with large bars of soap. MEN DO THE WASHING. The men do the washing in some countries. In some parts of India the work is always entrusted to “the washerman” and his assistant, and, of

course, in China, laundry is almost a national trade with the menfolk. It is interesting to discover the different kinds of garments our ancestors used to wash years ago, compared with the things we have to tackle today:

A “washing-tally” of the time of Charles I shows us that the following items were entered by some housewife for the wash-tub: Ruffles 3, bandes 1. cuffes 4, handkerchers, capps 2. shirtes 6. halfshirtes 12, boothose 10, topps 11, sockes, sheets 12, pillowberes 9, tableclothes 5, napkins 8, towels 7. Towels do not appear to have been in use at all periods, however. In fact, it’s quite likely that wash-days in the time of the Tudors and Stuarts were few and far between. Dyeing was far more often done than washing. There were so many heavy rich silk and woollen garments that underclothes were seldom worn, if ever. The possession of a linen shirt was a matter of note.

Not until the Tudors were nightgowns worn, and these were mostly of silk or velvet so that washing was not necessary! Ann Boleyn’s nightdress was made of heavy black satin, bound with black taffeta and edged with velvet. Queen Elizabeth’s was of black velvet lined with fur and trimmed with lace. In those days they evidently believed in warmth in nightclothes. Not until the days of the plum]) Queen Anne did nightdresses come into their own, but they were still mostly of velvet, with accompanying caps.

They knew of starching in those days, for the ruffles and bands and cuffs of the gentlemen were starched to stand up stiff.

But handkerchiefs were then costly articles. In Elizabeth's time they were laced round with gold and sometimes worn as favours in hats of fond swains. On the washing-tally they came under the heading of “napkins.” “Pillowberes,” were, of course, pil-low-cases. “Tops” were the full lace frills worn around the boot tops of the Cavaliers —and what a lot of “getting-up” they required on the part of the laundress!

“Shirts” were worn by both men and women next to the skin, generally made of holland or linen, to which ruffs, wrist-bands, cuffs of lace were attached.