Part 52

To make paper-hangers' paste, beat up four pounds of good, white wheat flour (well sifted previously) in sufficient cold water to form a stiff batter. Beat it well in order to take out all lumps, and then add enough cold water to make the mixture of the consistency of pudding batter. To this add about two ounces of well-pounded alum. Pour gently and quickly over the batter boiling water, stirring rapidly at the same time, and when it is seen to lose the white color of the flour, it is cooked and ready. Do not use it, however, while hot, but allow it to cool. Pour about a pint of cold water over the top to prevent a skin from forming. Before using, the paste should be thinned by the addition of cold water.

TO WASH COLORED GARMENTS.

Delicately colored socks and stockings are apt to fade in washing. If they are soaked for a night in a pail of tepid water containing a half pint of turpentine, then wrung out and dried, the colors will "set," and they can afterwards be washed without fading.

For calicoes that fade, put a teaspoonful of sugar of lead into a pailful of water and soak the garment fifteen minutes before washing.

THE MARKING SYSTEM.

Mark all your own personal wardrobe which has to be washed. If this were invariably done, a great deal of property would be saved and a great deal of trouble would be spared. For the sake of saving trouble to others, if for no other reason, all of one's handkerchiefs, collars and underclothing should be plainly and permanently marked. A bottle of indelible ink is cheap, a clean pen still cheaper, and a bright, sunny day or a hot flat-iron will complete the business. Always keep on hand a stick of linen tape, written over its whole length with your name, or the names of your family, ready to be cut off and sewed on to stockings and such other articles as do not afford a good surface on which to mark.

Then there are the paper patterns, of which every mother has a store. On the outside of each, as it is tied up, the name of the pattern should be plainly written. There are the rolls of pieces, which may contain a good deal not apparent from the outside. All these hidden mysteries should be indicated. The winter things, which are wrapped up and put away for summer, and the summer things, which are wrapped up and put away for the winter, should all be in labeled packages, and every packing trunk should have on its lid a complete list of its contents.

_Congregationalist_

TO REMOVE STAINS AND SPOTS.

Children's clothes, table linens, towels, etc., should be thoroughly examined before wetting, as soap-suds, washing-fluids, etc., will fix almost any stain past removal. Many stains will pass away by being simply washed in pure, soft water; or alcohol will remove, before the article has been in soap-suds, many stains; iron mold, mildew, or almost any similar spot, can be taken out by dipping in diluted citric acid; then cover with salt and lay in the bright sun till the stain disappears. If of long standing, it may be necessary to repeat the wetting and the sunlight. Be careful to rinse in several waters as soon as the stain is no longer visible. Ink, fruit, wine, and mildew stains must first be washed in clear, cold water, removing as much of the spots as can be, then mix one teaspoonful of oxalic acid and a half pint of rain-water. Dip the stain in this and wipe off in clear water. Wash at once, if a fabric that will bear washing. A tablespoonful of white currant juice, if any can be had, is even better than lemon. This preparation may be used on the most delicate articles without injury. Shake it up before using it. Mark it "poison," and put it where it will not be meddled with.

OIL STAINS IN SILKS AND OTHER FABRICS.

Benzine is most effectual, not only for silk, but for any other material whatever. It can be procured from any druggist. By simply covering both sides of greased silk with magnesia, and allowing it to remain for a few hours, the oil is absorbed by the powder. Should the first application be insufficient, it may be repeated, and even rubbed in with the hand. Should the silk be Tussah or Indian silk, it will wash.

To remove an acid stain on violet silk: Brush the discoloration with tincture of iodine, then saturate the spot well with a solution of hyposulphite of soda, and dry gradually. This restores the original color perfectly.

Muriatic acid is successfully used for removing ink stains and iron mold on a number of colors which it does not attack.

Sulphurous acid is only employed for whitening undyed goods, straw hats, etc., and for removing the stains of certain fruits on silks and woolens. Sulphurous gas is also used for this purpose, but the liquid gas is safer.

Oxalic acid is used for removing ink and rust stains, and remnants of mud stains, which do not yield to other deterrents. It may also be used for destroying the stains of fruits and astringent juices, and old stains of urine. However, its use is limited to white goods, as it attacks fugitive colors and even light shades of those reputed to be fast. The best method of applying it is to dissolve it in cold or luke-warm water, to let it remain a moment upon the spot, and then rub it with the fingers. Wash out in clear, warm water immediately.

Citric acid serves to revive and brighten certain colors, especially greens and yellows. It restores scarlets which have been turned to a crimson by the action of alkalies. Acetic acid or tartaric acid may be used instead.

Where it is feared that soap may change the color of an article, as, for instance, scarlet hosiery or lilac print, if the garment be not badly soiled, it may be cleansed by washing without soap in water in which pared potatoes have been boiled. This method will also prevent color from running in washing prints.

To prevent blue from running into a white ground, dissolve a teaspoonful of copperas in a pailful of soft water, add a piece of lime the size of an acorn, and soak the garments in this water two hours before washing. To keep colors from running in washing black prints, put a teaspoon of black pepper in the first water.

Salt or beef's gall in the water helps to set black. A tablespoonful of spirits of turpentine to a gallon of water sets most blues, and alum is very efficacious in setting green. Black or very dark calicoes should be stiffened with gum arabic--five cents' worth is enough for a dress. If, however, starch is used, the garment should be turned wrong side out.

A simple way to remove grass stains is to spread butter on them, and lay the article in hot sunshine, or wash in alcohol. Fruit stains upon cloth or the hands may be removed by rubbing with the juice of ripe tomatoes. If applied immediately, powdered starch will also take fruit stains out of table linen. Left on the spot for a few hours, it absorbs every trace of the stain.

For mildew stains or iron rust, mix together soft soap, laundry starch, half as much salt, and the juice of a lemon. Apply to the spots and spread the garment on the grass. Or wet the linen, rub into it white soap, then finely powdered chalk; lay upon the grass and keep damp. Old mildew stains may be removed by rubbing yellow soap on both sides and afterwards laying on, very thick, starch which has been dampened. Rub in well and expose to light and air. There are several effectual methods of removing grease from cloths. First, wet with a linen cloth dipped in chloroform. Second, mix four tablespoonfuls of alcohol with one tablespoonful of salt; shake together until the salt is dissolved and apply with a sponge. Third, wet with weak ammonia water; then lay a thin white blotting or tissue paper over it and iron lightly with an iron not too hot. Fourth, apply a mixture of equal parts of alcohol, gin and ammonia.

Candle grease yields to a warm iron. Place a piece of blotting or other absorbing paper under the absorbing fabric; put a piece of the paper also on the spot, apply the warm iron to the paper and as soon as a spot of grease appears, move the paper and press again until the spot disappears. Lard will remove wagon grease. Rub the spot with the lard as if washing it, and when it is well out, wash in the ordinary way with soap and water until thoroughly cleansed.

To make linen beautifully white, prepare the water for washing by putting into every ten gallons a large handful of powdered borax or boil with the clothes one teaspoonful of spirits of turpentine.

Fruit stains may be taken out by boiling water. Place the material over a basin or other vessel and pour the boiling water from the kettle over the stains.

Pure water, cold or hot, mixed with acids, serves for rinsing goods in order to remove foreign and neutral bodies which cover the color. Steam softens fatty matters and thus facilitates their removal by reagents.

Sulphuric acid may be used in certain cases, particularly for brightening and raising greens, reds, yellows, etc., but it must be diluted with at least one hundred times its weight of water and more in cases of delicate shades.

CEMENT FOR CHINA AND GLASS.

To half a pint of milk put an equal quantity of vinegar in order to curdle it; then separate the curd from the whey and mix the whey with the whites of four or five eggs, beating the whole well together. When it is well-mixed, add a little quick-lime, through a sieve, until it has acquired the consistency of a thick paste. With this cement broken vessels and cracks of all kinds may be mended. It dries quickly and resists the action of fire and water.

Another: Into a thick solution of gum arabic, stir plaster of Paris until the mixture assumes the consistency of cream; apply with a brush to the broken edges of china and join together. In three days the article cannot be broken in the same place. The whiteness of the cement adds to its value.

CLEANING SINKS.

To purify greasy sinks and pipes, pour down a pailful of boiling water in which three or four pounds of washing soda have been dissolved. A disinfectant is prepared in the same way, using copperas. Copperas is a poison and should not be left about.

_Leaks in Waste Pipes:_--Shut yourself into a room from which the pipe starts. Put two or three ounces of oil of peppermint into a pail of boiling hot water and pour down the pipe. Another person who has not yet inhaled the strong odor should follow the course of the pipe through the house. The peppermint will be pretty sure to discover a break that even an expert plumber might overlook.

_The Examiner._

MANAGEMENT OF STOVES.

If the fire in a stove has plenty of fresh coals on top not yet burned through it will need only a little shaking to start it up; but if the fire looks dying and the coals look white, don't shake it. When it has drawn till it is red again, if there is much ash and little fire, put coals on very carefully. A mere handful of fire can be coaxed back into life by adding another handful or so of new coals on the red spot, and giving plenty of draught, but don't shake a dying fire, or you lose it. This management is often necessary after a warm spell, when the stove has been kept dormant for days, though I hope you will not be so unfortunate as to have a fire to coax up on a cold winter morning. They should be arranged over night, so that all that is required is to open the draughts in order to have a cherry glow in a few minutes.

_Good Housekeeping_

TO REMOVE INK FROM CARPETS.

When freshly spilled, ink can be removed from carpets by wetting in milk. Take cotton batting and soak up all the ink that it will receive, being careful not to let it spread. Then take fresh cotton, wet in milk, and sop it up carefully. Repeat this operation, changing cotton and milk each time. After most of the ink has been taken up in this way, with fresh cotton and clean, rub the spot. Continue till all disappears; then wash the spot in clean warm water and a little soap; rinse in clear water and rub till nearly dry. If the ink is dried in, we know of no way that will not take the color from the carpet as well as the ink, unless the ink is on a white spot. In that case, salts of lemon, or soft soap, starch and lemon juice, will remove the ink as easily as if on cotton.

TO TAKE RUST OUT OF STEEL.

If possible, place the article in a bowl containing kerosene oil, or wrap the steel up in a soft cloth well saturated with kerosene; let it remain twenty-four hours or longer, then scour the rusty spots with brick dust; if badly rusted, use salt wet with hot vinegar; after scouring rinse every particle of brick dust or salt off with boiling hot water; dry thoroughly with flannel cloths and place near the fire to make sure, then polish off with a clean flannel cloth and a little sweet oil.

TO MAKE A PASTE OR MUCILAGE TO FASTEN LABLES.

Soften good glue in water, then boil it with strong vinegar and thicken the liquid, during boiling, with fine wheat flour, so that a paste results; or starch paste with which a little Venice turpentine has been incorporated while it was warm.

A recipe for a transparent cement which possesses great tenacity and has not the slightest yellow tinge: Mix in a well-stoppered bottle ten drachms of chloroform with ten and one-half of non-vulcanized caoutchouc (rubber) cut in small pieces. Solution is readily effected and when it is completed add two and one-half drachms of mastic. Let the whole macerate from eight to ten days without the application of any heat and shake the contents of the bottle at intervals. A perfectly white and very adhesive cement is the result.

POSTAGE STAMP MUCILAGE.

Take of gum dextrine two parts, acetic acid one part, water five parts. Dissolve in a water bath and add alcohol one part.

_Scientific American._

Gum of great strength, which will also keep for a long time, is prepared by dissolving equal parts of gum arabic and gum tragacanth in vinegar. A little vinegar added to ordinary gum water will make it keep much better.

FAMILY GLUE.

Crack the glue and put it in a bottle, add common whisky; shake up, cork tight, and in three or four days it can be used. It requires no heating, will keep for almost any length of time, and is at all times, ready to use, except in the coldest of weather, when it will require warming. It must be kept tight, so that the whisky will not evaporate. The usual corks or stoppers should not be used. It will become clogged. A tin stopper covering the bottle, but fitting as closely as possible, must be used.

GLUE.

Glue to resist _heat_ and _moisture_ is made as follows: Mix a handful of quick-lime in four ounces of linseed oil, boil to a good thickness, then spread it on tin plates in the shade, and it will become very hard, but may be easily dissolved over the fire as glue.

A glue which will resist the action of water is made by boiling one pound of common glue in two quarts of skimmed milk.

FURNITURE CREAM.

Shred finely two ounces of beeswax and half an ounce of white wax into half a pint of turpentine; set in a warm place until dissolved, then pour over the mixture the following, boiled together until melted: Half a pint of water, an ounce of castile soap and a piece or resin the size of a small nutmeg. Mix thoroughly and keep in a wide-necked stone bottle for use. This cleans well and leaves a good polish, and may be made at a fourth of the price it is sold at.

CEMENT CRACKS IN FLOOR.

Cracks in floors may be neatly but permanently filled by thoroughly soaking newspapers in paste made of half a pound of flour, three quarts of water and half a pound of alum mixed and boiled. The mixture will be about as thick as putty, and may be forced into the crevice with a case knife. It will harden like papier-mache.

A POLISH FOR LADIES' KID SHOES.

A fine liquid polish for ladies' kid shoes, satchels, etc., that is easy of application, recommended as containing no ingredients in any manner injurious to leather, is found by digesting in a closed vessel at gentle heat, and straining, a solution made as follows: Lampblack one drachm, oil turpentine four drachms, alcohol (trymethyl) twelve ounces, shellac one and one-half ounces, white turpentine five drachms, saudarac two drachms.

PASTE FOR SCRAP BOOKS, ETC.

_Paste that Will Keep_.--Dissolve a teaspoonful of alum in a quart of water. When cold, stir in flour, to give it the consistency of thick cream, being particular to beat up all the lumps. Stir in as much powdered resin as will lie on a dime, and throw in half a dozen cloves to give it a pleasant odor. Have on the fire a teacupful of boiling water; pour the flour mixture into it, stirring well all the time. In a few minutes it will be of the consistency of molasses. Pour it into an earthen or china vessel, let it cool, and stir in a small teaspoonful each of oil of cloves and of sassafras; lay a cover on, and put in a cool place. When needed for use, take out a portion and soften it with warm water. This is a fine paste to use to stiffen embroidery.

TO REMOVE INDELIBLE INK.

Most indelible inks contain nitrate of silver, the stain of which may be removed by first soaking in a solution of common salt, and afterward washing with ammonia. Or use solution of ten grains of cyanide of potassium and five grains of iodine to one ounce of water, or a solution of eight parts each bichloride of mercury and chloride of ammonium in one hundred and twenty-five parts of water.

A CEMENT FOR ACIDS.

A cement which is proof against boiling acids may be made by a composition of India rubber, tallow, lime and red lead. The India rubber must first be melted by a gentle heat, and then six to eight per cent by weight of tallow is added to the mixture while it is kept well stirred; next day slaked lime is applied, until the fluid mass assumes a consistency similar to that of soft paste; lastly, twenty per cent of red lead is added in order to make it harden and dry.

TO KEEP CIDER.

Allow three-fourths of a pound of sugar to the gallon, the whites of six eggs, well beaten, a handful of common salt. Leave it open until fermentation ceases, then bung up. This process a dealer of cider has used for years, and always successfully.

_Another Recipe_.--To keep cider sweet allow it to work until it has reached the state most desirable to the taste, and then add one and a half tumblers of grated horse-radish to each barrel, and shake up well. This arrests further fermentation. After remaining a few weeks, rack off and bung up closely in clean casks.

A gentleman of Denver writes he has a sure preservative: Put eight gallons of cider at a time into a clean barrel; take one ounce of powdered charcoal and one ounce of powdered sulphur; mix and put it into some iron vessel that will go down through the bung-hole of the barrel. Now put a piece of red-hot iron into the charcoal and sulphur, and while it is burning, lower it through the bung-hole to within one foot of the cider, and suspend it there by a piece of wire. Bring it up and in twelve hours you can cure another batch. Put the cider in a tight barrel and keep in a cool cellar and it will keep for years.

_A Holland Recipe_.--To one quart of new milk, fresh from the cow (not strained), add one half pound of ground black mustard seed and six eggs. Beat the whole well together and pour into a barrel of cider. It will keep cider sweet for one year or more.

TO BLEACH COTTON CLOTH.

Take one large spoonful of sal soda and one pound of chloride lime for thirty yards; dissolve in clean, soft water; rinse the cloth thoroughly in cold, soft water so that it may not rot. This amount of cloth may be bleached in fourteen or fifteen minutes.

A POLISH FOR LEATHER.

Put a half-pound of shellac broken up in small pieces into a quart bottle or jug, cover it with alcohol, cork it tight, and put it on the shelf in a warm place; shake it well several times a day, then add a piece of camphor as large as a hen's egg; shake it well, and in a few hours shake it again and add one ounce of lampblack. If the alcohol is good, it will all be dissolved in two days; then shake and use. If the materials were of the proper kind, the polish correctly prepared, it will dry in about five minutes, giving a gloss equal to patent leather. Using aniline dyes instead of the lampblack, you can have it any desired color, and it can be used on wood or hard paper.

TO SOFTEN WATER.

Add half a pound of the best quick-lime dissolved in water to every hundred gallons. Smaller proportions may be more conveniently managed, and if allowed to stand a short time the lime will have united with the carbonate of lime, and been deposited at the bottom of the receptacle. Another way is to put a gallon of lye into a barrelful of water, or two or three shovelfuls of wood-ashes, let stand over night; it will be clear and soft.

WASHING FLUID.

One gallon of water and four pounds of ordinary washing soda, and a quarter of a pound of soda. Heat the water to boiling hot, put in the soda, boil about five minutes, then pour it over two pounds of unslaked lime, let it bubble and foam until it settles, turn it off and bottle it for use. This is the article that is used in the Chinese laundries for whitening their linen, and is called "Javelle water;" a tablespoonful put into a suds of three gallons, and a little, say a quarter of a cupful, in the boiler when boiling the clothes, makes them very white and clear. Must be well rinsed afterwards. This preparation will remove tea stains and almost all ordinary stains of fruit, grass, etc. This fluid brightens the colors of colored clothes, does not rot them, but should not be _left long in any water_; the boiling, sudsing, rinsing and bluing, should be done in quick succession, until the clothes are ready to hang on the line.

HARD SOAP. (Washing.)