SPRING CLEANING.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18140, 3 October 1930, Page 5

SPRING CLEANING.

SOME IDEAS ON IT. Some fortunate ones have put it behind them, and can smile the smile, of self-complacency upon their su ters who are yet in the throes of the annual event 1 , „ In these modern times the labouisaving gadgets and smaller houses, 0 simplified housekeeping and plain furnishing the “ Event ” has become—comparatively—negligible, in man: cases hardly worth the dignity of being called spring cleaning. As a journalist recently explained, in Victorian times our houses became so dirty that we were compelled to indulge in a veritable spring-cleaning orgy. It was not possible to keep our homes with their frills and oddments, their anti-macassars and übiquitous draperies, their valances and their Venetian blinds, their hundred and one household gods displayed on sideboard, mantelpiece, or whatnot clean. Sheer self-defence against the accumualted dust and grime which the first spring sunshine mercilessly revealed, forced women, willy-nilly, to 11 buckle to 11 and attack the enemy. The weekly turnout of necessity was hopelessly inadequate. In those “ good old days ” the spring offensive was indeed a thing of terror. Nowadays we are able to maintain a state of cleanliness within our homes, not merely to achieve it annually. Nevertheless, with the coming of the sunshine, with the fresh garments on field and hedgerow, we like to make our homes a trifle brighter, to match the freshness of Nature.

Spring is here, in our hearts, in our fields, in our gardens, and its spirit taking hold upon us causes us to give our tired-looking woodwork a fresh coat of paint, to substitute new curtains for our faded ones; in fact, to bring inside our homes something of the glory which we have learned ?fom Nature. We try to make our homes correspond with the gay vesture of tree and shrub. And in our zeal -we are apt to neglect our own personal appearance—sometimes our health! Even the modern modified activity we call “spring-cleaning" can be exhausting and absorbing. We are prone to concentrate too greatly upon it—to let our home pride obsess us—it can do that at 4ny time! And the result? Tired limbs and weary faces! What is the use of sinking down exhausted in the newly-covered chair to gaze approvingly on shining oak or mahogany if the eyes themselves lack lustre ? We may gain a good deal of satisfaction from the contemplation of our labours, but often it is a selfish kind of satisfaction. Your man will not look with nearly as much favour as yourself upon your achievement if the cost has been a tired-out wife! He won't thank you for your zealous labours, you may be sure! It is all very well for a woman to take pride in her home, but let her beware lest that very pride prove her undoing. Your husband married you—not the house or the furniture! Don’t you think it unfair to offer him a highlypolished table in exchange for the fresh, radiant woman he married? Keep the house reasonably bright and spotless by all means, but be careful, especially at the spring-cleaning season, that it does not become an obsession, robbing you of your strength and good-looks—may.be (let me whisper it in your ear) even of your man’s love! —Grace Bibby, in the Glasgow Weekly Herald.