PRIMER 
 
 OF 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
PRIMER 
 
 OF 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDITH A. BARNETT & H. C. O'NEILL 
 
 AUTHORS OF 
 
 'OUR NURSES, AND THE WORK THEY HAVE TO DO* 
 'NEW LIFE: ITS GENESIS AND CULTURE' 
 
 OFTHE 
 
 XTNIVERSITT 
 
 SLcmfccm 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1894 
 
First Edition printed 18 
 Reprinted ^1894 
 
IN teaching Domestic Economy one is led to observe 
 that the interest of the class depends on their per- 
 ception of the direct connection between this lesson 
 and life. Practices fami^ia^ from babyhood step out 
 of the corners of their minds and link themselves on 
 to troublesome theories. Each illuminates the other. 
 Everyday life was dull ; scientific theory was dif- 
 ficult; on a sudden they* have both become easy and 
 interesting. And as very often happens in after-life, 
 the " dunce " and the " scholar " change places in 
 class. 
 
 But this combination of science and practice is 
 precisely what makes Domestic Economy difficult to 
 teach, and still more difficult to write about. Every 
 science is laid under contribution by turns. The 
 housewife must care for human beings, and therefore 
 she should know something of the structure and 
 functions of the human body that is, of anatomy 
 and physiology ; she wishes to keep her family in 
 health, and to do that she must be acquainted with 
 
VI DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 the laws of health or hygiene. She intends to pro- 
 vide for their intellectual as well as for their bodily 
 growth, and at once she finds herself surrounded 
 by problems of educational and mental science. In 
 her daily work she is brought face to face with the 
 laws of trade, buying and selling, supply and demand. 
 She must reckon with the laws of mechanics and 
 physics, which govern the movements of wind and 
 water; and she needs mechanical skill sufficient to 
 manage the machinery, which every year plays a 
 _ larger part in household work. The chemistry of 
 everyday life, a phrase familiar to us all, interferes in 
 the choice of our food, and mixes itself up with 
 our cookery ; while what we know about the storage 
 of food and about putrefaction is due to the recent 
 researches of biologists. Not content with science, 
 our housewife is expected to be a good practical 
 cook, arithmetician, and needlewoman. And yet 
 Domestic Economy is a subject which many women 
 think beneath their capacity ! 
 
 One thing must be remembered. Life is not long 
 enough to study all these sciences for oneself. The 
 average housewife must be content to accept the 
 results of scientific discoveries without following out 
 the steps by which they were reached. Domestic 
 Economy is not a thing of words, in or out of a 
 book, but of deeds in the home. It is nothing if 
 not practical. To study the subject is waste of time, 
 
PREFACE Yli 
 
 unless by means of the knowledge obtained one gets 
 better health, or more comfort for one's housemates 
 or oneself. It is all very well to read up the subject , 
 but reading can never stand in the place of seeing 
 and observing. Household management comprises 
 many branches of the science of everyday life, and 
 the material of it, the illustration of it nay, the 
 thing itself lies, not in books, but around us as 
 we walk through the world with open eyes. What 
 is the good of hearing about the water supply unless 
 we intend to find out where the water we drank this 
 morning came from, or was stored? If we trouble 
 ourselves to read of drains or dust-bins it cannot 
 merely be on account of the attractiveness of the 
 subject, and so we lay down the book and walk into 
 the backyard, where we shall enlarge our competence 
 more than by months of reading without seeing. 
 
 Dealing with so large a subject in a book of this 
 size, one is necessarily cramped for space. Not in a 
 single chapter is all said that could be said. One 
 must select, and selection implies omission. We 
 offer no apology for omitting all recipes. There are 
 cookery books and household books filled with them 
 from cover to cover. We have endeavoured to ex- 
 plain principles only. Details of management are only 
 part of our scheme when needed for illustration. 
 
 Sometimes when we perceive that an everyday old 
 world custom is based on a scientific truth, we seize 
 
viii DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 hold for the first time in our lives of a notion of the 
 reality of things, of the way in which true principles 
 universally apply to things all the world over ; and 
 herein lies, as we think, the chief value of Domestic 
 Economy as a subject to be taught in schools. 
 
 September 1892. 
 
MJ&Svv' 
 
 OF THE ^^ >y 
 
 .UNIVERSITY) 
 
 &^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 INTRODUCTION i 
 
 PART I 
 THE HOUSE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 1. SHELTER . . 5 
 
 2. AIR AND VENTILATION 12 
 
 3. THE WATER SUPPLY 20 
 
 4. DISPOSAL OF WASTE 26 
 
 5- RENT 34 
 
 PART II 
 THE HOME 
 
 1. PLANNING THE ROOMS 39 
 
 2. FURNISHING THE ROOMS 43 
 
 3. CLOTHING 47 
 
x DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 4. FOOD : QUANTITY REQUIRED 56 
 
 5. FOOD : ITS NUTRITIVE VALUE .... 62 
 
 6. MARKETING 67 
 
 7. THE STORAGE OF FOOD . . . . . -73 
 
 8. COOKING 77 
 
 9. FUEL 81 
 
 10. CLEANING THE HOUSE 87 
 
 11. LAUNDRY WORK 90 
 
 12. HEALTH AND SICKNESS 95 
 
 PART III 
 THE PURSE 
 
 1. MONEY 103 
 
 2. INCOME 105 
 
 3. EXPENDITURE 109 
 
 4. BUYING 113 
 
 5. SAVING AND INVESTING 117 
 
 PART IV 
 
 THE ORDERING OF THE HOUSE 122 
 
 INDEX ' . . 127 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 1. Domestic Economy is not a single subject, but 
 a collection of many subjects. Domestic comes from 
 the Latin word domus = a house, and means literally 
 of or belonging to a house. But we use words from 
 this root domus in a slightly different sense : thus 
 "domicile" is where a person lives, not an empty 
 house where one might live ; a " domiciliary " visit is 
 paid (generally by the police) to a private dwelling ; 
 a " domesticated " person is one who finds his or her 
 chief happiness or employment at home. And so 
 "domestic' 7 has come to mean belonging to the 
 home, rather than merely belonging to a house. 
 
 2. Economy comes from two Greek words, oikos 
 = house or household affairs, and nomos = law or 
 custom, and it means literally laws or customs 
 governing the concerns of house or household. 
 But this word economy has come also to have a 
 meaning different to its literal one, and we often use 
 it when we are not thinking of any house. By 
 political economy we mean the laws governing the 
 concerns of nations or states ; social economy tells 
 of the progress of men living together ; we talk of 
 economies when we wish to study these two branches 
 in relation to one another ; and we often (though we 
 should not) talk of economy when we mean merely 
 
 & B 
 
2 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 the management of money, or even the saving 
 of it. 
 
 3. By Domestic Economy we mean the laws that 
 govern the affairs of the home. When we study 
 Domestic Economy we set out to learn all that can 
 be learned about the management of a house and its 
 contents, both people and things, and everything 
 that tends to make home healthier or happier comes 
 within our scope. 
 
 4. When we set out to make our home we must 
 first of all decide where we shall make it. We must 
 choose our house ; and in order to do that wisely 
 we must know something of the soil houses stand 
 upon, of the way houses are built, of the apparatus 
 usually provided in houses for obtaining air and 
 water, and for getting rid of waste of all kinds. The 
 first part of this book deals with the structure of a 
 house. 
 
 5. To choose a house is one thing; to make a 
 home is another. We cannot make a healthy or a 
 comfortable home in a house that is badly built or 
 badly situated; but in the best house in England 
 the inmates will be unhealthy and unhappy unless 
 year in and year out the mistress of the house not 
 only knows but pursues her business. Having 
 chosen our house we proceed to take up our abode 
 in it, and we find that first it needs to be planned 
 out. Which room shall be devoted to what purpose? 
 Next the rooms must be furnished, and the furniture 
 must be bought and set in order. Each member of 
 the family needs to be fed, and the food must be 
 bought, stored, and cooked ; each must be clothed, 
 and the clothing must be bought, made, stored, and 
 mended. The house and everything in it must be 
 kept clean, and so we come to consider the washing 
 of clothes or laundry work, the washing or cleaning 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 of house and furniture, and personal cleanliness. 
 We must be kept warm and be lighted in darkness, 
 and therefore we must have and store fuel. Then 
 we remember that though health often depends on 
 attention to household details, yet "because of the 
 infirmity of our nature " we cannot always keep our 
 health, and we provide against the sicknesses that 
 most easily beset us. So the second part of the 
 subject comes to an end. 
 
 6. The third part deals with Money. None of the 
 things which a household needs can be had without 
 paying money for them, little or much, directly or 
 indirectly. Probably women as housekeepers spend 
 the greater part of the money that is spent in the 
 world. They must be continually buying; they 
 should be continually saving against the rainy day 
 and against old age ; never forgetting to look forward 
 to the future because the present is so full of interest 
 and of business. 
 
 7. And this future is it only more food, better 
 clothes, and larger houses in endless succession ? Is 
 it but leisure after toil and comfort in old age ? Or 
 is it to be also the evolution of character out of 
 material things ? 
 
 We should like to think that in teaching Domestic 
 Economy we have made our pupils grasp the truth 
 that this science does but open a door which leads 
 out into the possibility of nobler life. 
 
PART L THE HOUSE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SHELTER 
 
 8. No two houses are exactly alike. No two 
 women setting out to seek a new home have pre- 
 cisely the same income and the same claims upon it, 
 nor the same tastes, nor the same range of choice. 
 But in this climate even the poorest must live in a 
 house of some kind, and every man and woman 
 whom one meets in the street is at home somewhere. 
 
 It is as well to explain at the outset that I intend 
 to write for the class of householders who have 
 " neither poverty nor riches." The poorest live not 
 in a house but in one or two rooms of another man's 
 house ; the richest live not in houses but in mansions. 
 At the same time what is true of a little house is 
 true also of a big one, and I have never observed 
 that to increase the size or to multiply the contents 
 of the domestic machine is the way to make it work 
 itself without intelligent supervision. 
 
 Whether our house is to be large or small, we 
 cannot practise " domestic " economy until we have 
 it. And whether it is large or small, we must see 
 that it is (i) healthy- to live in; (2) within our 
 
6 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 means to pay for. Of Rent I speak in Chapter V. 
 Here we will think only of choosing the house 
 itself. 
 
 9. Shelter is one of the necessaries of life ; with- 
 out it we should die. If a man cannot or does not 
 provide shelter for his family they are taken in charge 
 by the authorities, and shelter is provided at the 
 public cost in the workhouse. The first duty of a 
 house is to keep us from cold, heat, and wet ; or, as 
 we say in a word, to shelter us from the weather. 
 That being so, it seems as if it would be wise to 
 build always, as our forefathers did when glazing was 
 unknown, in the most sheltered spots. One often 
 sees old houses standing among thick woods or 
 under the lee of a hill, but seldom or never on the 
 open spaces and high ground that attract builders 
 to-day. 
 
 10. The Site of a house is the first thing to be 
 thought of. A fault in the house itself might be 
 remedied, but if it is built in the wrong place what 
 can be done? We agreed that we were to be 
 sheltered from heat, cold, and wet. In this country 
 we do not fear heat there is so little of it. And as 
 for cold, we all know that we do not feel dry cold 
 much. It is damp and cold together that harms. 
 Damp in a house comes out of the ground. Rain 
 beating on the walls does not soak in if the house is 
 fairly well built; it is water collected about the 
 foundations that we fear (see 43). A sheltered 
 site on flat ground under the lee of the hill is bad, 
 because it is sure to be damp. Whenever it rains 
 water pours down the slope and collects round about 
 the house, and it never runs away because there is 
 nowhere to run to. Whether in town or country, a 
 house should always stand on sloping rather than on 
 flat ground, and should never stand in a hollow. 
 
CHAP. I 
 
 SHELTER 
 
 1 1. There is another objection to these very 
 sheltered sites. Wind dries and purifies, and it is 
 distinctly bad to be sheltered from the prevailing 
 winds of a district. A house built close under a hill 
 
 BAD SITE 
 
 or cliff or among trees is damp, because wind can 
 never blow through it. 
 
 12. The nature of the soil has much to do with 
 the healthiness of a house. For practical purposes 
 we may speak of two sorts of soil pervious, through 
 which water runs ; and impervious, upon which water 
 stands. Clay is the best example of impervious soil ; 
 if one goes out walking after rain in a clay district 
 the roads are thick with mire. Gravel and sand are 
 pervious, and over these the roads dry quickly. 
 Apart from the convenience of having good roads to 
 walk upon, a pervious soil has many advantages. 
 Houses built upon it are more apt to be dry, and 
 therefore warm ; and because of the dryness, com- 
 plaints such as consumption, rheumatism, and 
 
DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 " colds," are less common. One drawback of 
 gravel or sand is connected with the water-supply ; 
 it is easier to keep drains and wells apart when a solid 
 bank of clay is between them, than when they are 
 only separated by a few feet of pervious soil. And 
 another trouble is connected with the garden, which 
 on sandy soil costs more, and flourishes less. In a 
 chalky district the water is likely to be very hard, 
 and insects to be very troublesome. 
 
 13. One warning must be laid to heart in gravelly 
 districts. Gravel is saleable, and it happens often 
 that it is carted away, and the pit filled in with 
 rubbish, or even with town refuse. So it may come 
 to pass that the district is marked gravel on the map, 
 though you are living over " made soil " of the worst 
 and most unwholesome kind. A swamp or pond is 
 sometimes levelled in the same way, and presently 
 built over. Never consent to live over such soil, 
 unless it is at least three years since the last rubbish 
 was shot, nor unless the surrounding soil is dry. 
 Such a soil can never be really wholesome to live 
 over. A clay soil may be wholesome if it is thoroughly 
 drained (see 57). 
 
 Summing up all that can be said on both sides, 
 we come to the conclusion that we prefer to live on 
 pervious soil, on sloping ground, and near the top of 
 a hill rather than at the foot. 
 
 14. The aspect of any house can easily be ascer- 
 tained. At noon on any day in the year the sun is 
 due south ; and facing it, north is at one's back, east 
 on the left hand, and west at the right. Sunshine 
 comes for a short time into every room, except those 
 which face due north. And because sunshine is the 
 great purifier we should take care so to build our 
 house that the sun comes into every room. This 
 may be done by setting the corners of a square 
 
CHAP. I SHELTER 9 
 
 house to the points of the compass. If the same 
 'house were built with its sides towards the points of 
 the compass, all the rooms on one side would be 
 without sunshine from the day they were built till 
 the house was pulled down. 
 
 Speaking of site I might have pointed out how the 
 worst sites are shaded from sun as well as sheltered 
 from wind. No site can be worse than that on the 
 north side of a hill, or in a narrow valley running 
 north and south, where the sun peeps over the 
 heights only for a few months in the year, and for a 
 few hours in the day. 
 
 15. In order that the house may afford proper 
 shelter it must not only be well situated but well 
 built, and of good materials. The walls should be 
 thick, the best walls being those that are built double 
 with space for air between. Brick is the commonest, 
 and is most districts the cheapest, material. But 
 there are bricks and bricks, some so ill baked and 
 soft that one can break them across in one's hand, 
 some hard and proportionately costly. The dryness 
 of a house depends also on the depth and solidity of 
 the foundations. There is an old saying that a good 
 builder spends as much below ground as above. 
 Tile roofs keep the cold and heat out better than 
 slate, but they cost more to put up because they are 
 heavier, and require stronger timbers for gupport. 
 Boards and all wood-work must be kept some time 
 and seasoned if they are neither to warp nor to split. 
 Mortar of good materials is costly, but an imitation 
 which looks fair while it is new is made of road 
 scraping and all sorts of rubbish. And so on through 
 the long list of materials required to build a house. 
 Each one costs more if it is good, and the better the 
 house the more material is used. 
 
 1 6. It follows that a house of any given size must 
 
io DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART I 
 
 cost more to build well, than to build ill. We must 
 pay extra rent for foundations and thick walls, just 
 as we do for another story above ground, or for more 
 elaborate ornamentation. It is because householders 
 are seldom willing to do this that modern houses 
 are more often than not very badly built. 
 
 17. Brick and stone are porous. If you take a 
 lump of sugar and dip the corner into your tea, or 
 tear off a scrap of blotting paper and set the edge 
 into a spot of ink, what happens ? The ink or the 
 tea is sucked up. Just so a brick, or a wall of bricks, 
 set on the ground, sucks water out of it, which water 
 rises into our houses. The supply is never-failing, 
 and the faster we dry the walls at the top, the faster 
 they draw up water from the bottom. 
 
 1 8. It is to cut off this supply that we put into 
 our houses a damp-proof course, a layer of some 
 impervious material in the wall near the ground. A 
 damp-proof course can easily be seen in any house if 
 it is there, as it ought to be. It is made of hard 
 brick, earthenware, slates laid in cement, etc. 
 
 19. Ventilating bricks can also be seen outside 
 the house at the ground level. They let air in 
 beneath the level of the floor boards, and dry the 
 foundations. 
 
 20. The lowest floor of the house, whether kitchen 
 or cellar, should be laid in cement throughout. 
 Where there is only stamped earth or boards, foul 
 air and damp out of the soil are constantly being 
 drawn into the house, especially at night, when the 
 doors and windows are shut (see 58). On any soil 
 this cement is needed ; it is above all necessary over 
 made soil (see 13). 
 
 21. So far I have purposely said nothing about 
 the relative advantages of this or that district; of 
 town, country, and suburbs ; and for many house- 
 
CHAP, i SHELTER n 
 
 wives the question is not, Where shall we live ? but 
 rather, How shall we live here ? 
 
 22. When a baby is born, or when any person 
 dies, we are obliged to send to the nearest Registrar, 
 and to tell him not only who is born or dead, but 
 also (in case of death) what he or she died of, and 
 how old he or she was. All over England and 
 Wales these facts and figures have been collected 
 and published since 1837. Every year they are 
 compared together, and from them the death-rates 
 are calculated. The death-rate means the number 
 of persons dying in one year out of each thousand 
 persons living. When I say that the death-rate in 
 England and Wales in the year 1890 was 19*5 per 
 1000, I mean that 562,248 persons actually died, 
 and that 562,248 bears the same relation to 
 28,762,287 (the total population) as 19*5 bears to 
 1000. 
 
 Looking again at the details of the published 
 figures, I see that some counties contributed more 
 to the death-rate than others. In 1890 the Sussex 
 death-rate was under 16 per 1000; the Lancashire 
 death-rate 23*4 per 1000. The death-rate of all the 
 principal towns and cities is published every week in 
 the newspapers, and by comparing one with another 
 we can soon see which towns are healthy and which 
 are not. It is by studying and comparing these 
 published death-rates that we have found out most 
 of what we know about domestic sanitation and the 
 healthiness of different districts. We know in which 
 districts people live longest, and in which children 
 have the best chance of growing up ; what particular 
 diseases prevail here or there ; what soil or drinking 
 water produces any ailment ; which trade or industry 
 tends to sickness and which to health. All these 
 things may be considered when we choose our home. 
 
12 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 Nothing is so costly and wasteful as illness, and a 
 great number of illnesses come or stay away accord- 
 ing as we choose our houses wisely or unwisely. 
 
 23. One thing comes out clearly in these death- 
 rates. We live longer, and are healthier in country 
 than in town. To live crowded together in streets, 
 and to do our day's work indoors, is the surest way 
 to shorten our life. For infants and children any 
 home in the country is better than a more luxurious 
 home in town. But if we must live in town it is all 
 the more necessary for the housewife to see that 
 space, good drainage, and careful cleanliness in the 
 home undo, as far as may be, the evils of a town 
 life. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AIR AND VENTILATION 
 
 24. Air is the first necessary of life. We may live 
 for some days without food, and for some hours 
 without water, but without air we are dead in a few 
 minutes ; and that being so, it stands to reason that 
 we must carefully inquire into the quality of the 
 air, and the amount of air that we have to breathe 
 all day and every day. 
 
 25. Air, as most people know, is a mixture of 
 three gases, oxygen, nitrogen, and earbonie acid 
 gas, in about these proportions, O 20*96, N 79, 
 CO 2 '04. They vary, however, constantly, inasmuch 
 as carbonic acid gas is produced by the breathing of 
 animals and plants, by burning, and by decay or 
 fermentation : oxygen is produced by plants ; and 
 carbonic acid gas (see 42) is washed out of the air by 
 
CHAP, ii AIR AND VENTILATION 13 
 
 every shower, which accounts for the feeling of fresh- 
 ness after rain. 
 
 26. Solids, liquids, and gases differ from each 
 other in this : a solid has a definite shape and size ; 
 a liquid takes the shape of the vessel that contains 
 it ; a gas has no definite shape nor size, and can be 
 pressed into any space however small, or will occupy 
 any space however large. We often have to notice 
 how a very small escape of gas is noticeable at once 
 at the further end of a large room. 
 
 27. That being so, we breathe in, not a given 
 weight, but a given bulk of air at each inspiration : 
 the average should be about 30 cubic inches ; if the 
 air is lightly packed together there is much less of it 
 than when the pressure is great and the air is closely 
 packed. 
 
 28. Atmospheric pressure is chiefly due to the 
 weight of the air itself. If we could weigh a column 
 of air, one inch in diameter, reaching from the sea 
 level to the farthest limits of the earth's atmosphere, 
 it would weigh about 1 5 Ibs. ; or, as we commonly 
 say, the atmospheric pressure at the sea level is 
 15 Ibs. to the square inch. If we ascend a moun- 
 tain and weigh another column, it will be shorter and 
 therefore lighter ; if we go down into a mine, it will 
 be longer and heavier. 
 
 29. It is to this difference of atmospheric pressure 
 that the difference between sea air and mountain 
 air is due. We breathe more quickly on a mountain ; 
 we must do so in order to get the same amount of 
 air; and all the processes of life are quickened in 
 proportion ; by the sea-side we take in at each breath 
 a great deal of air, and consequently a great deal of 
 oxygen. And because nothing stands alone in the 
 economy of nature, we have to remember here that 
 on atmospheric pressure depends, amongst other 
 
14 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART I 
 
 things, the temperature at which water boils. At 
 the sea level it boils at 212 Fahrenheit (see 174), 
 but on a high mountain it sooner overcomes the 
 downward pressure of the air, and it bubbles up 
 at perhaps 211; down in a mine it may not boil 
 until 213. 
 
 30. Besides these three gases air holds moisture, 
 more or less being absorbed according to the tem- 
 perature. Moisture absorbed is invisible, and there 
 is most of it in the air during the hottest months. 
 Moisture suspended is what we call fog or mist, and 
 every one knows that it is commonest in cold weather. 
 The sun comes out, the air is heated, and fogs dis- 
 perse. But however hot the air, there is a precise 
 limit to the amount of water it can absorb, and when 
 it has absorbed all it can we say it is saturated. If 
 we heat air, saturate it with moisture, and then cool 
 it again, part of the moisture is at once deposited. 
 These facts have a direct interest for the housewife. 
 Most persons have stayed in a damp house,. and have 
 observed that when in the evening fires and gas are 
 lighted, and the rooms get warm, the damp chilly 
 feeling quite disappears, and the owners of such a 
 house often say, " With plenty of fires I don't think 
 damp matters." But come down with the housemaid 
 in the early morning, when the fires are out, and all 
 over the walls and furniture is a dew, which she wipes 
 off with a cloth may be, but which reappears daily. 
 Or again, we must often have observed people who 
 set about drying whether a house or a day's 
 washing by lighting a fire and shutting doors and 
 windows. What they should do is to light a fire and 
 make a draught so that the incoming air is quickly 
 heated, saturated, and passed out again to make room 
 for more dry air from outside. 
 
 3 1. Air in towns contains sulphurous vapour, dust, 
 
CHAP, ii AIR AND VENTILATION 15 
 
 and soot ; by the seaside salt. Ozone, which people 
 talk of so much, is a more active form of oxygen. 
 
 32. Currents of air which we sometimes fear 
 under the name of draughts not only dry a house, 
 but they purify it. Draughts must on occasion blow 
 through a house if it is to be lived in healthily ; and 
 even a single room so planned that the door, window, 
 and fireplace are all on one side (though it is the 
 sort of room preferred by a certain class of the poorest 
 tenants), is always difficult to keep sweet and whole- 
 some, and should never be occupied by an invalid or 
 young children. A draught is only dangerous if, and 
 because, it chills us, and even then it does not lower 
 the vitality, nor predispose us to illness, like the 
 breathing of foul air. 
 
 33. No matter how good the site or the plan of 
 our house may be, there will not be a proper amount 
 of air to breathe inside it, unless some provision is 
 made for constantly letting the foul air out (exit 
 ventilation) and getting fresh air in (inlet ventila- 
 tion). Occasional through draughts are most useful 
 for purification, but are not enough for ventilation, 
 which must be continuous. We need food and water 
 at regular intervals, eating a meal and then waiting 
 till the next falls due some hours after; and some 
 people seem to think that we can breathe after the 
 same fashion, opening a window, or going out of 
 doors once or twice a day, and so taking in a supply 
 of fresh air to last for hours to come. 
 
 In choosing a house, then, one thing to be observed 
 is the number and size of permanent ventilators 
 besides the door and window, which will, we hope, 
 be often open, but which must be occasionally shut. 
 It is said that each person living in a room requires 
 a permanent opening measuring 4 in. by 6 in. 
 
 34. The first and most obvious opening is the 
 
16 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 chimney, serving almost always, whether the fire is 
 lighted or not, as an exit. The updraught is stronger 
 and quicker if a fire is lighted, or even if a lamp is 
 placed in the grate ; and that is why the lighting of a 
 fire improves the ventilation of any room ; and why, 
 if a lamp is burned through the night, it should stand 
 in the grate where it does good, rather than in the 
 room where it can only do harm (see 186). No 
 room should be built without a fireplace, and the 
 chimney should at all times remain open. Before 
 we look for any other exit ventilators, let us clearly 
 understand that air does not always go out at the 
 place called an " exit " on a plan or by the builder. 
 Air, whether out of doors or in, moves to and fro in 
 the direction of the least resistance ; it goes where it 
 is easiest to go ; and nine times out of ten when a 
 fire is burning, air exits by the chimney only, and 
 comes in by every other opening, unless there is an 
 opening with heat beneath to make a draught, or 
 unless some kind of trap-door is fixed, which opens 
 from the room but not towards it. Both these plans 
 work in the ventilators fixed in chimneys over the 
 mantelpiece. The updraught caused by the fire sucks 
 air out of the room, and the valve opens at once 
 when the air presses on the room side, but the harder 
 the pressure on the chimney side the faster it is shut 
 or should be. Sooty marks round a chimney ven- 
 tilator show that the valve does not act properly. 
 
 Ventilators above gas-burners are often, and 
 should always be, fixed (see 180). Exit ventilators 
 are also to be seen near the ceiling in other parts of 
 the room, and sometimes these also communicate 
 with a chimney shaft. 
 
 35. Inlet ventilation is more important to house- 
 holders, because if enough air is let in while the fire 
 burns, there is always the chimney for exit. We 
 
CHAP, ii AIR AND VENTILATION 17 
 
 naturally think first of the window, which should be 
 such that it can be kept open for the greatest number 
 of hours. It should open both at bottom and top ; 
 or if a casement window, it should open at both 
 sides against the wind from either quarter. Win- 
 dows on two sides of a room can be opened, 
 one or the other, 
 even during very gusty 
 weather. There are 
 several devices for 
 keeping a window al- 
 ways open. One is 
 to nail a strip of per- 
 forated zinc, 4 or 5 
 inches deep, over the 
 top of a window sash, 
 and to open the win- 
 dow behind it; another 
 to bore perpendicular 
 holes with a large gim- 
 let through the bottom 
 of the top sash; a third 
 to shut down the lower 
 sash on a piece of wood 
 the width of the sash 
 and a few inches deep. 
 
 A considerable amount of air comes in by 
 either of these devices, and indeed people who have 
 not thought about the matter are surprised to find 
 how much more air is admitted in the long run by 
 any permanent opening that acts night and day, than 
 by a door or window which, though much larger, is 
 only open for a time and then shut tight. Compare 
 the waste of water which takes place when the tap 
 dribbles unobserved, with that which takes place 
 when you draw water purposely for a given time ! 
 
 MODE OF VENTILATION. 
 {Seenfrom outstJe.) 
 
i8 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 Of other -inlet ventilators the best is what is still 
 known (though the patent has expired) as Tobin's 
 ventilator a tube shaped like the letter L, the short 
 arm running through the wall and ending out of 
 
 TOBIN'S TUBE: 
 
 Fl oor 
 
 doors, and the long arm being visible in the room. 
 These are very well fit for ventilating a private house, 
 and do not cause a draught if the long arm of the L 
 is not too near either the floor or the ceiling. Inlet 
 ventilators fixed in a door are bad, because, instead 
 of admitting fresh air, they draw it from passage or 
 
CHAP, ii A*IR AND VENTILATION 19 
 
 staircase, which, especially in tenement houses, is 
 often worse than that in the rooms. 
 
 36. Of rooms requiring permanent ventilation the 
 bedrooms certainly come first. We spend all of us 
 more unbroken time in sleep than in any other occu- 
 pation. If the air of a bedroom in the morning is 
 noticeably stuffy, some further opening for air is 
 required, and without it the sleepers will not be able 
 to do the best work for which they were made. Or 
 turning it the other way, and looking at an empty 
 bedroom not yet occupied, we may be sure that the 
 people who will sleep in it in the future will suffer 
 unless they have at least an open chimney for exit, 
 and some provision a- window open at the top is 
 perhaps the best for the inlet of fresh air. The 
 smaller the room the more imperative ventilation 
 becomes ; but no room not if it were as large as a 
 church would be large enough for even one person 
 to dwell in were it air-tight. 
 
 37. Fortunately our rooms are never air-tight. 
 Air comes in through cracks in floor and walls, and 
 even through the bricks of which the walls are built. 
 But we are always trying to build better, and to make 
 our houses more air-tight than houses in the old time 
 were. We have come to see that to let in fresh air 
 when and as we choose is far better than to let it 
 come casually and by accident from out of the ground 
 or any chance chink left open. Still we must not 
 forget that our new and more air-tight houses, our 
 improved and beautiful cottages, have their dangers 
 as well as their advantages, and that if we deviate 
 from the ways of our forefathers on the one side, we 
 must also (if we would escape the prevailing anaemic 
 tendency) alter on the other side, and sleep and live 
 with something open through which fresh air can 
 come. 
 
20 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART I 
 
 CHAPT'ER III 
 
 THE WATER SUPPLY 
 
 38. In most English towns 20-30 gallons of water 
 is supplied daily for each person. Of this i-ij 
 gallon is drunk or used for cooking ; 3-4 gallons for 
 household purposes ; 5-8 gallons for baths ; 3 gallons 
 for laundry ; 6 gallons for flushing the drains ; and 
 the rest goes for manufactories, cleansing the streets, 
 and so on. In towns it is generally found easier 
 to supply the same water for all purposes ; but if 
 there is washing water enough, it does not matter 
 whether it is as pure as drinking water must neces- 
 sarily be, and in the country many persons use for 
 washing rain-water out of a tank, or water from a 
 well too near the house to be fit to drink. 
 
 39. In towns water is generally laid on, and house- 
 holders have only to pay a fixed water-rate, in 
 return for which they may draw and use as much 
 water as they please. In the country all water has 
 to be pumped, or sometimes to be drawn from a well, 
 and occasionally it must be carried from a distance. 
 All this adds to household work and expense, and 
 must be taken into consideration when a house is 
 hired. 
 
 The water supply in town is regulated by public 
 authority. We may be sure, in return for our rates, 
 of getting enough to use all the year round. In the 
 country the water supply is each house-owner's 
 private affair, and if it dries up in summer, or if the 
 autumn rains are not enough to fill the wells, he has 
 to suffer, and there is no one to whom he can apply 
 for help* 
 
 There is nothing that in the long run makes more 
 
CHAP, in THE WATER SUPPLY 21 
 
 difference to the health of a household (see 44) 
 than the quality of the water they must drink, or the 
 quantity that they can easily obtain. 
 
 40. First let us understand that pure water is a 
 combination of hydrogen and oxygen, both gases 
 (H 2 O), and that pure water does not exist on the 
 earth in a state of nature. If we want it we must 
 buy distilled water of a chemist : it is often wise to 
 buy it if our own supply does not suit our constitu- 
 tion, or is suspected of being foul. Distilled water is 
 used on ship-board. 
 
 41. Rain-water, falling through the air, dissolves 
 some air and more carbonic acid gas (see 25), getting 
 thereby the bright sparkling look and fresh taste that 
 distilled water lacks. And if rain-water can be 
 caught on a clean surface, having fallen through pure 
 air, it is the best water we can have. But where 
 people live there is always soot and dust in the air and 
 generally sulphur (see 31); rain takes up these also, 
 and when collected on the roof of a house and stored 
 in a tank it is seldom fit to drink. The plan has 
 been suggested of letting the first few gallons wash 
 the roof and run to waste, so that what is stored may 
 be clean rain-water. In districts where water is 
 scarce, or very hard, or has to be drawn up from 
 a great depth, this is well worth doing ; in most 
 places, however, rain is not used for drinking, and in 
 towns, however collected, it is not potable. Since 
 rain-water should be used for the laundry and the 
 garden, and perhaps for toilet purposes also, the 
 means of collection and storage should be inquired 
 into when choosing a country house. 
 
 42. Rain falls on the earth, and dissolves a part of 
 whatever it falls upon. In a chalk district it takes 
 up lime and becomes hard; in a granite district 
 it takes up little of anything and remains soft. By 
 
22 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 hard water we mean water containing a large 
 amount of mineral matter; soft water contains 
 little or none. Rain-water is always soft. Pure 
 water takes up but little carbonate of lime ; water 
 containing carbonic acid gas (which, as we have seen, 
 rain washes out of the air) takes up and holds much. 
 Upon this fact depends the very familiar plan of 
 softening water by boiling. Gas and air are driven out 
 by boiling, and the carbonate of lime is at once 
 deposited on the sides of the kettle or boiler, where 
 we call it " fur." Water should, in a hard -water 
 district, always be boiled for washing, for cooking, and 
 for drinking when hard water does not agree with 
 any one. But to boil any quantity of water there 
 must be something to boil it in, and the boiling 
 means expenditure of fuel and of trouble. Hard 
 water wastes soap (see 2 1 o), much more being needed 
 to make a lather. And in hard-water districts con- 
 stant expense is incurred for renewal and cleaning 
 of taps and boilers. Some water is permanently 
 hard, containing sulphate of lime, or iron, and upon 
 this boiling has no effect. Water can be softened by 
 the addition of milk-of-lime. 
 
 43. Well water is drunk by a great many persons 
 Wherever we stand, if we were to dig straight down, 
 we should come in time to water. We might find 
 water soon, at a depth of a foot or two, in which case 
 we should say that the subsoil water was high ; or 
 we might dig first to a great depth, in other words, 
 the subsoil water might be low. Generally speaking, 
 a district where this subsoil water is low is likely to 
 be dry and healthy ; where it is high, the neighbour- 
 hood is likely to be damp. 
 
 44. Shallow or surface wells draw upon the sub- 
 soil water. The purity of the water depends on the 
 nature of the soil and the nearness of inhabited 
 
CHAP, in THE WATER SUPPLY 23 
 
 houses. It is often said that a well may be depended 
 on to drain a circular area equal to its own depth. 
 Dust-heaps, pigstyes, houses, privies, should all be at 
 a distance from the well mouth, and any possibility of 
 leakage from a drain or cesspool (greater in a per- 
 vious soil, see 12) should be removed by putting them 
 as far away as the nature of the case allows. Shallow 
 wells collect water from any higher ground near ; 
 therefore a well dug below the churchyard or at the 
 bottom of the village is not likely to furnish whole- 
 some water. Pumps are usually found over surface 
 wells ; only occasionally must a bucket and chain be 
 used, and many people, getting water from the pump, 
 do not realise that there is a well beneath. The 
 danger in this source of supply is of animal organic 
 matter, the worst of all impurities. Cholera, typhoid, 
 and such complaints are commonly spread by shallow- 
 well water, and these wells, useful once, have to be 
 shut up as districts become more thickly populated. 
 Rain-water cannot, in the nature of things, contain 
 poison from the drains, and when any epidemic pre- 
 vails, it may be wise to collect and drink rain rather 
 than shallow-well water. 
 
 45. Deep-well water drawn, not from the surface 
 soil, but from the natural reservoirs in the depths of 
 the earth, often is very hard, but never contains 
 animal matter. Some of the London water supply 
 comes from artesian wells in Kent, and some few 
 large establishments in London have a private artesian 
 well of their own. 
 
 46. Most of the water that we drink comes from 
 rivers or streams, and if we can tap the stream near its 
 source or prevent its being fouled by the way, nothing 
 could be better. But, unfortunately, most towns and 
 many private individuals dispose of their refuse by 
 pouring it into the nearest stream, and the conse- 
 
24 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 quence is that many rivers are now no longer used as 
 sources of town water supply, that the London water 
 companies are continually going farther up stream, 
 and that river water must be carefully filtered and 
 purified before it is sent out. 
 
 47. Pond, diteh, and marsh water, containing, as 
 it must, decaying vegetable matter, with perhaps 
 animal matter from farmyards or cultivated fields 
 near by, is always unwholesome, and in districts 
 where it is drunk ague and malarious complaints 
 prevail. 
 
 48. Spring 1 water is often very hard as, for in- 
 stance, the petrifying springs in Derbyshire, where the 
 amount of lime is so great that when the water jets 
 out into the air, and parts with some of its carbonic 
 acid gas, a complete crust is deposited on everything 
 that it flows over. 
 
 49. Householders in town are less concerned 
 about the source of water supply than with its storage 
 on their own premises. The supply may be constant 
 or intermittent. Having a constant supply, when- 
 ever the taps are turned water comes out of the 
 mains : an intermittent supply means that water is 
 turned on twice in the twenty-four hours ; that while 
 it is turned on water can be drawn as fast as it 
 will run, but that as soon as it is turned off, the 
 cistern being filled once, no more flows. Except in 
 case of fire, when precious time may be lost fetching 
 the turncock, the practical difference for ordinary 
 householders is that an intermittent supply necessi- 
 tates a large cistern, which must be kept clean ; but 
 to lodgers of the poorer class it makes all the differ- 
 ence in the world, because cisterns intended for one 
 family are far too small to serve for six or eight 
 families, and the result is that water must be drawn 
 while it is turned on, and stored in crowded rooms, 
 
CHAP, in THE WATE^lSS^l 1 ' 2 5 
 
 and that there is seldom enough water used for any 
 purpose. Moreover, to store water in a room is 
 always undesirable because water so readily takes up 
 any odour from the air. If it has to be stored it 
 should be in a closed vessel of some insoluble and 
 non-absorbent material such as crockery or galvanised 
 iron, not in wood, nor in anything jointed with lead. 
 
 50. This brings us to water cisterns, where, in the 
 ordinary course of things, water is constantly stored. 
 The position of the cistern should be within reach of 
 the housewife or housemaid, so that it should be 
 emptied and cleaned at least three times a year. Yet 
 it should not be within too easy reach not, for 
 instance, in a cupboard, where the housemaid's 
 necessaries are kept, nor in a back-yard within a few 
 feet of the ground. It should not be near any. drains, 
 water-closet, or dust-heap ; and it is of great import- 
 ance that the overflow pipe (there must be one some- 
 where) should discharge into the open air and not 
 into a drain. The landlord is bound to provide a 
 lid for each cistern, and it should fit tight. And there 
 should in every house be at least two cisterns, one 
 supplying drinking water, and the other water for 
 the water-closet. 
 
 51. Good water is without taste, smell, or colour. 
 Seen in bulk it has a blue rather than a yellow tinge, 
 yet it may be both wholesome and yellowish when it 
 comes off a peaty soil or when it has iron in it. Very 
 sparkling water, though pleasant to taste, is often 
 unwholesome, as the sparkle may be due to gases of 
 decomposition. Among tastes, salt often, though 
 not always, means house drainage. 
 
 52. If only bad or doubtful water can be obtained 
 it should always be boiled. To some extent the flat- 
 ness of boiled water can be overcome by pouring it 
 out of one jug into another, as if to get a "good 
 
26 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 head" on beer; or it can be flavoured with lemon, 
 toast, or tea, which, like many astringent vegetable 
 substances, seems to have some effect in purifying 
 marsh water (Exodus xv. 25). 
 
 53. After boiling, water may be passed through 
 a filter, which acts mechanically as a sort of strainer, 
 separating solid impurities ; and chemically, oxygen- 
 ising organic impurities or otherwise purifying the 
 water in a manner which varies according to the 
 filter employed. Charcoal solid or in powder, spongy 
 iron, silicated carbon, are common materials. Those 
 filters that are of simple construction, easily taken to 
 pieces and cleaned, are the best for the household, 
 for any filter, after a few months' use, gets foul. 
 Charcoal filters should be left empty, so that they 
 may fill with air, once in every twenty-four hours. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DISPOSAL OF WASTE 
 
 54. Like all words that are used in several quite 
 opposite meanings, the word waste serves often to 
 confuse our ideas. We speak of money being wasted 
 when it is frittered away ; of food being wasted when 
 it is thrown into the pig-tub ; of wasted time when we 
 sit with our hands before us ; and we mean that 
 having got rid of our money, our food, or our time, 
 we have either gained nothing in exchange or nothing 
 of any value. These things were wasted because 
 they were not used to the best advantage. 
 
 55. When we speak of "the waste from the human 
 body," or as here above of " the disposal of waste," 
 
CHAP, iv DISPOSAL OF WASTE 27 
 
 we have in our minds a quite different idea. We are 
 thinking now of products not only useless but harm- 
 ful to us in the place where they now are, things 
 which must be got rid of, even though to get rid of 
 them costs us toil or money. Oxygen, food, and 
 water is constantly going into the human body, is 
 used there, and in using breaks up into its component 
 parts, recombines in other forms, and presently is 
 useful no more, and must be cast out of the body. 
 Except when a person grows taller or fatter, what 
 comes out must be equal in weight to what goes in. We 
 are all provided with excretory organs kidneys, 
 skin, lungs, bowels, which provide for the carrying 
 off of these waste or used-up materials, and it is 
 most important to the human economy that these 
 should be kept in good working order. 
 
 Just so a dwelling-house is provided with channels 
 for getting rid of used-up materials, and it is an 
 important part of domestic economy to see that these 
 are, one and all, in good working order. It is not 
 enough to get in all that we want ; we must also get 
 rid of all that we have done with. Exit ventilators 
 let out foul air , chimneys are built (primarily) to get 
 rid of smoke ; drains are intended to convey away 
 liquid refuse ; dustbins are receptacles for solid 
 refuse : besides these, there are persons who will 
 relieve us of bottles, waste-paper, rags, and so on. 
 What goes out of our houses must equal in weight 
 that which comes in. 
 
 56. Choosing a home it is necessary to see that 
 suitable apparatus is provided for getting rid of waste. 
 I have spoken already of ventilation, and propose to 
 speak now of the drains ar.d the dustbin. 
 
 57. Let us first clearly understand what we mean 
 by drains, because there are two meanings to the 
 word, and two quite distinct ends to be served. 
 
28 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 Speaking of a clay soil I said it ought to be well 
 drained (see 13), meaning that it should be drained 
 dry, that the water should be drained out of it and 
 conveyed away. The farmer digs trenches in his 
 field, and lays down porous earthenware pipes 
 through which water out of the soil can percolate. 
 This draining of marshy land is going on all over 
 England, and one consequence is that ague and 
 similar complaints are very much less common than 
 they were. 
 
 58. House drains are not meant to collect water, 
 but to carry away refuse, and their contents should 
 not percolate through their walls, but are poured in 
 at one end and should be poured out at the other 
 without any leakage. House-drains should not be 
 made of porous material. Brick-drains, often laid 
 under old houses, were " contrived a double debt to 
 pay," and actually paid neither. For percolation took 
 place out "of, instead of into the drain, and the basement 
 of the house, so far from being dry, was often soaked 
 with sewage. Earthenware pipes must be glazed, and 
 all pipes serving for a house-drain must be well jointed. 
 
 All drains should, as far as possible, be out of 
 doors, not under the house, nor built into the walls. 
 In every house, whether in town or country, there 
 must be a soil-pipe, rain-water pipes, scullery-pipe 
 and sink-pipes ; if there is a fixed bath, there must 
 be a waste-pipe and an overflow-pipe from it. Every 
 one of these ought to be visible outside the house, 
 probably at the back. If they, and especially the 
 soil-pipe, cannot be seen, they are built into the walls, 
 which is a serious fault. Every water-closet ought to 
 have three outside walls ; it must have one. A water- 
 closet in the middle of the house and a soil-pipe that 
 cannot be found are enough to make any house 
 unhealthy. 
 
DISPOSAL OF WASTE 
 
 29 
 
 59. As for the rain-water pipes, sink and scullery- 
 pipes, and bath-pipes every pipe in fact, except the 
 soil-pipe the ends of all of them should be "cut 
 off"; they should not run down into the ground, as 
 the soil-pipe must ; their open ends should be seen 
 sticking out from the wall, or, in the case of rain- 
 water pipes, about half a foot from the ground, over a 
 
 gulley. The reason of this is plain ; house-drains are 
 meant to carry things away, not to convey anything 
 back, and if the pipes run straight into the drains, 
 whenever they are not actually in use for their lawful 
 purpose, they are full of sewer air, which so comes 
 into the house. 
 
 60. There is always danger lest sewer air should 
 come up through the soil-pipe, and in order to prevent 
 this a ventilating shaft is fixed. It is easy to see 
 
30 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 where any soil-pipe comes out of the wall. Just 
 there, from the bend, another pipe begins, and it 
 runs up and up until it ends near the chimney-pots 
 on the roof. Wind blowing over its open end makes 
 a continual up-draught, and so draws foul air upwards, 
 away from the house. Ventilating shafts should be 
 the same size as the soil-pipe ; they are often too 
 small. 
 
 6 1. Traps are bends or boxes in a pipe which 
 hold water (or rather some of what was last thrown 
 
 SYPHON, SIMPLEST FORM OF TRAP 
 
 down). As air does not pass through water unless 
 a great deal of pressure is put upon it, the foul air in 
 the drain is " caught " or kept back by this barrier of 
 water. A drain-trap is no trap unless there is water 
 in it. 
 
 If traps are ineffectual it is generally because 
 
 (1) The box or bend is too shallow and holds too 
 little water. " Bell-traps," often put in sculleries, 
 though they never should be, are bad for this reason. 
 
 (2) They are empty. Either the water has evapo- 
 rated (e.g. in an unoccupied house, or a pipe seldom 
 used) ; or the rush of water has sucked the pipe dry. 
 Plenty of water should be poured down all sinks and 
 pipes on first taking possession of a house. (3) The 
 
CHAP, iv DISPOSAL OF WASTE 31 
 
 trap is a b.J shape or of bad material. Foul matter 
 may accumulate in corners or on sides ; it may also 
 be too large, so that the rush of water is not enough 
 to wash it clean. Any simple arrangement is likely 
 
 BELL-TRAP. 
 
 to be better for household use than a complicated 
 one. 
 
 62. Dustbins are intended to hold dry dust only; 
 they are not intended for vegetable refuse, or anything 
 that can putrefy, all which things should in town be 
 burned on a good fire with all the flues pulled out ; in 
 the country they go to the pigs. The best kind of 
 dustbin is a galvanised tub with a tight-fitting cover, 
 small enough to be lifted and carried away by a man. 
 The worst is an uncovered space enclosed by brick 
 walls, one being the wall of the house, the contents of 
 which must be dug out with a spade (see 165). 
 
32 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART i 
 
 63. The most perfect arrangements may fail 
 through mismanagement. Any channel for the 
 disposal of waste gets out of order when it is used 
 for what should go elsewhere. (i) Solid refuse- 
 coffee grounds, tea-leaves, shreds of flannel, hair, etc., 
 should not be put into drains, which serve for liquid 
 only. It is often better to have the grating over sink 
 or gulley fixed, so that it cannot be lifted. (2) Vege- 
 table and animal refuse should never be put into the 
 dust-bin, nor should remains of broth, sour milk, etc., 
 which belong to the drains. (3) Water, whether 
 mixed or not with trimmings of vegetables, tea-leaves, 
 and such like, should not be poured into the fire, but 
 poured off down the sink and the vegetables left dry. 
 
 Drains become clogged with fat. To prevent 
 this, a bucketful of boiling water with a handful of 
 soda should be poured down the sinks regularly twice 
 a week. A long cane is useful to loosen any 
 obstruction. 
 
 64. Disinfectants are seldom needed in a house 
 where the drains are rightly constructed and carefully 
 attended to. Sulphate of Iron, also called green 
 copperas, can be bought at any oil and colourman's 
 for about 2d. a pound ; and at a much lower rate from 
 the manufacturer's. It is the best disinfectant and 
 deodoriser for drains, ditches, and gulleys. It should 
 be dissolved in water and poured in. It has no smell. 
 It is used as a mordant by dyers, and fixes any colour, 
 notably that of Permanganate of Potash, also known 
 as Condy's fluid. This should be bought dry, kept 
 in a bottle, and mixed with water as wanted. It 
 removes bad smells, and has also the great advantage 
 of being inodorous. It is useful to wash over the 
 insides of wooden cupboards. Stains on linen, etc., 
 can be removed with a solution of alum. Carbolic acid 
 and powder, Jeyes* fluid and powder, are also useful. 
 
CHAP, iv DISPOSAL OF WASTE 33 
 
 65. Before we leave the subject of waste, let us 
 not forget that to waste, in the sense of to destroy, 
 is what we never do because we cannot. We make 
 nothing, we destroy nothing. We can only move 
 things, placing them now together, now apart, here or 
 there, so that the forces of nature may work upon 
 them and produce certain results. The farmer brings 
 manure to his field ; he carries seed and sows it 
 there ; he moves the soil, making ridges and furrows ; 
 he sprinkles poison for grubs and insects ; always he 
 is fetching and carrying while the plants grow and 
 take up the food that has been laid ready for their 
 acceptance. Presently he cuts the crop and carries 
 it, he grinds it, separates it into parts, mixes it with 
 other things, finally puts it into his mouth, and it be- 
 comes himself. And now, serving for the purposes of 
 the man's life, his food is broken up into inorganic 
 substances, into carbonic acid gas, water, and am- 
 monia ; he drives it away from him, calling it waste ; 
 and sooner or later this waste finds its way to the 
 fields, and is taken up by plants once more. Every 
 drop of water that we use, every atom of our bodies, 
 has gone this round many times since the world began. 
 W T hat we use now, was used yesterday, and will be 
 used to-morrow for some purpose that we do not 
 even dream of. We hold no fixed possession. Each 
 one of us stands where the streams meet, the one 
 flowing from us, while the other sets into our lives. 
 
 Looked at from this side, the work of the house- 
 wife seems to divide itself into three parts : First, to 
 get all we need ; second, to see that it is used as 
 long as possible in the best possible way ; third, to 
 pass it on without delay where it can be used to good 
 purpose once more. Nothing that we have is neutral; 
 either it does us good or it brings us harm. And every- 
 thing we do not want is actually wanted elsewhere. 
 
34 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART I 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 RENT 
 
 66. Some men build a house for themselves ; some 
 buy a house that another man has built ; some pay 
 so much a year rent for the privilege of living in a 
 particular house as long as it suits their purpose. 
 
 When we calculate the cost of building a house, 
 we allow so much for the house itself (see 16), and 
 so much for the ground that it stands upon. The 
 cost of building varies comparatively little all over 
 England, but the cost of land varies enormously. 
 No one can afford to live (for instance) in the City of 
 London, because land is worth so large a price. And 
 there is land to be had, as we say, " for an old song." 
 
 67. House-rent is the interest of the money spent 
 on building (materials, wages, etc.) calculated at about 
 six or seven per cent. Ground-rent is paid to the 
 owner of the land the house stands upon, and some- 
 times it is paid separately, or by the owner of the 
 house. 
 
 68. The value of building-land varies. You 
 want to live near your work, or near a certain set 
 of friends, near the sea, a river, or fine scenery. If a 
 great many other tenants want these same things, rent 
 will go up, and you will, for the same money, get a 
 smaller house than you would get in a neighbourhood 
 less sought after. The tendency of the present day 
 is for town rents continually to go up, and for 
 country rents, in retired spots, or at a distance 
 from a railway station, to go down. 
 
 The questions to be asked are : (i) Whether any 
 or all of these things are worth paying for? (2) 
 Whether we have the wherewithal to pay? It is 
 
CHAP, v RENT 35 
 
 always worth paying for a house of a certain size, 
 well built and placed, because without it we have not 
 health, either to earn an income or to enjoy life. It 
 might, for the same reason, be worth our while, even 
 out of a small income, to pay a high rent near the 
 sea, or for the neighbourhood of an open space. A 
 low-rented house in which some one is always ill, is 
 the dearest house we can choose. But to live in a 
 fashionable or wealthy district adds neither to our 
 health nor our comfort ; and if we live in too small 
 a house we shall suffer all the evils of overcrowding, 
 be our neighbours who they may. When the tide of 
 fashion leaves a neighbourhood, rents go down, and 
 large well-built houses may often be bought or hired 
 for less than they would cost to build. 
 
 69. This scarcely seems to agree with the well- 
 known fact that the poorest people in the lowest 
 districts often pay enormous rents for very poor 
 accommodation. But they are considered, and 
 rightly, bad tenants ; they take a home for a short 
 time and quit at short notice ; their habits are 
 destructive to house property, and they are able to 
 give no security for compensation for damage, or 
 even for payment of rent. All other things being 
 equal, one always has to pay more for a house hired 
 for a short tenancy, or with option to quit at short 
 notice. Houses are often let for three years, at a 
 year's notice ; or under a lease for seven, fourteen, or 
 twenty-one years. As no landlord grants a lease 
 unless the would-be tenant produces evidence of his 
 willingness and ability to pay, he (the landlord) is 
 sure of his rent for a long time to come, and can sue 
 the tenant for wilful damage always, and for repairs 
 according to the terms of his agreement. It is true 
 that every tenant, rich or poor, can be sued for wil- 
 ful damage ; but if a man has no money it is lost 
 
36 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART I 
 
 labour to pursue him ; and the landlord, knowing 
 this, makes a bad tenant pay for damage beforehand, 
 and calls it higher rent. Tenants likely to cause 
 destruction always have to pay more rent. Land- 
 lords often object to children and dogs, and no land- 
 lord would let at his lowest rent for a school or an 
 asylum. 
 
 70. Wear and tear of living must cause some 
 damage. Rain and wind destroy the fabric of a 
 house. There are therefore always repairs both 
 outside and inside. The tenant may pay a higher 
 rent in order to have the house kept in repair by the 
 landlord, or he may pay a less rent and agree to keep 
 the property in repair himself. Very often the land- 
 lord undertakes outside, and the tenant inside, repairs, 
 but it is all a matter for agreement. Women, who 
 seldom are accustomed to the management of house 
 property, should never agree to repair until they 
 clearly understand what they have to do, and to 
 what expense they may possibly or probably be put. 
 
 71. Houses are commonly let on long leases, 
 which may be passed on from hand to hand. 
 The holder of the lease at the expiration of the 
 term is bound to put the premises in thorough 
 repair before handing them back to the landlord. 
 Inexperienced tenants often are induced to hire what 
 appears to be a very cheap house for the end of a 
 lease, and presently find that what they have to 
 pay in dilapidations transforms their cheap house 
 into a very dear one indeed. And the loss of 
 money is often attended with a great deal of personal 
 annoyance, and followed up by a long lawyer's 
 bill. 
 
 72. We have then to allow a certain sum for house- 
 rent and ground-rent and for repairs. The smaller 
 the income the larger the proportion spent on these 
 
CHAP, v RENT 37 
 
 items. Weekly wage-earners commonly spend one- 
 fifth, and often one-quarter, of their income on rent, 
 which, however, in this case practically always includes 
 rates and taxes. One-fifth to one-sixth is perhaps a 
 fair average for persons spending a few hundreds a 
 year in town. 
 
 73. Everywhere Rates and Taxes must be paid. 
 These include " Queen's Taxes," Le. a tax levied for 
 public service ; and " local rates " to pay for schools, 
 lighting and keeping the streets, public baths and 
 libraries, sewers, and the maintenance of the poor of the 
 parish. Besides these, we pay a fixed rate for water. 
 All these together amount to something between a 
 quarter and a third of the rent, to take a rough esti- 
 mate for London and other large towns. In country 
 places, rates are very much lower. 
 
 74. Rent, repairs, rates, and taxes being paid for, 
 only a small sum more is wanted for Insurance 
 against Fire. The percentage charged varies accord- 
 ing to the risk involved. Detached houses pay less 
 than houses in a row ; living over an oil warehouse 
 or in a timber-yard, we pay more than if we keep a 
 crockery- shop or sell fish. What we insure is our 
 own property : a tenant insures not the house but his 
 furniture and fittings ; a man living in his own house 
 insures, if he is wise, house and furniture ; a trader 
 his stock ; a farmer, his garnered crops. We may 
 not insure for more than our property is worth, but 
 it is wise to insure to the full value. 
 
 We can insure not only against fire, but also against 
 accident to life or limb, damage by hail, breakage 
 of plate-glass, burglary, and many other contingen- 
 cies, all more or less likely to affect the householder. 
 Loss by fire may come any day to any one of us, 
 and all persons should insure against it. 
 
 75. It will be seen that all these are fixed ex- 
 
38 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART I 
 
 penses. Housekeeping expenses may .vary from year 
 to year, even from month to month, but once having 
 hired our house we must, whatever else we stint our- 
 selves in, pay certain definite sums of money on 
 certain days. 
 
PART II. THE HOME 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PLANNING THE ROOMS 
 
 76. Having decided upon our house, which room 
 shall be devoted to which purpose ? We must have 
 bedrooms to sleep in, and some room where we may 
 dress ourselves and keep our clothes ; kitchens to 
 cook our food in ; a place where food can be stored, 
 and another where it can be eaten ; and parlours to 
 live in, where we can work, write, or receive friends. 
 Some of us, who do our day's work at home, need 
 also a room set apart for it ; a study for the student, 
 a schoolroom for the children, a laboratory for the 
 man of science, a sick-room for a chronic invalid, and 
 so on. 
 
 77. A house in England, where all building land is 
 valuable, usually has two or more stories ; and in 
 town, where every yard of the site must be made the 
 most of, kitchens and offices are often beneath the 
 level of the ground, and the bedrooms built close under 
 the roof. This is done for the sake of economy, not 
 for the sake of health or convenience. Underground 
 rooms are so unhealthy that they may not be let as 
 dwellings (according to the London bye-laws) unless 
 certain conditions are complied with as to position and 
 
40 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 size of window, height above the level of the street, 
 and so on. Attics must have a certain average height 
 from floor to ceiling. Laws of this kind do not touch 
 those who occupy a whole house. They may live as 
 they choose, and no one interferes. But we do not 
 wish to use our liberty in order to sin against health. 
 We willingly apply to ourselves the rules made for the 
 dwellers in tenement houses. We take care that no 
 underground room shall be lived in unless it is dry 
 and well-lighted. An underground room with a win- 
 dow opening into a passage is one that no person 
 should consent to sleep in. 
 
 78. A basement kitchen adds much to servants' 
 work in fetching and carrying and cleaning of steps ; 
 it adds also to the difficulty of preventing kitchen 
 smells from travelling through the house. Hot air 
 ascends, and it has been suggested that kitchens 
 should be on the top story where there is light in plenty, 
 and from whence smells would never reach the rest 
 of the house. The difficulty of carrying food up and 
 waste downstairs can easily be overcome by a lift, a 
 shoot for rubbish, a speaking-tube for tradesmen, and 
 water laid on or pumped up. But the plan, excellent 
 in theory, is seldom put in practice, and we must 
 reckon with smells from below. Extreme care and 
 cleanliness on the part of the cook will do much : 
 efficient ventilation more (see 33). 
 
 79. Attics are generally used as bedrooms, and 
 are bad because though there are many square feet 
 of floor, there are not many cubic feet of air, and if 
 only the floor space is considered, the inmates are 
 overcrowded. 
 
 80. The size of our sleeping-rooms has much 
 to do with our energy and health. It has been found, 
 by a series of calculations too long to repeat here, 
 that each adult needs, every hour in his life, 3000 
 
CHAP, i PLANNING THE ROOMS 41 
 
 cubic feet of air. It is known by experience that the 
 air of a room cannot be changed more than three or 
 four times an hour without causing a draught. And 
 so we see at once that each person needs a space of 
 cubic feet =1000 cubic feet, or at least of 
 cu bic feet =750 cubic feet. It is very easy 
 with a foot-rule, or even with a yard measure, to 
 ascertain how much space all the members of a 
 household will have in the new house, to sleep in or 
 to work in. If they have less than 750 cubic feet 
 (10 feet long, 10 feet high, and 7^ feet broad), they 
 must either put up with a draught, which will 
 certainly not hurt them while they are warmly 
 covered in bed, or they must breathe foul air from 
 the end of the first hour, which as certainly will hurt 
 them by day or by night (see 36). This must be 
 clear space, not blocked with furniture, and it allows 
 nothing for a gas-burner or a lamp (see 186). A 
 :hild under ten is generally reckoned as half a 
 person ; children over ten as adults. 
 
 8 1. With regard to space in living-rooms, it is 
 interesting to see what the law says about children in 
 Board and Voluntary Schools, who work only five 
 and a half hours a day, and have in that time a short 
 and a long break. The least floor space is 8 square 
 feet for schools already erected, and 10 square feet 
 for schools to be erected in future. This is exclusive 
 of passage-room round the forms, and schools are, 
 besides, much more lofty than dwelling-rooms. 
 
 Probably the result of measuring will be to 
 show that many persons live perhaps some are 
 compelled to live in too narrow a space. The 
 practical advice that can be given to them is 
 this : (i) To live in all the rooms that they have, 
 and not to keep one especially, not a best one 
 whether parlour or bedroom, for chance visitors. (2) 
 
42 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 To take up the least possible space with furniture or 
 hangings. (3) To make the bedrooms the first 
 consideration, particularly for those whose day's work 
 is not done at home, and who therefore spend very 
 little time in their parlours as against the time 
 necessarily spent in their bedrooms. (4) To ventilate 
 continuously. 
 
 82. As for aspect, so that it be not north, that 
 is largely a matter of taste. Whatever our employ- 
 ment is, we do better if our mind is cheerful and 
 our body strong, and to this end light, sunshine, and 
 air are necessary. The only room in the house that 
 should face due north is the larder. If any one is to 
 have a north room, let it be a strong and vigorous 
 person, who lives much out-of-doors, never an 
 invalid, or a child, or one who works at home. 
 
 Larders (see 166) must be near the kitchen, and 
 are often in the basement. Town larders are 
 sometimes built next to the coal-cellar, under the 
 street, where they can only be ventilated from one 
 side. Because a bad larder adds certainly and per- 
 manently to household expense, it is good economy 
 to have it well arranged at the beginning of a 
 tenancy. 
 
 83. The housewife must balance one against the 
 other the needs, often conflicting, of each member of 
 the family. Some are old and feeble ; some young 
 and growing fast ; some strong, others delicate ; some 
 sit indoors from morning to night. Children ask for 
 three things in their rooms air, sunshine, and the 
 never -failing delight of looking out of the window. 
 Old people ask for warmth from fires and sun, for 
 quiet, and for few stairs to climb. Speaking generally, 
 at the top of a house there will be most light and air, 
 least dust, and damp, and noise, least chance of bad 
 smells ; but there will also be, immediately under the 
 
CHAP, ii FURNISHING THE HOUSE 43 
 
 roof, the greatest alternations of temperature, not 
 only during the year, but in each twenty -four 
 hours. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FURNISHING THE HOUSE 
 
 84. Wherever human beings take up their abode 
 they require furniture and utensils. The principle 
 that underlies the getting of furniture is always the 
 same ; it is a means to an end. Furniture supplies us 
 with means for sleep and rest ; washing and dressing; 
 storage of clothes ; preparation and enjoyment of 
 food ; and warmth. What we buy to these ends 
 should be the best that we can afford, inasmuch as 
 we want it, not for a short time only, but for life. 
 
 85. Our domicile is the place where we sleep, and 
 good housewives look first to the furnishing of the 
 bedchambers. The bedstead should stand out in 
 the room, should be strong, preferably of iron or 
 brass, should be easily taken to pieces and moved, 
 without any hangings. A chain mattress is cooler 
 and cleaner than a paillasse, and over it only 
 one stuffed mattress is required. Any material 
 which does not hold damp and perspiration is suit- 
 able for stuffing. Horse or even cow hair is dearer 
 than wool. Long wool is sometimes replaced by 
 waste from carpet factories, which is harder and 
 sooner gets lumpy. Unreliable makers often put in 
 a layer of the better material near the seams, and fill 
 up the middle, where few buyers would look, with 
 cheaper stuff. Cotton waste, known as flock or mill 
 puff, costs very little, and may be used in default of 
 
44 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 anything better. For the bed-clothing lightness and 
 warmth are needed woollen blankets, or feather or 
 down quilts, with some coverlet to keep the dust off 
 by day. Pillows should be stuffed with feathers, 
 goose feathers being softer and dearer than chickens' 
 feathers. It is more economical in the long run to 
 sew all mattresses and pillows in a stout linen ticking, 
 not in cotton. 
 
 86. As for washing apparatus, there is now in 
 most new houses a bath-room, whereby much labour 
 is saved. In addition to a bath-room, there should 
 be in every bedroom means of washing from head to 
 foot daily. 
 
 87. A wardrobe or ehest of drawers is necessary 
 to all persons who dress neatly and economically. It 
 is an unthrifty plan to hang clothing on walls and 
 doors. A cupboard fixed to the wall costs less and 
 holds less dust, but it cannot be removed by the 
 tenant. 
 
 88. Most household furniture is made of wood. 
 Various woods are used. Ash, beech, birch, deal, 
 ebony, mahogany, maple, oak, pine, rosewood, have 
 each their merits ; some are cheap, some durable, 
 some beautiful. All woods need to be kept some 
 time and seasoned ; made up green, they warp and 
 split. It is therefore seldom wise to buy wooden 
 furniture at a very low price, or of a man who has 
 Little capital. 
 
 Second-hand furniture is necessarily seasoned 
 (see 252). Newly painted woodwork is open to 
 suspicion because the fresh paint may have been 
 intended to cover the shrinking of the wood. Painted 
 furniture is seldom economical, because it soon gets 
 shabby, whereas good polished furniture improves in 
 appearance if it is well kept. 
 
 89. Upholstered furniture is only fit for wealthy 
 
CHAP. II FURNISHING THE HOUSE 45 
 
 homes where many servants are kept, and where the 
 expense of renewal and recovering is of no importance 
 (see 194). 
 
 90. Blinds must be hung in the windows to secure 
 privacy. Curtains are generally hung at parlour 
 windows, partly for warmth, partly for adornment. 
 Bedroom windows are better uncurtained. The 
 more sun, light, and air we get into our rooms, the 
 greater measure of health we shall enjoy (see 14). 
 And the housewife, remembering this, should see 
 that curtains are hung at the side of, not over, the 
 panes ; she should never buy expensive furniture 
 which she must guard from light and air, nor smart 
 upholstery which will spoil in the sun ; and she 
 should have the fewest possible contrivances for 
 blocking out light, or catching dust 
 
 91. Carpets are among the things which it is 
 cheaper to buy good of their kind. Kidderminster 
 or good Brussels are probably the cheapest in the 
 end. A square that can be turned round to equalise 
 the wear lasts longer than a fitted carpet, costs less 
 both to buy and to make, and can easily be taken up. 
 Small patterns cut to more advantage, and in double- 
 warp fabrics, the threads crossing more often, they 
 also wear better. 
 
 92.* To stain boards round the carpet saves much 
 trouble in scrubbing. Soot and linseed oil, or water 
 stain (oak or mahogany), or permanganate of potash, 
 can be put on with a brush, and if turpentine and 
 beeswax is rubbed in afterwards, no varnishing is 
 required, and the look of the floor improves with 
 time. 
 
 93. Walls can be whitewashed, distempered, 
 painted, or papered. Paper is usually preferred. 
 Old paper should be removed before the new is hung. 
 Smooth papers collect less dust-and, -some can be 
 
46 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 washed. Small patterns cut less to waste, and often 
 cost less to hang. 
 
 94. Utensils for cooking food are commonly made 
 of iron, tin, earthenware, or copper. Iron pots are 
 durable and cheap, but take some time to clean, and 
 if dirty inside, spoil the food ; if dirty outside, waste 
 the fuel, because more heat is required to boil a 
 soot-encrusted pot than a bright one. Enamelled 
 pans are liable to burn and chip, and need great care 
 in using. Copper is dear to buy, but durable, and 
 the best metal to cook in. Earthenware is cheap to 
 buy, excellent for cooking, and easy to clean, but 
 liable to crack when suddenly set cold on a fierce 
 fire, or hot on a cold sink. Tin saucepans and 
 kettles are easy to clean, but liable to rust if left wet. 
 They are thin, and heat soon penetrates them, an 
 advantage in boiling water quickly, a disadvantage in 
 cooking generally. 
 
 95. Besides stove (see 188) and cooking-pots, we 
 shall require in the kitchen other utensils and 
 appliances according to the elaborateness of the 
 dinners to be cooked; and, however simple our 
 dinners are, we must have a table of unpolished 
 wood (generally deal or maple) that can be scrubbed, 
 a dresser (often fixed by the landlord), cupboards for 
 stores and for cleaning materials (see 193), with 
 crockery to serve our food on, knives to cut it with, 
 electro or silver forks and spoons, trays to carry it on 
 and save steps, with other things too numerous to 
 catalogue here. 
 
 96. Crockery for kitchen use should be strong 
 earthenware or stoneware. China is kept for parlour 
 use, and is a luxury of life. It is better to buy 
 earthenware or china either white or of a stock pattern, 
 so that it can be replaced without difficulty. 
 
 97. Once embarked on the purchase of luxuries, 
 
CHAP, ii FURNISHING THE HOUSE 47 
 
 what limit can we set? At least we can remember 
 that furniture not only has to be bought but kept. 
 We may afford a few pounds to purchase this or that 
 fine piece of furniture, plate, or hanging. But can 
 we afford to pay a servant to keep it clean ? Or do 
 we propose to spend our own time in cleaning? 
 Furthermore, furniture and utensils take up space, 
 and to live on a small income generally means to live 
 in a space which, with the best management, is 
 inconveniently restricted. 
 
 Furniture may be obtained by paying cash for it ; 
 by paying a larger price in instalments ; and by hire. 
 The two last-named are unsatisfactory : until the last 
 instalment is paid the furniture belongs to the vendor, 
 who may remove it if a payment fails or is overdue ; 
 and in hiring 1 the furniture is never your own, while 
 the hire price is much more than fair interest on 
 the purchasing price. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CLOTHING 
 
 98. All that has to be said about clothing may be 
 divided into five parts : (i) material; (2) shape; (3) 
 purchase ; (4) storage ; (5) making and mending. 
 
 99. The materials of which clothing is made are 
 wool, silk, fur, feathers, leather, cotton, linen, india- 
 rubber. Of these six are animal and three vegetable 
 products. Each has its special advantages and 
 
 drawbacks. 
 
 100. Clothes economise the body-heat made by 
 the oxidisation of our food (see 138). By warm 
 clothing we do not mean that any clothing has 
 
48 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 warmth in itself, but that it is made of a substance 
 that does not allow heat to pass quickly through it 
 made of some non-conducting material. Clothed in 
 a non-eonduetor the heat that we make we keep ; it 
 does not pass away from us to warm the surrounding 
 air and objects. We cover ourselves with blankets 
 in bed, not to warm us, but to prevent our heat from 
 escaping. Put a piece of iron or wood in bed 
 instead of a living person, and it will be as cold next 
 morning as it was overnight. Take a lump of ice 
 and wrap it in a blanket ; that is the surest way of 
 preventing it from getting warm and melting. 
 
 Most vegetable substances are better conductors 
 of heat, and therefore colder to wear than animal 
 substances. 
 
 1 01. Wool and woollen industries play a large part 
 in the economic history of every nation, and they do 
 this because woollen clothing is the best that we have. 
 Wool is a non-conductor of heat, and there is not a 
 person in Great Britain who does not use woollen 
 goods to clothe himself, or for household purposes. 
 Wool has also the power of holding a good deal of 
 moisture without becoming perceptibly wet, and for 
 this reason it should be worn next the skin by all 
 persons who perspire freely. Another great advantage 
 of woollen clothing is its lightness. The weight of 
 bed or body clothing should be carefully noted, and 
 diminished wherever possible, because to carry weights 
 call them by what name we may uses up the 
 strength that we want for our life's work. The draw- 
 backs of woollen clothing are that it shrinks with 
 washing, and is therefore apt to be worn dirty ; and 
 though it is dearer than cotton underclothing, it is 
 less durable. 
 
 102. Feathers are worn as ornaments, and used 
 for bed-coverings, but chiefly in Continental countries. 
 
CHAP, in CLOTHING 49 
 
 They are light and very warm. Fur is the warmest 
 of all clothing, used too often only for ornament. 
 
 103. Silk is light, a bad conductor of heat, and 
 exceedingly comfortable as underclothing. But its 
 price puts it beyond the reach of moderate incomes. 
 
 104. Cotton is cheap, durable, and easily washed, 
 so that its general use among all classes of people 
 has tended greatly in the direction of health. But 
 cotton is a much more rapid conductor of heat than 
 wool or silk, and delicate persons and those who live 
 a sedentary life require something warmer. 
 
 105. Linen is a still more rapid conductor of heat. 
 It is now seldom used in this country except for bed- 
 linen. It is expensive but very durable. 
 
 1 06. India-rubber clothing does not allow moisture 
 to pass through from inside nor rain from outside, and 
 the result is that, though it is worn to keep us dry, 
 the clothing under it is very often wet. If worn it 
 should be perforated, or so shaped that air can 
 escape. 
 
 107. Leather occupies a different place in clothing. 
 Dressed sheep-skins are worn in very cold countries, 
 and we clothe ourselves in the skin of animals with 
 the fur on. But leather means to us shoe-leather, a 
 very large item in the expenses of a growing family. 
 
 1 08. About the shape of clothing there is only one 
 thing to say that fits all cases. Clothing should be 
 so shaped that it causes no inconvenience to carry, 
 and no deformity of the body. It should be adapted 
 to the doing of our work, whatever that work may 
 happen to be. 
 
 109. Whatever our- circumstances, we all need a 
 certain amount of clothing. This clothing must be 
 bought. Nowhere is it more necessary to remember 
 the rule : necessaries first, luxuries when and as we 
 can afford them. Many housewives, having furnished 
 
 K 
 
50 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 their families with necessary clothing, have but a 
 small sum remaining for luxuries of costume. All 
 the more need then to buy wisely, to buy nothing of 
 which the use is uncertain, to remember that clothes 
 must be cheap (not the same as low-priced), warm, 
 able to stand the stress of time and weather, fashioned 
 so as to call for the least outlay of time in mending, 
 storing, or cleaning. 
 
 no. Leather to be good cannot be low-priced, 
 because the excellence of leather depends on the 
 length of time taken to tan it. "Cheap" leather 
 goods are hurriedly tanned ; they are often made of 
 split leather. " Cheap " boots and shoes are generally 
 the dearest in the end : this is one of the items that 
 often cost, actually as well as relatively, less to rich 
 people than to poor ; and every woman is poor, what- 
 ever her income, if she never gets before-hand, and 
 lives from hand to mouth. It is not economical to 
 buy a pair of boots and wear them every day till 
 they are done for ; like most other clothes, boots last 
 longer if they are worn turn and turn about, and 
 thoroughly dried after each wearing. 
 
 in. Mixed materials generally wear badly. Wool 
 should be all wool ; silk, pure silk ; linen, woven only 
 of linen thread. Because cotton is cheap, other 
 materials are frequently woven with cotton back or 
 warp ; the adulteration may be detected by unravel- 
 ling a corner. The cotton threads run sometimes 
 along, sometimes across the stuff. - When wetted, 
 cotton and wool shrink unevenly, and the stun" 
 puckers ; cotton dyes are seldom fast. 
 
 112. Many low-priced woollen materials are made 
 of old wool torn to pieces and respun, called " shoddy." 
 Low-priced cotton stuffs are stiffened with China clay, 
 which falls out on the first wetting. Linen goods are 
 adulterated with cotton. Carpets and curtains, sup- 
 
CHAP, in CLOTHING 51 
 
 posed to be of wool, have jute woven into them. Any 
 or all of these stuffs may be badly dyed, so that the 
 colour fades out in the sun or in the wash-tub. All 
 these things are supplied by manufacturers because 
 they are demanded by the public. Women ask for 
 constant change and variety, and they are eager to 
 buy anything that looks smart and pretty, and that is 
 offered to them for a small sum of ready money. But 
 all clothing must be made, and the making gets year 
 by year dearer, as materials (even good ones) tend to 
 become constantly cheaper ; it costs the same time or 
 money to make a cheap material as a dear. Suppose 
 a garment costing ^i, costs ^i to make and lasts 
 one year ; another costing ios., also costs i to make 
 and lasts six months. We shall need two of these 
 last, costing ^3, in order to clothe ourselves for a year, 
 as against 2 spent on the one garment. There is 
 here a clear saving of i in ^3 = 33% ; and besides 
 the money, we save the time and thought that must 
 have been expended on the second garment. Another 
 way in which purchasers of clothes often waste time 
 and money is by buying and making a great many 
 trimmings. They are costly, they soon get out of 
 order, and they do not add anything to the wear of 
 any garment. 
 
 113. To choose calico look at the selvedge, which 
 should be even and strong ; rub a piece between 
 your fingers and see that no white powder is rubbed 
 out. Calico made by well-known makers is marked 
 in numbers, and it saves a great deal of trouble to 
 ask for a certain number of, say, Horrockses, or 
 Crewdson's. Never buy inferior calico ; if money is 
 short, good unbleached calico is cheap, very durable, 
 and soon washes white. Some persons buy loose, 
 inferior calico in order to show off children's needle- 
 work, which is easier set in stuff where the threads 
 
52 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 are far apart. But it is more useful to children 
 to teach them the difference between good calico and 
 bad, than to teach them to set stitches by the thread 
 in garments that will wear out as soon as they are 
 put on. 
 
 114. All civilised persons possess at least two or 
 three changes of clothing, and those not in use must 
 be stored. Winter clothing must be stored through 
 summer, and summer clothing through winter. When 
 the space for storage is limited, it is wise to have 
 as little clothing as possible ; for all clothing gathers 
 organic matter from the bodies of the wearers, and 
 organic matter, wherever you find it, is liable to 
 decay, and fouls the air. A cupboard full of half- 
 worn clothes is always apt to be close and stuffy, and 
 the clothes should frequently be taken out and 
 brushed, sunned, and aired, in order to purify them, 
 while the cupboard itself is thoroughly ventilated. 
 But the drawbacks arising from a cupboard full of 
 clothes are as nothing compared with those of boxes 
 of clothes under a bed, or suits of clothes hanging on 
 wall and door-pegs, where they collect dust, hinder 
 ventilation, and soon get shabby. Any garment, 
 stored for a short or a long time, should first be 
 mended and cleaned. All garments cannot be 
 washed, but all can. be brushed, beaten, and aired, 
 either before a fire or in the sunshine. 
 
 115. Greasy spots should be taken out, for moths 
 lay their eggs in any part of woollen clothing tainted 
 with grease or perspiration, and the worms, hatching 
 out, eat their first meal on the spot. All substances 
 of animal origin wool, fur, feathers, and to some 
 degree silk are liable to the attacks of moths : they 
 should therefore be sewn securely in paper or linen ; 
 they should be taken out, brushed, and beaten, every 
 month or two; and they should be kept in a dry 
 
CHAP, in CLOTHING 53 
 
 place. Various strong-smelling substances camphor, 
 cloves, carbolic, Jeyes' powder are put with clothing 
 to keep moths away. 
 
 1 1 6. Stored clothing must be folded in the right 
 way ; for there is a right way and a wrong to fold 
 each garment. Perhaps the best way of learning is 
 to observe and imitate the folding of a coat or 
 trousers sent home new by a good tailor, or of a 
 dress by an experienced dressmaker. It is often wise 
 to fill the sleeves of a dress with soft paper, and with 
 a needle and cotton to tack any folds into place. 
 No article of clothing improves by being stored, 
 except (perhaps) boots and shoes, which may ad- 
 vantageously be kept for a month or two before 
 being taken into regular wear. The things which 
 spoil with storing, or become of less value, are made- 
 up garments, materials of any peculiar or marked 
 fashion, and all children's clothes, which may be 
 grown out of. It is therefore never wise to buy these 
 before one needs them, or to keep any large stock 
 in wear. 
 
 117. Most housewives will either mend or see to 
 the mending of all the family clothing and household 
 linen. A few housewives, having done that, will still 
 find time to make clothes for some members of the 
 household. Mending is the needlework that the 
 mistress of a household most needs to understand. 
 She will probably not do it all herself, but she must 
 know how it all should be done, in order to direct 
 children or servants ; she must be able to fix work 
 sensibly and accurately, and to see at once how any 
 half-worn garment or house-linen can be turned and 
 re-made to the best advantage. 
 
 1 1 8. As for manual dexterity in setting stitches, 
 that is of less importance ; machines can do a great 
 deal of that sort of work, and life is by no means 
 
54 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 long enough to stitch half- worn garments by the 
 thread. The women who practically need to do the 
 finest needlework are not mistresses of households, 
 but those who earn a livelihood by making under- 
 garments for the wealthy; and with needlework as 
 a profession I have nothing to do. Stitches must be 
 set straight, or the stuff " drags " ; they must be set 
 strong, or they will come asunder ; and they must be 
 set with eommon sense, because the sort of stitch 
 suited for one material, or one patch, is quite unsuit- 
 able for another. 
 
 119. Mending never gets done at all unless it is 
 done at a stated time. All household linen should 
 be looked over each week before it is washed. When 
 the washing is done at home, all things should be 
 mended rough-dry. Personal linen cannot always be 
 mended before it is washed. The value of each thing 
 as it is mended seems very little, and housewives are 
 apt to think that it is better economy to leave the 
 holes and to buy new when the time comes, while 
 they occupy their time with making new and saving 
 dressmaker's and tailor's bills. In the long-run, how- 
 ever, mending is always found to pay the best. 
 Where the mistress is careful, servants are careful 
 too ; and even the children soon learn to take care 
 of their possessions when they know mother has the 
 trouble of mending if they are careless. And then 
 again dressmaking can be put out, but mending is 
 done at home or left undone. 
 
 120. Every housewife should know how to eut 
 out the garments in ordinary use. There are always 
 people in the world who can sew a thing after it is 
 cut and fixed. Cutting and planning is skilled work, 
 at which one can always earn or save a good day's 
 wage. 
 
 121. Suppose we determine to make some of our 
 
CHAP, in CLOTHING 55 
 
 clothing, which will it be wiser to make, and which 
 shall be put out ? Boys' and men's clothing is, under 
 existing conditions, made in great numbers of stock 
 sizes in factories, and can be bought as cheaply as 
 it can be made. Women's underclothing can also 
 be bought at a low price too low indeed ; but the 
 calico used is so inferior to the needlework and the 
 trimming, that it is never cheap to buy ; it takes as 
 much time to mend as would have sufficed to make, 
 in the first instance, a strong garment needing no 
 mending. It is said that a set of underlinen should 
 last as many years as there are pieces ; thus four 
 nightdresses last four years ; so that the making of 
 underlinen does not often come round, and can be 
 undertaken at leisure hours. 
 
 122. Dressmaking is much more highly paid than 
 plain sewing, and if a woman can make her own or her 
 children's dresses well, she can scarcely employ to 
 better advantage the time that she devotes to needle- 
 work. The saving is not only in the dressmaker's 
 wages, but on the quantity of material. A dress 
 made at home seldom has as much stuff in it as a 
 dress made out is said to have. A short length, just 
 too little to satisfy a dressmaker, may often be bought 
 at a low price. Girls should learn to make their own 
 dresses they never know what their circumstances 
 may be, and so long as they are unmarried, they can- 
 not do better than make some of the clothes they 
 wear. 
 
 But when a woman has a family to care for, it 
 always becomes a question whether she has not duties 
 more important than the making of clothes. Every 
 one must be dressed warmly and sufficiently, and if 
 there is no margin of income to put sewing out, the 
 housewife must make as well as mend, and she will 
 spend all the odd corners of her time at her work- 
 
56 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 basket. The necessities of clothing once provided, 
 there are things that children need more than extra 
 clothes or smarter clothes. Children are none the 
 worse for going plainly clad, or for seeing their mother 
 plainly clad too ; but they are greatly the worse if 
 they miss a mother's sympathy and companionship in 
 their games and their walks and their lessons. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FOOD : QUANTITY REQUIRED 
 
 123. What must the housewife know about food? 
 She must provide for the family food in quantity 
 sufficient and in quality suitable to keep each mem- 
 ber in good working order. She must know how 
 to exchange the money and time that she has to 
 spend on the best food to be had for that price. 
 She must know how to store and what to store. 
 She must be able either to cook simple food, or to 
 direct another person in cooking it, which means 
 considerably more knowledge. 
 
 124. If we have not enough food our strength 
 dwindles, and we cannot work with body or mind as 
 we would. If we eat too much food our bodies are 
 overloaded, and again we work badly. If we buy 
 more than we eat, we waste our money and many 
 people's time. And if we buy and eat more than 
 we can afford, we are always striving and yet poor. 
 So it is important to have enough, and not more 
 than enough. 
 
 125. Different persons have very different ideas as 
 to the quantity of food needful for a household, but 
 
CHAP, iv FOOD : QUANTITY REQUIRED 57 
 
 that is not because, taking one person with another, 
 there is any great margin for difference in the average 
 weight of food eaten by any considerable number of 
 people. The difference is rather in the quantity 
 wasted. 
 
 126. What do we understand by "quantity suf- 
 ficient to keep a man in good working order " ? 
 He must have enough to make up to him for the 
 daily wasting of his body in the work of living and 
 in doing the work of his life. A man who does not 
 eat enough loses weight. The maintenance of 
 weight may fairly be our first test. We do not 
 weigh ourselves frequently, and perhaps should not 
 know if we lost, and do not know when we gain 
 weight. But the inmates of public institutions are 
 weighed periodically, and their dietary is carefully 
 calculated to maintain their size while doing the 
 work that is allotted to them ; if their work is in- 
 creased so is their food in proportion. We learn 
 much from these dietaries, because we see how much 
 food is necessary to keep the average man or woman 
 in health. 
 
 127. Bread is the staple food in Great Britain. 
 The less people spend on food the larger the pro- 
 portion that bread bears to other things. If bread 
 is good it is probably the cheapest food, and if we 
 buy it of the baker we are saved all expense of fuel 
 and trouble of cooking. A drop in the price of 
 bread means much to poor folk, very little to the 
 well-to-do ; as for the wealthy, the baker's bill is so 
 small an item in their general expenses that they 
 may not even know what bread costs a pound. 
 
 In institutions, where there is little variety of other 
 food, it is usual to allow 10 to 15 ozs. a day for 
 adults, and half that for children between 5 and 10. 
 Roughly reckoned, that would be a half -quartern 
 
58 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 (2 Ibs.) loaf between two persons, if bread formed the 
 bulk of the diet, a half-quartern loaf between three 
 or four persons if flour or other farinaceous foods and 
 vegetables are given. In any household this will be 
 enough, for if a great deal of bread is used for 
 crumbs or fancy cooking, there is sure to be much 
 more than the institution allowance of other foods, 
 and so less plain bread is eaten. Count the number 
 of people in the house, and divide it by 3 or by 4 : 
 that should represent the number of half-quartern 
 loaves delivered daily ; if more are paid for, the 
 chances are that bread is thrown either into the fire 
 or into the pig-tub. This calculation assumes that 
 at every meal only so much bread is cut as is wanted, 
 and all is eaten. 
 
 128. Home-made bread is generally more nourish- 
 ing, and always more economical, if one can afford 
 the time to make it. A bushel of flour weighs 56 
 Ibs., a sack 280 Ibs. The drier the flour the more 
 water it absorbs, and the more loaves are made from 
 a given weight, but the average for a sack of flour is 
 90 to 96 quartern loaves, if nothing but water, yeast, 
 and salt is added. Rice or potatoes mixed with the 
 flour produce a greater weight of damper bread. It 
 does not keep so well, and when the baker adds 
 rice or potatoes it is clearly to the disadvantage of 
 his customers. If the consumer adds it himself he 
 gets the benefit, such as it is, of the extra loaves. 
 Alum is put into bread to please those customers 
 who foolishly demand very white bread (see 153). 
 
 Household bread is sold by weight at a certain 
 price per pound. The purchaser may demand an 
 extra slice to turn the scale at 4 Ibs. to the quartern. 
 Fancy bread (all brown bread generally included) is 
 not weighed, and the baker charges what price he 
 pleases, it being at the customer's option to take or 
 
CHAP, iv FOOD : QUANTITY REQUIRED 59 
 
 to leave it. Bread loses weight as it cools by escape 
 of steam. 
 
 129. Potatoes are among our cheapest foods. If 
 we lived on potatoes alone, or on potatoes and 
 buttermilk, as some Irish labourers are said to do, 
 we should eat 6 to 8 Ibs. a day. But we never do 
 that. Well-to-do people eat potatoes with, not for, a 
 meal, and each adult eats on an average ^ of a 
 pound, weighed raw in the skins, if he has no other 
 vegetable. According to that calculation, 2 Ibs. 
 should serve six persons for dinner. In institutions 
 the quantity varies from J to f lb., but there is no 
 second course to follow, and if another vegetable 
 is served it is generally reckoned into the weight. 
 Small potatoes weighed in their skins lose much in 
 peeling and boiling ; large ones are more advan- 
 tageous to buy by weight and small ones by measure; 
 they lie closer together. 
 
 130. Butter or some other fat is a necessary part 
 of food, and no wise housewife will grudge a plentiful 
 supply, provided it be all eaten. One ounce a day 
 is a common allowance in institutions and hospitals, 
 and it is enough to keep men and women in health. 
 Children often eat as much as adults, and they can 
 scarcely eat anything more wholesome than good 
 butter. If we reckon -J lb. a head a week we shall 
 have from each person a contribution of i oz. for 
 cooking, and in modest households this may be made 
 to serve. Butter used for frying, rich pastry, and 
 such things does not materially help to feed us ; it 
 may go a long way towards causing indigestion. 
 The weekly allowance may easily be doubled if 
 butter is used lavishly in the kitchen. Jam, golden 
 syrup, or treacle, though good enough in themselves, 
 are not a substitute for butter, of which they do not 
 take the place, especially not for children. If 
 
60 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 children eat jam or syrup on their bread, fat or 
 butter must be given to them in another form. 
 Dripping, suet, fat bacon, if they are digested, do 
 stand in the place of butter, and are much cheaper. 
 
 131. Meat is, no doubt, the food that gives the 
 greatest opportunity for waste. It is costly, the 
 butcher's bill being an important item in the ex- 
 penses of most households ; and as it is perishable, 
 if more is brought into the house than is eaten, the 
 surplus must be wasted. In the long run people 
 eat neither more nor less because a great quantity of 
 food is set before them ; they may eat more for a 
 few days or weeks, but presently they return to the 
 average. There are very wasteful ways of preparing 
 meat : as, for instance, when a leg of beef is boiled 
 down to make a quart of gravy, which means that 
 only the juice of the leg was used and the bulk of 
 the leg wasted ; or when a joint is so ill-cooked or 
 so fat that no one can swallow it, or so tough that 
 no one can chew it. There are also many persons 
 who waste meat by eating far more than is good for 
 them. What I have to do here is, not to deal with 
 these ways of wasting, but to tell what weight of 
 meat is found sufficient to keep people in health and 
 able for work, if cooked reasonably well and all 
 eaten. In households where elaborate cooking 
 makes less of the meat available for the table, there is 
 always more than enough fish, game, poultry, bacon, 
 and eggs to compensate. 
 
 The weight of meat in institutions is reckoned for 
 men at 4 to 8 ozs., for women at 4 to 6 ozs., weighed 
 cooked and without bone. This is not given on all 
 days of the week, and it is instead of, not as well as, 
 8 to 10 ozs. of cooked fish, 12 ozs. of suet pudding, 
 or pea-soup. Meat may be expected to lose J to -J 
 of its weight in cooking, and the average of bone will 
 
CHAP, iv FOOD : QUANTITY REQUIRED 61 
 
 be 2-3 ozs. in i Ib. If we reckon f Ib. for each man, 
 | Ib. for each woman, and 2 ozs. for each child, all 
 weighed as it comes from the butcher's, we shall 
 certainly have enough. Count the members of the 
 household, order meat accordingly for every day or 
 two days, and remember that if you, having eight 
 mouths to fill, habitually pay for meat enough to fill 
 ten, the portion of two must be put away, wasted 
 somehow. 
 
 It must be a matter of opinion how much we can 
 or ought to afford for the luxury of "a handsome- 
 looking joint." The economical way of housekeep- 
 ing is the continental way of ordering meat just 
 enough for each meal and nothing to spare ; but this 
 is not the custom in England, where we are apt to 
 think that as much as we want is not enough. It is 
 never economical to buy a very large joint, either to 
 serve it cold again and again, or to cook it a second 
 time. To eat warm food economises the body heat. 
 I have written as though to eat meat were necessary , 
 it is well known that we can live healthily and well 
 without it. 
 
 132. Milk is the one food we reckon backwards; 
 the less the age, the greater the milk-bill. For an 
 infant of a year old 2 to 2\ pints; for a child, ij 
 pint; for each adult, \ to f pint. When milk is 
 wasted it is by bad keeping, so that it turns sour and 
 has to be thrown away. 
 
 133. Sugar is oftener eaten to waste than wasted 
 by being thrown away. Three-quarters of a pound a 
 head a week is a usual allowance, more for jam boil- 
 ing and perhaps in the fruit season. 
 
 134. Tea will be used at the rate of 2 to 3 ozs, if 
 drunk once a day ; of 3 to 4 ozs. if drunk twice, and 
 no coffee or cocoa given. 
 
 1 35- Of groceries, including soap (exclusive of 
 
62 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 laundry), candles, tea, and coffee, a liberal supply can be 
 paid for with is. 4d. to is. 6d. a week for each person. 
 It is impossible to divide up these items because of 
 want of space, also because tastes differ and some folks 
 like more of one thing, some of another. Of plain 
 food, eat what they may, the sum total strikes the 
 average. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FOOD : ITS NUTRITIVE VALUE 
 
 136. If we know how much food, we still do not 
 know which food to buy. It is not readily apparent 
 why, when we prefer A to B, we are counselled -to 
 spend our money on B rather than A. "Is not 
 instinct or appetite the best guide ? " we say. " So 
 long as hunger is stilled, what can it matter what 
 we have eaten ? " 
 
 137. In a natural state of life, instinct probably 
 would guide us aright. But we must not forget that 
 we live (or many persons do) amid conditions so 
 artificial that we no longer possess within us a guide 
 for our appetites. Life in a confined space, town life, 
 factory life, work in an office, is never without its 
 effect on digestion and on the nervous system, and it 
 is precisely in towns that we see around us so vast a 
 variety of foods that we need a perfect digestion and 
 a nervous system without flaw to discriminate between 
 the wholesome and the poisonous, the serviceable 
 and the wasteful, the strength-giving and the indiffer- 
 ent. Science has come to our help. We are not 
 asked to follow her investigations step by step that 
 we have neither time, nor power for ; we only avail 
 
CHAP, v FOOD : ITS NUTRITIVE VALUE 63 
 
 ourselves of her conclusions, and thereby do our 
 daily work better. 
 
 138. Food is generally divided into two great 
 classes : flesh-formers and heat -givers. Heat- 
 givers are so called because, being oxidised (or 
 burned) in the body, they serve to keep our body 
 temperature at the same level (98.4 Fahr.) in all 
 climates and seasons. We should expect to find that 
 we need more of this fuel food in cold weather and 
 in cold countries ; and, as a matter of daily experi- 
 ence, so we find it to be. Fat or oil is the best of 
 all fuel foods, and every one has a greater relish for 
 fat when the snow is on the ground. The housewife 
 will find that suet, fat bacon, fat meat, dripping, and 
 fried foods are consumed eagerly in the winter, per- 
 haps by persons who refuse them altogether in the 
 dog-days. This is quite natural and right. We 
 know also that in very cold climates fats are eaten 
 which could not possibly be eaten in England. The 
 Esquimaux are said to enjoy blubber, tallow, and even 
 lamp-oil. And here at home we find that in the 
 summer time, and at all times to those who work in 
 close rooms or heated factories, butter and cream, the 
 most digestible of fats, are alone acceptable : some- 
 times nothing but cod-liver oil will serve. 
 
 Other heat-giving foods are starch, sugar, and 
 treacle. They none of them produce the same 
 amount of heat as any kind of fat, and although they 
 may be substituted for fat in part, they cannot stand 
 in the place of it altogether. By starch we mean 
 the greater part of all floury foods, and some prepared 
 foods corn-flour, arrowroot, sago, tapioca, which are 
 pure starches. Housewives must surely have noticed 
 that flour, arrowroot, potato-flour, etc., all behave like 
 laundry starch when they are cooked ; they thicken 
 in boiling water, do not mix in cold or warm. All 
 
64 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART u 
 
 these starchy foods are cheap, and wholesome in 
 proper proportion to the whole diet. Sugar is 
 consumed in enormous quantities. One of the 
 commonest faults in diet is that too much sugar and 
 too little fat is eaten, excess of one taking away 
 appetite for the other. 
 
 139. Flesh -formers are the foods that supply 
 material for the substance of our bodies. In child- 
 hood we grow ; throughout life we waste by working 
 and must be repaired by food. All persons need 
 flesh-formers, but those who need them most are the 
 children and the hard-workers. Those who often 
 eat them most are adults who work but little. We 
 find flesh-formers in lean meat, fish, game, poultry, 
 eggs, and cheese j in milk, either skim or new ; in 
 pulse ; and a little in household bread. Any of these 
 may take the place of another ; the housewife's duty 
 being to find flesh-formers that come within the com- 
 pass of our income on the one hand, and of our diges- 
 tion on the other. If we make a meal of pea-soup 
 we may like, but we cannot be said to want, a plate- 
 ful of beef afterwards ; the child who has eaten an 
 egg or drunk a pint of milk will not starve though he 
 refuse to touch fish, flesh, or fowl ; if our butcher's 
 bill is inconveniently high we shall take no harm 
 through dining now and again on bread and cheese. 
 Flesh-formers are of all foods the most costly, and the 
 poor often suffer from want of them. But the dis- 
 orders of the well-to-do come more often from excess 
 than from deficiency of flesh-forming food, which is, 
 for the most part, small of bulk and pleasant to taste, 
 so that we have often swallowed too much long before 
 we know it. 
 
 140. If we took our food in its natural state as it 
 grows we should not be able to draw so sharp a 
 dividing line between flesh-formers and heat-givers. 
 
CHAP, v FOOD: ITS NUTRITIVE VALUE '''55 
 
 Flesh-formers are sometimes called nitrogenous foods, 
 because they all contain nitrogen. But all living 
 things contain nitrogen more or less, and when we 
 have a food containing none such as lard, sugar, 
 corn-flour we may be sure that it has been artificially 
 prepared. Of every pound of meat part is fat; in 
 every fish is some, and in a few much, oil ; in wheat 
 there is gluten and fibrin which is flesh-forming, as 
 well as starch ; and even the pulses, richest in 
 nitrogen of all foods, contain a little fat and some 
 starch. 
 
 141. And here we have come, as I think, on one 
 of the prime causes of defective feeding nowadays. 
 Years ago men and women took things as they grew, 
 and, without knowing why, they throve. But nowa- 
 days it is so easy, and often so pleasant, to fill our 
 stomachs with all sorts of artificially-prepared foods, 
 which still our hunger but do not repair our bodies. 
 
 142. As we shall see when we come to speak of 
 storage, the foods containing nitrogen are all perish- 
 able ; the foods that keep and are always ready to 
 our hand do not contain flesh-formers enough for 
 health. 
 
 143. After middle life we wish to keep our weight 
 but not to increase it. Fat seems to come from the 
 storing up of surplus material not used for heat ; and 
 it is convenient to remember that plenty of starch, 
 sugar, and fat, with warmth to economise these foods, 
 will seldom fail to fatten a person. The converse 
 also holds true, and if a person wishes to be less fat, 
 he should avoid sugar and floury foods, especially the 
 two together in cakes and pastry, and he should not 
 live in too warm a house, nor spend many hours 
 in bed. 
 
 144. Other necessary foods are mineral salts. 
 Common salt in small quantities is a necessary food ; 
 
66 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 in large quantities it is an unwholesome addition to 
 our food. Most children are encouraged or even 
 forced, to eat more than is good for them, and so get 
 into the bad habit of feeding upon salt meat and fish 
 instead of fresh. 
 
 145. Phosphate and carbonate of lime are often 
 put into a class by themselves as bone-forming foods. 
 They are needed, above all, by children and young 
 persons. They are in milk, in whole grains, in 
 whole-meal or good household bread, and in hard 
 water (see 42), though whether they serve as food in 
 drinking water seems open to much question. 
 
 146. Potash salts must be supplied in fresh 
 vegetables and fresh fruit, raw or cooked. Oranges 
 and apples in winter ; currants, gooseberries, plums, 
 rhubarb, etc., at other seasons ; with such salads and 
 vegetables as are to be had all the year round, should 
 come into the daily dietary, not only of every house- 
 hold, but of every member of the household. It is a 
 mistake to suppose that if bread, butter, meat, and 
 potatoes are provided, all the rest is luxury. Taking 
 strong exercise all day long in the open air, bread 
 and meat might suffice to keep a man or woman in 
 health. Living indoors, fruit and vegetables are 
 necessaries, because without them we cannot do our 
 best work. We had better eat less meat if we cannot 
 afford to pay both butcher and greengrocer. Vinegar 
 is said to be a fair substitute for fruit. To swallow 
 potash from the chemist's means taking physic, not 
 food. 
 
CHAP, vi MARKETING 67 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MARKETING 
 
 147. The knowledge and skill necessary to make a 
 good marketer cannot be learned from books. All 
 that a book can do is to make clearer the principles 
 which govern the sale or purchase of perishable com- 
 modities, and to lay down some general rules for the 
 choice of the commoner foods. The buying of food 
 differs from the buying of things in general only 
 because (i) food is more perishable than other 
 household goods; (2) we want food daily, other 
 things are bought at intervals, once in a way. 
 
 Food is not necessarily bad because it costs little 
 money ; on the contrary, of prices paid on different 
 days for the same thing, the higher may often have 
 been paid for the worse article. 
 
 Some kinds of food are always low-priced ; if they 
 are nourishing and digestible, they are cheap. Good 
 examples of cheap foods of this class are fresh 
 herrings, or dried peas and beans. They are 
 digestible to most people in average health ; they are 
 nourishing if they are digested. If a person in weak 
 health can make no use of them, they are not cheap 
 to buy for him, and one of the expenses attendant 
 upon poor health is the cost of food suitable for 
 weak digestions. To have a strong digestion, or to 
 work at an employment which keeps us in vigorous 
 health, means, throughout life, money into pocket. 
 If I can be happy and well eating bread and cheese 
 or pease-pudding, and my neighbour can be neither 
 happy nor well unless she has roast chicken, it is 
 very clear that, given the same wages, I shall be better 
 off than she. Many persons are handicapped in the 
 
68 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 race of life, because they have expensive tastes in 
 food. It is of great advantage to young people to be 
 so brought up that they eat any wholesome food that 
 is set before them, and thrive upon it. 
 
 Many foods are never so cheap that the poorest 
 people can afford to eat them. Grouse or hothouse 
 grapes, for instance, are at one time much cheaper 
 than at another ; yet on no day in the year could a 
 hungry man short of money satisfy his hunger on 
 such food as that. These are among the luxuries 
 that needy housewives must make up their minds, 
 once and for all, to go without. 
 
 148. The dearest of all foods are those forced 
 out of season, or brought from a great distance before 
 the English season begins. Things out of season 
 are seldom if ever as good as they will be when the 
 proper season begins. To take examples : it is easy 
 to pay a guinea for a dish of green peas or of straw- 
 berries, but they will not be so good, nor so fine 
 flavoured, as those grown a few weeks later in the 
 open air and sold at eightpence a pound or a peck. 
 
 149. Food is always cheaper and generally better 
 when it is plentiful, (i) The plenty may depend on 
 chance, as when there happens to be a large take of 
 some particular kind of fish. No economical house- 
 keeper determines to have this or that fish before- 
 hand : she buys or orders any that happens to be 
 cheap or plentiful. (2) Plenty often depends on the 
 weather, here or in other parts of the world. A good 
 harvest cheapens and also improves corn, which is 
 dear and bad after a wet summer. Fine weather 
 favours the fisherman and makes fish cheap. A 
 spell of sunshine ripens fruit. An absence of spring 
 frosts makes fruit cheap in summer. We do not feel 
 these things so much as our forefathers did, because 
 we draw our supplies from all parts of the world, and 
 
CHAP, vi MARKETING 69 
 
 a bad harvest at home does not mean spoiled crops 
 everywhere. But the more perishable foods come 
 from near home, and they are always subject to the 
 greatest fluctuations in price. 
 
 150. Food is also cheap when for any reason it 
 must be sold at once, (i) Heavy rain or promise 
 of rain sends abundance of fruit to market; and 
 gales of wind in autumn fill the markets with wind- 
 fall apples and plums. For immediate consumption 
 such things are cheap ; they are not cheap to store 
 even for a few days : if the sellers could store them 
 the price would go up at once. (2) Perishable 
 foods are apt to be cheap on Saturday, especially on 
 Saturday nights, when it is often wise to sell for any 
 price rather than to run the risk of storage over 
 Sunday, with only Monday (often a bad selling day) 
 to look forward to. Energetic housekeepers, who 
 have time to spare and skill to use, often make a 
 practice of shopping on Saturday nights, in order to 
 buy for Sunday's dinner anything that happens to be 
 cheap and good. The chances at such a time are 
 very much against an inexperienced buyer, who may 
 easily be beguiled by lamp-light into paying a high 
 price for a bad article ; and she will do better to deal 
 with a respectable shopkeeper until she has gained 
 experience. 
 
 151. This brings us back to what I said at the 
 beginning of Chapter IV.: "The housewife must ex- 
 change money and time for the best food possible." 
 Some people think that money is their only exchange- 
 able possession. They have, maybe, but little money, 
 and as for their time they dawdle or fritter it away, 
 and then they complain that they get fewer good 
 things than their neighbours do. Let us see how 
 time can be used to save money in marketing. 
 
 Suppose a woman is at business all day earning 
 
70 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 money to keep the home together. She must either 
 pay for having her food brought to the door or set 
 upon the table, or she must buy it at the nearest shop, 
 possibly a bad one. She pays the tradesman and 
 the cook for their time as well as for their professional 
 skill and knowledge. Suppose another woman with 
 a family of little children who can never be left alone. 
 If she takes her own time for marketing she must 
 pay a nursemaid, and unless by marketing she saves 
 more than the nursemaid's wages, she would clearly 
 be better off if she minded the children herself and 
 ordered her food from the shop. 
 
 Suppose a third woman with an income earned by 
 some one else, and nothing to do but to keep house. 
 She has all her time to dispose of. She can go to 
 half-a-dozen shops and buy at the best. She can 
 visit the large markets, and so . escape paying her 
 share of the middleman's profits and of the rent of a 
 suburban shop. She can buy at the Stores, and by 
 making out her bill, carrying her parcels home, and 
 contenting herself with less assiduous service, she 
 saves wages of bookkeeper, carrier, and shopman, 
 which she must have paid for, but would also have 
 enjoyed, at any retail shop. Again, a housewife with 
 plenty of time to spare and a knowledge of cooking, 
 can often serve a dainty meal of materials which, had 
 no time been bestowed upon them, would at best 
 have been unappetising, at worst wasted. 
 
 To make the best of everything in a house, a 
 great deal of head-work and handiwork has to be 
 done ; and that work we must either do ourselves 
 which means time, or pay some one to do it for us 
 which means money. 
 
 152. We pay shopkeepers to visit the large markets 
 and warehouses, and to fetch from these the things 
 that we want ; we pay them for their skill as buyers, 
 
CHAP, vi MARKETING 71 
 
 skill which it has taken years of work to acquire ; we 
 pay them to bring to our doors what we want at the 
 moment that we want it ; we pay them interest on the 
 money locked up in the goods that we are presently 
 to buy ; we pay rent for the storehouses and shops, 
 which they keep for our service and not for their own 
 pleasure ; we pay for the advertisements by which they 
 find it necessary to attract our attention ; and we pay 
 for their honesty. If we do not care, or cannot 
 afford, to pay for these things, we can spend our own 
 time and skill instead of theirs, and save our money. 
 
 153. As for particular rules in choosing food, 
 these are useful : Bread is least nourishing when it 
 is most white. It should not turn sour even when 
 it is stale. Flour can best be judged by making a 
 sample into yeast bread. Household Flour should 
 be used for ordinary purposes. Vienna or Hungarian 
 flour may be kept for fine cakes or pastry, or for 
 setting the sponge in breadmaking, household flour 
 to be kneaded in afterwards. 
 
 154. Of Meat, the smallest is generally the best. 
 Southdown and Welsh sheep are small, and have 
 black feet and faces. Leicester or Lincoln sheep 
 have white faces and feet, are larger, generally fatter, 
 coarser flavoured, smell more when cooked, are more 
 advantageous to buy for a large party, and cost less per 
 pound. This may be taken as true of all meat. Is 
 cheapness the first desideratum ? If so, a piece of 
 coarse meat may be perfectly wholesome and nourish- 
 ing, and not only costs less but goes further. Is 
 quality to be first thought of? Then the plan is to 
 pay a good price for a first-rate article say South- 
 down mutton or Scotch beef and to see that you 
 get it, because it is to the seller's profit to charge a 
 first-rate price even though he may not have a first- 
 rate article for sale. Many butchers never keep 
 
72 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 first-rate meat ; there is not much in the market, and 
 customers seldom know the difference. Coarse, cheap 
 meat may come from a sound animal and be whole- 
 some ; it is better to eat no meat than to eat meat 
 from a diseased animal. 
 
 155. These are the signs of wholesome meat : 
 
 1. Fairly fat. Sick animals, like sick men, waste. 
 
 Choose the lean part of a fat beast, rather 
 than a joint that should be fat and is not. 
 Or cut the fat off and use for suet. 
 
 2. Fat and lean mixed together, looking streaky, 
 
 especially in beef. 
 
 3. Not lying in a pool of wet Wet meat may 
 
 have been frozen, when it is wholesome 
 enough, but not worth the price of fresh ; 
 or it may have been out of condition, when 
 it is unwholesome, and not worth buying at 
 any price. 
 
 4. Firm and elastic. A finger pressed into it 
 
 should leave no mark. 
 
 5. Small bones and fine grain. 
 
 6. No unpleasant smell, especially not of drugs, 
 
 sometimes first noticed in cooking. 
 
 7. All bad complaints, in men or in animals, 
 
 generally attack the internal organs. If 
 these are congested or in any way unusual- 
 looking do not buy the meat. 
 
 8. Beef and mutton should be bright red, not pale 
 
 pink, nor a purple colour. 
 
 156. Fish, with the exception of turbot, which is 
 generally hung by the tail for a day or two, should 
 be eaten as soon as it is out of the sea. White fish, 
 such as skate, plaice, haddock, or cod, keep better 
 than the oily fish, mackerel, salmon, sprats, fresh 
 herrings, pilchard, eels. 
 
CHAP, vi MARKETING 73 
 
 Red gills, bright eyes, all the scales on, an adherent, 
 not a blistered skin, and no smell, are the signs of a 
 fresh fish. It should be thick in proportion to its 
 size, and is no better for being very large. Shellfish 
 should be taken in one's hand, to test the weight ; 
 the heaviest are the best. Salt and dried white fish 
 are not particularly nourishing, and are to be looked 
 upon as relish rather than as food. 
 
 157. Birds should be plump and young. Their 
 age can be guessed from the toughness of the beak 
 and feet, the hardness of the bones, the appearance 
 of the thighs, or the development of the plumage, 
 particularly on the wings. Poulterers break the breast 
 bone or cut away part of it, and truss fowls to make 
 them look fatter than they are. A young bird will 
 not keep so well as an old one, and requires less time 
 for cooking. Birds in the country may be a 'cheap 
 food ; they are seldom or never so in town. Any 
 bird " large for the money " is probably old : it may 
 be very good eating nevertheless, but should be boiled 
 or stewed, not roasted. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE STORAGE OF FOOD 
 
 158. Everything that we use for food is perish- 
 able. Very few foods improve by keeping, and many 
 deteriorate in a few hours, spoil in a few days. 
 Those that spoil quickest always contain nitrogen. 
 Compounds of nitrogen are apt to be unstable, 
 changing into other forms sometimes so quickly as 
 to result in an explosion, sometimes only with the 
 
74 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 constancy and complexity that belongs to all life. 
 Every housekeeper knows this in practice, and if she 
 will read over once again the list of flesh-forming or 
 nitrogenous food (see 139) she will find there the 
 names of all the foods that cost her most trouble to 
 store. Every housekeeper cuts the bits of lean out 
 of suet that she wishes to keep for a. few days; we 
 could multiply examples to no profit. 
 
 159. For, as I observed above, all living things 
 contain nitrogen, and what we call " going bad" is 
 the growth of a new and low form of life. Germs or 
 seeds, present in the air, fasten on our food, and, 
 if they find there conditions suitable, grow and 
 multiply. When we set about keeping food we 
 always try (with or without understanding) to do 
 away with these favourable conditions. 
 
 1 66. What are they? The first is warmth. 
 Things keep better if the weather or the larder is 
 cool. Germs cannot thrive with too much heat any 
 more than with too little : what they prefer is a gentle , 
 lukewarmth. Boiling heat kills germs. Soup or 
 broth kept warm on the hob begins to ferment in 
 a few hours. Food frozen or nearly frozen, whether 
 imbedded in an iceberg, or in a cold winter, or on 
 board a meat-carrying steamer, remains unchanged 
 for any length of time. We build our larders and 
 dairies towards the north, and with thick roof or under 
 trees ; we put blocks of ice in them ; we hang wet 
 cloths in the windows or wrap them round the vessels 
 in which food is stored. By each of these plans we 
 lower the temperature of the air : by the first we keep 
 out the sun's rays, by the second and third we absorb 
 heat from the air to change water from solid to liquid, 
 or from liquid to vapour. 
 
 Examples Fish, vegetables, etc., laid on stone or 
 marble, rapid conductors of heat. Fish, meat, etc., 
 
CHAP, vii THE STORAGE OF FOOD 75 
 
 hung up in a draught, in a leafy tree, in a cellar. 
 Refrigerators. Dairies cooled by running water. 
 Milk, butter, etc., stood in a pail of ice water or salt 
 and water. Water stored in porous earthenware in 
 hot countries. 
 
 1 6 1. The second condition is moisture. What is 
 perfectly dry will keep. A windy, dry day, even if it 
 is hot, does not work so much havoc in the larder as 
 a still, close day, the air laden with moisture. Many 
 foods artificially dried, such as oatmeal, flour, pastry, 
 need to be kept dry rather than cool. A dry kitchen 
 cupboard is better for such things than any larder. 
 Foods containing much water, such as meat (44 per 
 cent), fruit (80-90 per cent), fish (65 per cent), always 
 keep badly. 
 
 Examples Meat, fowls, fish, apples, etc., wiped 
 dry with a cloth. Meat, suet, etc., floured. Fruit 
 laid separate on wood. Bread becomes musty and 
 sour if made too damp. Jam boiled dry and kept in 
 a dry cupboard. Fruit dried in sun or oven. Dried 
 fish, tongues, meat, etc. Food generally kept in a 
 current of air. 
 
 162. The third condition is air. It is true that we 
 prefer to have our larders as airy as may be, but that 
 is because air dries and cools, and we cannot keep it 
 away altogether. When we do as for instance in 
 tinning meat we can put up with heat (it does not 
 matter in what temperature you place the tin) or 
 with moisture (every one knows that tinned meat is 
 moist). 
 
 Examples Wine, pickles, etc., corked and sealed. 
 Tinned and canned fruit and meat. Many foods are 
 kept in closed tins, e.g. biscuits. 
 
 163. These are the conditions for growth of germs, 
 but the germs themselves must be there or they 
 cannot grow. And some methods of keeping food 
 
76 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 depend upon exclusion of germs, or upon killing 
 those that are there, which scientific men call steril- 
 ising. When milk or broth is " on the turn," we boil 
 it before putting it into a cool place. If game or meat 
 cannot be eaten at once, we cook or half-cook it ; if 
 a fowl or fish, we plunge it into boiling water. And 
 this we do in order to kill by heat the germs already 
 there. More may come to-morrow, but meanwhile 
 there is time gained, and as heat " sets " the surface 
 of flesh or fish, the food is drier. 
 
 164. Another plan is to use some antiseptic. It 
 must, of course, be without unpleasant flavour and 
 not a poison. Permanganate of potash mixed in 
 water is very serviceable for washing meat, so is 
 charcoal, so is vinegar. And every one uses salt 
 in various ways, and sugar. 
 
 165. Before I leave the subject I must again insist 
 on the fact that decay, mould, fermentation, means 
 the presence of live, growing things. If you allow a 
 weed to grow and seed in your garden you will see 
 fresh crops of that weed when you least desire them. 
 So with these seeds. Mould is a plant, seeding much 
 as other plants do. If this year's jam is mouldy, you 
 must scrub and purify and air the cupboard, or next 
 year's jam will go in the same way. One mouldy 
 thing set by and forgotten in the larder will spoil all 
 the food. A few drops of sour milk will turn a 
 whole pan sour. Game, venison, and cheese, which 
 are eaten in a state of decomposition, should not be 
 stored with goods that are eaten fresh. Not only 
 food, but any other organic matter, decomposing 
 it may be among refuse on a neighbouring dust-heap, 
 or in a drain under the floor, can supply germs of 
 decay to food ; and that is why the larder should be 
 far away from any receptacles for rubbish. 
 
 1 6 6. To keep flies away from meat we cover it 
 
CHAP, vii THE STORAGE OF FOOD 77 
 
 with cotton or wire gauze ; or we flour, salt, or 
 pepper it. 
 
 167. As her only sure detective the housewife 
 should cultivate her sense of smell, so that she may 
 perceive the beginnings of disorder in larder or cup- 
 board. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE COOKING OF FOOD 
 
 1 6 8. Cooking literally means the subjecting of our 
 food to the action of heat. We generally mean 
 not only that, but also the mixing of several foods 
 together, as when the cook mixes suet and flour in a 
 pudding, eggs and milk in a custard, yeast and flour 
 in a loaf. And to be a good cook implies, further, the 
 possession of some manual skill, the excellence of 
 many dishes (e.g. souffles) depending less on their 
 ingredients, or the heat of the fire, than on the 
 peculiar way in which they are manipulated. 
 
 169. We may subject our food to the action of 
 heat alone, as in roasting, broiling, and baking ; or of 
 heat + water, as in stewing, boiling, and steaming; 
 and in frying we use heat + fat. There are but these 
 seven ways of cooking ; if we want further variety we 
 must begin our food one way and finish it another, as 
 in braising, a combination of stewing and roasting, or 
 in the very common practice of frying first what is 
 presently to be stewed. 
 
 170. Roasting and broiling were no doubt, the 
 first methods of cooking practised. To roast or toast 
 in a primitive fashion we need only the food, a stick, 
 and the fire. Roasting is adapted for the best joints 
 
78 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 of meat only, inferior meat becoming tough and even 
 uneatable. It calls for a good fire and a plentiful 
 supply of fuel, as well as for constant attention if it 
 is to be well done. The time required for meat is 
 from fifteen to twenty minutes to each pound, and 
 twenty minutes over. Thus a joint weighing ten 
 pounds takes three hours to roast, and as it cannot 
 be hurried, and will not be good if it is left to roast 
 itself, that is not a dinner to order when coals are 
 scarce, or when the cook is busy in the dairy or 
 laundry. 
 
 171. Broiling is never a cheap way of cooking. 
 It is saving in nothing but time. It demands a very 
 good piece of meat, a very hot fire, a clean gridiron, 
 and undivided attention for a few minutes. Both 
 with roasting and broiling the fire must be hot to 
 begin with ; it may be slower afterwards. By both 
 these methods of cooking much weight is lost, very 
 often as much as one-third' in broiling meat. 
 
 172. Baking requires less attention and less fuel, 
 and much so-called "roast" meat is baked. The 
 oven must be ventilated and kept clean, especially if 
 bread, meat, pastry, and fruit, are all baked in it by 
 turns. Any kind of cooking can be done in the 
 oven. We stew meat in the oven in a closed jar 
 with water and vegetables. We stew fruit in a pie- 
 dish. We " roast " meat. We bake our bread, and 
 also our pastry. This can all be done, but not all 
 together. Steam arising from meat gives a flavour 
 to pudding, and the steam from bread makes pastry 
 heavy. Bread ' requires a long " soaking " heat ; 
 pastry a sharp quick baking. Meat must be con- 
 stantly looked at and basted. Cakes and souffles 
 should be put in at the right heat, and looked at as 
 little as possible, or not at all. Unless the mistress 
 of a house understands baking, she is apt to ask 
 
CHAP, viii THE COOKING OF FOOD 79 
 
 impossibilities of the cook, who perhaps knows no 
 better, and wonders why her things do not turn out 
 well. 
 
 The smaller an oven the hotter it must be made, 
 partly because the hot air escapes when the door is 
 opened, partly because the cold food put into it 
 lowers the temperature of a small volume of air. To 
 test the heat of an oven an experienced cook puts in 
 her hand, and judges with fair accuracy. An inexperi- 
 enced cook will do better to sprinkle a little flour, or 
 lay a piece of white paper on the shelf, where in an 
 oven hot enough for pastry it will brown in a couple 
 of minutes. 
 
 Brick or dome ovens are used in country places. 
 
 173. Stewing is the most economical way of cook- 
 ing most foods, especially meat. The better the 
 meat, the more delicate the stew. Every one prefers 
 stewed rumpsteak to stewed shin of beef, and if both 
 were the same price everyone would choose the steak. 
 But they are nothing like the same price \ one is as 
 nourishing as the other, and stewed shin or any 
 tough meat stewed is not only wholesome but 
 palatable. Stewing requires a small fire, a closed 
 vessel, plenty of time, and no attention. By stewing, 
 meat does not waste ; what comes out of the meat 
 goes into the gravy. So we have a clear saving in 
 prime cost, fuel, labour, and loss by cooking. The 
 secret of making a good ste\v is to put a variety of 
 ingredients and little water, never to let the pot boil, 
 and never to be in a hurry. 
 
 174. Boiling wastes as little as stewing if we use 
 the liquor as well as the food boiled in it. Some- 
 times we cannot, as when very salt meat is boiled ; 
 oftener we do not, as when we make a practice of 
 wasting the liquor from fish, chicken, bacon, aspa- 
 ragus, or other vegetables. 
 
8o DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 We boil food in water, with or without flavouring, 
 and the secret of good boiling is to know how hot 
 the water should be for any given food, and to keep 
 it at that heat all the time. Boiling water registers 
 212 .degrees on a Fahrenheit thermometer ; by adding 
 salt we may get a degree beyond that. Generally 
 speaking, vegetables and all suet or flour puddings 
 should be kept at boiling heat. Water, when it 
 simmers, registers about 165 to 180 degrees. This is 
 the right heat for stews and for boiled meat after the 
 first few minutes. 
 
 Meat or fish should not be boiled unless it is per- 
 fectly fresh ; if there is any doubt about the freshness 
 it will taste better and be more wholesome roasted or 
 fried. 
 
 175. Steaming is the method of cooking found 
 most economical of labour and fuel in many large 
 establishments, the waste steam from the cooking 
 apparatus being made to do a second duty in warm- 
 ing the house. The food is shut up in large steam 
 closets, and the cook is saved the trouble of fetching 
 or lifting the quantities of water necessary if meat, 
 potatoes, etc., are boiled in the ordinary way. Most 
 cooks know that by steaming on a small scale 
 shutting the food in a saucepan where steam is gener- 
 ated there is less loss of flavour and weight in fish 
 or meat, and better results are obtained in most light 
 puddings. 
 
 176. Frying 1 is done in two ways, called by cooks 
 dry frying, or frying in a pan ; and wet frying, or 
 French frying, which is done in a saucepan. For 
 dry frying but little fat is used ; for saucepan frying 
 there must be enough fat to cover the things fried. 
 Saucepan frying is less likely to produce greasy food, 
 and it is more economical, because although more 
 fat is needed to start with, it can be used over and 
 
CHAP, viii THE COOKING OF FOOD 81 
 
 over again, and a cheaper fat can be used. One 
 must attend to frying while it is being done, but on 
 account of the great heat to which fat or oil may be 
 brought, it is the quickest of all methods of cook- 
 ing, and is largely patronised by housekeepers, who, 
 through fault or misfortune, are short of time. The 
 secret of good frying is to have fat enough and hot 
 enough ; to dry thoroughly the food before it is 
 fried ; and never to wash the frying-pan* Most fried 
 food is drained on paper before serving. 
 
 Butter is the best thing to use for frying-pan 
 cookery, but veal or beef dripping serves very well, 
 or lard will do in default of anything better, or oil. 
 Olive oil, or good cotton-seed oil, is the best medium 
 for saucepan frying ; next comes clarified mutton fat, 
 which does not burn so quickly as beef fat. Lard or drip- 
 ping will do, though not so well. Butter is not suitable. 
 
 Fat or oil is not hot enough to fry so long as it 
 bubbles. When it is still, and a blue filmy smoke 
 rises, it registers on a thermometer 350 to 400 degrees, 
 and then it is fit to use and will burn if left. Failing 
 a thermometer, the heat can be tested by dropping in 
 a bit of bread, which should crisp at once. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 FUEL 
 
 177. From the earliest dawn of history fire has been 
 consecrated to domestic use. " Hearth and Home " 
 are words for ever united. We want fire in our homes 
 for three ends: (i) to cook our food; (2) to warm 
 us ; (3) to give light in darkness. 
 
82 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 The housewife must provide for the purchase and 
 storage of fuel for all these purposes, and she must 
 know something of the mechanism and management 
 of the apparatus whether stoves, grates, or lamps 
 in which fuel is burnt. 
 
 178. Coal is the commonest, and generally the 
 cheapest fuel in England. Its price varies much in 
 different parts of the country, and at different seasons 
 of the year, and as it is none the worse for keeping, 
 careful housewives buy, during the summer months 
 when the price is low, enough to fill the coal cellar. 
 In some houses and in most flats there is no place for 
 storage of coal, which consequently has to be bought 
 at short intervals in small quantities, adding con- 
 siderably to household expense and trouble. Coal 
 burns better if it is damp, but it is not advantageous 
 to buy it in wet weather, because one gets then a less 
 weight of coal for one's money. The commonest 
 mode of adulteration is to add water to goods sold by 
 weight, and it is practised by unscrupulous coal- 
 merchants. If it can be kept from thieves, coal is 
 best stored out of doors, and no gas can then be 
 given off into the basement of the house. A coal 
 cellar must be ventilated. 
 
 179. Coke is an economical fuel when there is 
 draught enough to burn it. Mixed with coal, it is 
 suitable for kitchen use, making a clear fire for cook- 
 ing, and with coal or wood it burns well in open 
 grates. Culm or anthracite are varieties of hard coal, 
 used in some parts. 
 
 1 80. The gas we burn is coal-gas. Oil-gas and water- 
 gas are made, but are not common in England. The 
 great advantage of gas as fuel is that it can be turned 
 on or off at a moment's notice. If it costs in money 
 more than coal for warming, more than mineral oil 
 for lighting, it saves an equivalent in domestic work. 
 
CHAP, ix FUEL 83 
 
 No fuel need be ordered, fetched and carried, or 
 stored; no stoves need be polished and saucepans 
 cleaned ; no lamps must be carefully trimmed. Its 
 great drawback is the want of ventilation commonly, 
 though not necessarily, belonging to gas stoves and 
 burners (see 34). No gas stove should ever be 
 fixed without a large pipe or ventilator immediately 
 above the flame. Often the pipe is far too small; 
 not seldom it is absent, and the consequence is that 
 the products of gas combustion carbonic acid gas, 
 soot, sulphurous vapour together with some unburnt 
 gas escape into the room, and produce headache in 
 human beings and a great deal of dirt and discolora- 
 tion in furniture. A common fault of gas cooking- 
 stoves is the want of ventilation in the oven, where 
 the food is shut up with the flame. 
 
 1 8 1. No one now pretends that the products of 
 gas combustion in a room are as harmful as the 
 products of any other kind of fuel sufficient to give 
 the same amount of heat or light. But the products 
 of burning coal (for example) are visible, and so un- 
 pleasant that we never attempt to burn it without 
 a chimney ; the gas products are invisible, and as we 
 can live in the room with them, we do. Nor do we 
 ever obtain the same amount of light from another 
 fuel. We should never think of lighting two dozen 
 candles in a small room, but it is a common thing to 
 have two gas-lights, each of twelve-candle power. 
 
 182. The advantages of wood as fuel are that it 
 ignites quickly, and when well dried burns with very 
 little smoke. It is therefore cleaner. But in towns 
 it is so dear to buy and so bulky to store that it is 
 practically never used for cooking, and seldom for 
 warming. In country places it is often cheap, and in 
 foreign countries where coal is scarce, it is used 
 extensively. 
 
84 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PARTII 
 
 183. Turf or peat the roots of heather and 
 boggy plants cut out of waste wet land and dried in 
 the sun makes a noiseless and wholesome fire, and 
 deserves to be more known and used. It is clean 
 to use and to store, light to carry, and never going 
 quite out so long as a bit of it remains unburnt, it 
 can be left to itself for hours, and then quickly blown 
 into flame. 
 
 184. Mineral oil is the cheapest fuel for lighting, 
 and is universally used by the poor. It is very cheap 
 and convenient for cooking, and oil cooking -stoves 
 become every year more common. As a supplement 
 to the ordinary kitchener for use in hot weather or on 
 an emergency, they are very much to be recommended. 
 Crude petroleum is quite unfit for use, and when it 
 was first distilled, about forty years ago, much was 
 sold that was not properly purified ; it ignited at 
 ordinary temperatures, and so many accidents fol- 
 lowed that about twenty years ago orders were issued 
 forbidding the sale of any that could not pass a 
 certain test of purity and safety, since when accidents 
 have been generally owing to the faulty construction 
 of a lamp the flame heating the contents of the 
 receiver. The great danger is of smell arising from 
 bits of charred wick, grease, or soot, which ought to 
 have been washed off with hot soda-water or wiped 
 off with a cloth. Petroleum should be kept free 
 from dust and dirt : it is one of the things more likely 
 to be good if it is bought of a merchant in a large way 
 of business, having a quick sale. The better it is the 
 more inodorous we may expect it to be. It is very 
 penetrating, as we find to our cost when we spill it, 
 to our advantage when we use it to loosen dirt on 
 metal -work, machinery, or in the laundry. The 
 odour and flavour clings to our fingers and our food, 
 and we should not allow any one to clean lamps 
 
CHAP, ix FUEL 85 
 
 or oil stoves in the kitchen while food is being pre- 
 pared. 
 
 185. The making of dip candles was a flourishing 
 household industry not so many years ago. The wick 
 was of plaited cotton or rush pith, and the fat was 
 household fat or tallow. Candles now are not dipped, 
 but moulded, and in the place of tallow or wax we 
 burn mineral fats such as paraffin or mixed fats under 
 the name of composites. Candles are now never 
 used because they are cheap, but rather because they 
 give a soft and pleasant light. All candles burn more 
 slowly if they are kept and hardened before use. 
 
 1 8 6. Electric light is probably the light of the 
 near future, but we write for housewives in the pre- 
 sent, and as yet few can afford this luxury. As it shines 
 from within an air-tight glass, and goes out if the 
 glass is broken, it has no influence, either for good or 
 for ill, upon the air of the room. It cannot help us 
 in ventilation. But neither does it consume oxygen, 
 and we see how great a gain this is, when we remem- 
 ber that an ordinary gas-burner consumes as much 
 air as four adults, and a candle half as much as an 
 adult. This must be reckoned in calculating space 
 (see 80) and ventilation (see 34). 
 
 187. Light, like every other household con- 
 venience, is only useful if we have it exactly when 
 and where we need it. In each room light should 
 be thrown where the work in that room is done. 
 On a staircase every one wishes to see the way up 
 and downstairs ; in bed or dressing rooms one wants 
 to see to dress; in kitchens the cook must see to 
 cook at the stove as well as to dish up at the table j 
 in a dining-room light should be thrown on the 
 food ; in a sitting-room over the work, and not in 
 the eyes of the worker. Much light is wasted, and 
 many eyes are strained from neglect of this simple rule. 
 
86 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 1 8 8. Stoves and grates are used for ventilat- 
 ing as well as for warming our rooms. Open grates 
 with wide chimneys waste much heat ; if we were 
 to burn in a stove the fuel that we heap on our 
 grates, we could not live in the room. Only in 
 countries where fuel is cheap can open grates be 
 used. Yet we cannot say that heat is altogether 
 wasted, if by its means we keep our rooms aired. 
 The problems of ventilation, difficult enough always, 
 would be greatly increased if we used close 
 stoves. 
 
 Close stoves heat the air of a room ; open grates 
 heat by radiation, that is, not the air but things, 
 which accounts for the feeling of oppression in a 
 stove-heated room, even though we may be chilly at 
 the time. Stoves seem best for halls and passages, 
 where there is plenty of air moving ; but grates hold 
 their own in living-rooms. 
 
 Close stoves or kitcheners are now always used 
 for cooking, because the heat has to be directed in a 
 limited space on the food. Kitcheners are built 
 into a wall with bricks ; stoves stand away from a 
 wall, cost little or nothing to fix, can easily be 
 removed by a tenant, and are generally more 
 economical in fuel. 
 
 189. It is useful to remember that the burning of 
 fuel for any purpose depends on the supply of air. 
 In an ill- ventilated room, lamps and stoves all " burn 
 dead." One can burn anything if only one has 
 draught enough, and the greater the draught, the 
 cheaper the fuel can be. To narrow the " throat," or 
 to increase the length, of a chimney increases the 
 draught, and many a stove has been stopped from 
 smoking or made to burn slack or coke, which it 
 would not burn before, by adding a foot or two of 
 flue-pipe. 
 
CHAP, ix FUEL 87 
 
 190. As for quantities of fuel required we may 
 reckon roughly that 2\ cwts. of coals should serve 
 five or six persons for a week's cooking and heat a 
 bath. There is a great saving in cooking for larger 
 numbers ; the larger the household the less coal need 
 cost a head. A small open grate is often reckoned 
 at 1-2 cwts. a week. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CLEANING OF THE HOUSE 
 
 191. An important item in household economy is 
 the keeping of everything clean. Everything that we 
 use gathers dirt. If we allow a ray of light to shine 
 into a dark room through a hole in the shutter, we 
 see that the air is filled with particles of floating 
 dust. If we pass our finger along a ledge or piece of 
 furniture, we find on our finger dust that had settled. 
 Under a microscope we should see that this dust is 
 composed of all manner of substances, some inorganic 
 soot, crystals, etc. ; but more organic, such as cotton 
 fibres, wood, mould spores (vegetable), skin cells, hair, 
 woollen fibres (animal). All organic matter decays, 
 and in decaying absorbs oxygen and gives forth a bad 
 odour. The stuffy odour of many- living-rooms, 
 clothes, and beds is caused by decaying organic 
 matter from the bodies of persons who have lived in 
 the rooms, worn the clothes, slept in the beds. 
 Besides this, to breathe dusty air is unwholesome, 
 and predisposes us to lung complaints. 
 
 Metal tarnishes by the action of the air, or rusts in 
 damp ; we clean metal to keep it bright. 
 
 192. In order to clean anything there must be a 
 
88 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART 11 
 
 person who knows how to do it ; a time for doing it ; 
 and materials and utensils for doing it with. 
 
 193. Materials for Gleaning" are (besides water 
 and air), soap, soda, black-lead for stoves, blacking 
 for boots, brick -dust or knife powder for metal, 
 whitening for plate, polish for brass, turpentine and 
 beeswax for polished wood ; house flannels, slop 
 cloth, toilet cloth, tea cloth, glass cloth, dusters, dish 
 cloths, kitchen cloths, wash leathers, lamp cloths, 
 candlestick rags. 
 
 Utensils for cleaning can be multiplied indefinitely, 
 but we cannot keep a house well with less than 
 these : Brooms for carpets and for yard ; brushes for 
 boots, stoves, saucepans, and dust, for furniture, for 
 clothes, for polishing, dusting and scrubbing ; dusting 
 sheets to cover furniture, pails to hold water, a 
 housemaid's box to carry ashes. 
 
 The housewife's duty is to know the use of each of 
 these things, to provide enough, to renew them when 
 worn out, and to see that each is kept to its own use. 
 A house cannot be well cleaned unless the right 
 materials and utensils are provided and used. 
 
 194. As for time, there should be a fixed day and 
 hour for doing each room and each separate set of 
 things, and a fixed time should be allowed to get it 
 done. No one is the better for being allowed to 
 dawdle. It is easy to waste two or three hours over 
 a room, and then to leave it dirty and untidy ; but 
 a moderate-sized room, not too full of furniture, can 
 be cleaned in an hour and a half if one goes on 
 working and does not go over the same work twice. 
 A plan of work should be made by the housewife, 
 lasting over a week or a fortnight, whereby a room is 
 cleaned daily and every room cleaned in turn. Bed- 
 rooms and sitting-rooms constantly occupied must be 
 thoroughly cleaned every week, those occasionally 
 
CHAP, x THE CLEANING OF THE HOUSE 89 
 
 occupied once a fortnight or once in three weeks. 
 Silver and brass must be cleaned every week, other 
 things must be cleaned every day, such as lamps and 
 candlesticks. The weekly cleaning is made much 
 lighter if we get into the habit of " cleaning as we 
 go," of never putting away dirty anything that we 
 use. Beds should be left open daily to air, not made 
 up warm ; silver should be washed in clean water 
 and rubbed dry before it is put in the basket ; 
 saucepans should never be left to dry with the dirt 
 on them ; bedroom crockery should be wiped dry 
 and clean every morning, and so forth. 
 
 If there is any difficulty in getting through the 
 work, the amount of furniture and number of nick- 
 nacks should be lessened. The emptier a room is 
 the less time it takes to clean, and the less dirt it 
 holds if it is not cleaned. 
 
 195. The proper way of Gleaning" each thing 
 needs to be learned, and cannot be set out here. 
 To clean a room, the door should be shut, and the 
 window opened. Everything that would hold, or be 
 injured by, dust, must be removed or covered with 
 dusting sheets ; curtains must be fastened up. Next 
 the floor must be swept and the dirt collected in a 
 dustpan, to be presently burnt. Then the grate has 
 to be blackleaded and the hearth washed or stoned, 
 and the fire-irons polished. Polished wooden furni- 
 ture should be cleaned with turpentine and well 
 rubbed ; a stained floor should have a little beeswax 
 and turpentine rubbed in with a stiff brush ; to do 
 either well, a very little of the polish should be used 
 with a great deal of elbow-grease. Upholstered 
 furniture should be brushed with a stiff brush (not 
 one that has been used for polish) ; looking-glasses 
 polished with a leather or silk, an d^the^ jornaments 
 dusted and replaced. 
 
90 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 196. Other things need cleaning only occasionally, 
 such as windows, carpets, chimneys, and for these 
 outside help is hired and paid for. 
 
 The housewife will do well to remember that an 
 unswept chimney is a source of danger, and that if 
 her house catches fire through neglect in chimney- 
 sweeping, she is liable to a heavy fine. 
 
 The cleaning- of windows is a dangerous occupa- 
 tion for a woman, and many fatal accidents have 
 resulted therefrom. 
 
 197. Under the head of cleaning, a few words 
 must be said about vermin mice, beetles, ants, flies, 
 fleas, etc. These creatures all come for food, and 
 stay away when there is no food to be had. Crumbs, 
 grease-spots, things spilt on the floor, greasy or sugary 
 papers stored to light the fire, candle-ends, are all 
 food for mice or beetles. So unaired beds, and un- 
 clean stuffed furniture harbour fleas ; houses where 
 there is no draught are the chosen haunts of flies. 
 The most sensible way of getting rid of these pests 
 is to starve them out. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LAUNDRY WORK 
 
 198. In every household the washing of clothes 
 and of bed-linen must be provided for. If we would 
 keep ourselves clean some of our clothes must be of 
 washable material, and young children often wear 
 nothing else. Shall we wash at home, or shall we 
 employ a laundress ? That is a question to be settled 
 according to the individual needs and powers of each 
 
CHAP, xi LAUNDRY WORK 91 
 
 household ; but it may help the housewife to come 
 to a wise decision if we set out, as fairly as possible, 
 the case for and against washing at home. 
 
 199. First, the money part of the question. If 
 we pay a laundress, we pay her a certain lump sum 
 in cash every Monday morning ; if we wash at home 
 we pay a small sum here and another there ; part 
 goes in the grocery bill, part in the food bill, part 
 is set down as furniture, and the end is that we never 
 know what these small sums have mounted up to. 
 Let us set them out in order: (i) First outlay on 
 plant that is, tub, copper, irons, lines, pegs, ironing- 
 boards, washing-machines, etc. To put the case at all 
 fairly we must reckon the interest of this money, say 
 at 3 per cent per annum. (2) Repairs and renewal 
 of same. (3) Rent of premises, for our house must 
 be larger if we wash in it. (4) Wages of woman who 
 washes, at so many shillings a day, or extra wages to 
 servants. (5) Food of washerwoman. (6) Fuel for 
 boiling water and heating irons. (7) Soap, soda, 
 starch, etc. (8) Mangling, or rent of mangle. 
 
 200. Next, we may fairly consider the value of our 
 time, and whether it could be employed to more 
 advantage than in washing our clothes. If washing 
 is to be done at home, all other work has to be set 
 aside for the day say one day a fortnight ; we must 
 get up early in the morning, and, fine or wet, the 
 washing must go on. It is an axiom that skilled 
 labour is always better paid than unskilled : washing 
 is unskilled labour; the mistress of a household, or 
 a well-trained servant, should be able to employ her 
 time to better advantage than in doing hard manual 
 labour, such as is done in laundries by a very rough 
 class of workers, not trained to do anything else. It 
 is always bad economy to chain Pegasus to a plough. 
 To be sure, machines lighten labour, but to turn the 
 
92 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 handle of a washing-machine requires even less skill 
 than to rub the dirt out of clothes with one's hands. 
 If a woman can do nothing of more value, it is 
 fitting that she should stand at the wash-tub or the 
 ironing-board ; but if she be skilful with head or 
 hands she can save far more by doing her own dress- 
 making (see 122) or by cooking. It can seldom be 
 worth while to wash a sheet at home when it could 
 be washed out for twopence, but it may be advan- 
 tageous to wash at home those garments which call 
 for little manual labour in washing but considerable 
 skill in getting up, such as lace goods, cambric 
 dresses, etc. 
 
 201. Then comes the question of health or 
 comfort. Washing and ironing is hard work, and it 
 is work that we must stand at. The sudden changes 
 of temperature, from the wash-tub to the drying- 
 ground are dangerous. Damp is always unwholesome 
 (see 12). Croup is more prevalent in poor houses 
 on washing-days because of the damp or steam. If 
 we put our washing out, we get rid of soiled clothing 
 once a week ; if we wash at home, either we must 
 have a weekly wash, or we must store dirty clothing 
 for a fortnight or three weeks. Where, in a small 
 house, can we store, so as not to create a nuisance ? 
 
 202. On the other side is the danger of infection, 
 when clothes from a number of households are washed 
 together, and probably a great number of public 
 laundries are conducted in a very insanitary fashion. 
 
 203. Clothes washed at home probably last longer, 
 because they are more carefully handled and mended. 
 Chemicals which loosen the dirt and at the same 
 time rot the fabric, are often used in public laundries. 
 In spite of many specious advertisements promising 
 less work and no destruction of clothes, one hopes 
 that mistresses of households do not allow bleaching- 
 
CHAP, xi LAUNDRY WORK 93 
 
 powders to be used at home. Another advantage is 
 that wearers of clothes learn to be more careful 
 because of the nuisance of a heavy wash. 
 
 204. Suppose we decide on washing at home, what 
 shall we need, and how are we to do it ? On our 
 premises there must be a large scullery or wash- 
 house with a fitted copper, and a yard or garden 
 where a line can be fixed. For apparatus we must 
 have several large tubs of wood or galvanised iron, 
 a bench, or boards and trestles, where two or three 
 tubs can stand, and we shall do well to have a 
 washing-machine, and also a machine which serves by 
 turns as a wringer and as a small mangle. An iron- 
 ing-board, a shirt-board, pegs, 2 clothes horses, at 
 least four flat-irons and stand, and perhaps a couple of 
 box-irons, a pair of goffering tongs, a bowl or two for 
 starch, will be wanted later. We must also have a 
 supply of soft water, or of boiled water (see 42), 
 yellow soap, soap-powder, soda (to be used very 
 sparingly), ammonia for woollen things, a bag of blue 
 for white linen, and a handful of salt for rinsing 
 coloured dresses, starch, borax pr wax to put into the 
 starch, and sand-paper to brighten the irons. 
 
 All must be in the house ready, not to be run to 
 the shop or waited for, when the wash is half-way 
 through. 
 
 The clothes must be carefully sorted into heaps, 
 white from coloured, cotton from woollen, very dirty 
 from scarcely soiled. 
 
 205. White cottons and linens should be soaked 
 in cold water over-night, with soap rubbed on the 
 dirtiest parts. They should be washed in hot water 
 with soap, boiled without soap, and rinsed in cold 
 water with a little blue. If they are washed in a 
 machine they will probably need extra rubbing in 
 some parts. 
 
94 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 206. .Coloured cottons should not be soaked or 
 boiled, and should be washed quickly, the more 
 delicate colours each alone in a fresh tub of water. 
 Salt in the rinsing water sets the colour. The irons 
 should not be too hot. They should be dried quickly, 
 but not in the sun. Black things are best washed 
 with ammonia and no soap. 
 
 207. Flannels and woollen clothes should be 
 washed in warm water but not soaped, and not 
 wrung. Soap-powder or ammonia is better than 
 soap, but if soap is used it should be made into a 
 lather. They should be dried quickly and never 
 boiled. As woollens require great care in drying, it is 
 wise to wait for fine weather before washing them, or 
 sending them to the wash. 
 
 208. Silk, like flannel, should be washed without soap 
 and in cool water. It should be ironed before it is dry. 
 
 209. Starched clothes keep clean longer, but 
 sooner wear out. In households where money is 
 short it is wiser to make up underclothing and 
 washing-dresses as plainly as possible. Frills and 
 furbelows, whether for children or adults, add neither 
 to health nor to bodily comfort, and they are costly 
 (whether in time or money) to get up. 
 
 210. Soap is a combination of fat, water, and an 
 alkali. Oil and hot water, however much you shake 
 them, will not mix, but if you add a little soda they 
 mix at once, and cannot be separated again. Almost 
 all our plans of cleaning depend upon this fact; 
 grease off a dish or a drain (see 63) dissolves at 
 once if we put soda and hot water to it ; and the soda 
 or ammonia that we use for washing clothes is an 
 alkali, which we intend to mix with the grease on the 
 clothes and some of the hot water in the tub. In 
 hard water (see 42) much soap is wasted, because 
 the lime or iron in the water combines with the soap 
 
CHAP, xi LAUNDRY WORK 95 
 
 and forms an insoluble curdy matter instead of 
 forming a lather ; and a common way of measuring 
 the hardness of water is to see how much soap is 
 destroyed before the lather begins to come. Soft 
 soap is made of fat + potash ; hard soap of fat + soda. 
 Bad soap often has too much alkali in it, and this has 
 the same bad effect on our clothes and our skin as if 
 we used too much soda. " Cheap " soap often has a 
 great deal of water in it, and wastes quickly. Good 
 yellow soap is the cheapest in the end for all purposes. 
 Low-priced scented soaps are always dear and 
 bad. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 HEALTH AND SICKNESS 
 
 211. A book on Domestic Economy would not 
 be complete if it did not say something about sick- 
 ness ; for, take what care we may to live only in 
 healthy houses and to eat and drink things nourish- 
 ing and wholesome, we are but mortal after all, and 
 we know that to all of us, sooner or later, sickness 
 and death must come. Still, to see that her house- 
 hold are kept in health as far as possible is a house- 
 wife's duty ; to her every one turns if there is 
 anything amiss either in rnind or body, and she is 
 expected either to have a remedy at hand or to 
 know where to seek for one. 
 
 212. Before we take up the question of sickness 
 it will be useful to consider the meaning of the word 
 Health. For the two states are entirely different, 
 and to realise what Health is will enable us better to 
 understand any deviation from it. 
 
96 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 Health is a condition of wholeness, in which all 
 the organs and members of this complex system of 
 functions and powers which we call our bodies do 
 their work with ease and regularity, and without 
 causing us any painful or troublesome sensations. 
 
 213. If you have ever used a sewing machine, or 
 watched a reaping or threshing machine at work, 
 you will grasp better what is implied when I say 
 that to be healthy our bodies must be kept in good 
 working order ; and when they are out of gear, 
 as a machinist would say, everything goes wrong. 
 
 We often say, " Order is heaven's first law," and 
 it is a universal law ; it applies to everything in the 
 world. No one fancies there is anything fine or 
 noble in having disorder in his house or in his 
 dress ; a disorderly neighbourhood is avoided by all 
 respectable people ; those who have disordered 
 minds are such a nuisance that often they have to 
 be shut up in asylums ; but not seldom, strange as 
 it may seem, a person with a disordered stomach or 
 liver is rather proud of it than otherwise, and pours 
 all the unpleasant symptoms into unwilling ears. 
 While, if an unwary doctor ever says to man or 
 woman, "You are suffering from a complication of 
 disorders to which I hardly know how to give a 
 name," it is looked on as quite a compliment paid, 
 and their friends are sure to hear of it, and expected 
 to sympathise. 
 
 This is very unreasonable. We should be as 
 much ashamed of disorder in our stomachs as in 
 our homes, and certainly we ought to take even 
 more pains to keep them in working gear than the 
 best machine ever made by hands of man. For 
 not only are our bodies very little use to us if they 
 are the seat of " complicated disorder," but we suffer 
 intolerable pain as well in most such cases ; while 
 
CHAP, xii HEALTH AND SICKNESS 97 
 
 a sewing machine or a printing press, if it cannot 
 work, at least does not groan with misery. To suffer 
 when we are "out of order" is Nature's way of 
 pointing out to us that we have done something 
 wrong or foolish, and whatever ache or pain strikes 
 us we should endeavour to find out the why or the 
 wherefore of it. 
 
 214. There are a good many words in our English 
 language which have all come from the same Saxon 
 root hal, and which mean the same thing with 
 slight variations. There are hale, whole, healthy, 
 wholesome, holy ; and each of these words ought to 
 be applicable to our bodies. And it is to this end 
 that in treating of Domestic Economy it is always 
 necessary to say so much about the virtues of fresh 
 air in the house, proper food, and the need of cleanli- 
 ness, both in clothes and person ; for these things 
 are the conditions of health, and a housewife is 
 responsible for the health of her family, without 
 which it cannot be, as a family should, a centre of 
 life and growth and work. A few rules of health 
 may be helpful to all. 
 
 215. The ist is, Plenty of fresh air. 
 2nd. Sufficient nourishing food. 
 
 3rd. Exercise of all our functions and mem- 
 bers. 
 
 4th. Cleanliness in house and person. 
 In previous chapters you have learnt all that there 
 is space to tell you about air and food. But air and 
 food are not everything. Our members, that is, our 
 arms and legs ; and our organs, that is, our brains, 
 heart, lungs, stomach, etc., must all be exercised if 
 they are to perform their functions thoroughly 
 well. 
 
 216. Most persons get a good deal of exercise 
 and healthy motion in the course of their day's work, 
 
 H 
 
98 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 and are glad to rest when they come home or leave 
 off their active employment. If you are so unhappy 
 as to have no work which you are obliged to do, you 
 must, however, find some means of exercise if you 
 wish to be well. Indeed, if your work only exercises 
 one part of your body you will be wise to find some 
 method of making up for enforced stillness or disuse 
 of your other members or organs. For instance, if 
 a woman has to sit still sewing or writing for many 
 hours together, it is really of importance that she 
 should exercise hep legs every day by taking a walk, 
 or romping with the children in the evening, or even 
 by running up and downstairs. And those who are 
 engaged all day in walking long distances or carrying 
 loads will find the greatest benefit in sitting still and 
 exercising their brains by reading or study. Further, 
 if their work during the day brings their backs 
 and chests into a stooping posture, and so they get 
 into a manner of breathing which is feeble and slow, 
 and does not expand the lungs to the full, no mode 
 of exercise is so good for them as calisthenics in the 
 open air; by which their breathing apparatus is not 
 only exercised but the blood brought into circulation, 
 and the air sent down into the lowest point of the 
 contracted lungs. If nothing else is possible, at least 
 they can stand by an open window three or four 
 times for five minutes at once, and take slow and 
 deep inspirations, thus getting their lungs fully ex- 
 panded with fresh air ; and dancing, playing with 
 balls, or battledore and shuttlecock, are all excellent 
 for children and young people who have to sit still 
 for some hours every day at their studies. I am 
 thinking particularly of girls here, for boys always 
 get plenty of rough-and-tumble play, besides their 
 own special pursuits of cricket and football. There 
 is not a school in the land which does not and 
 
CHAP, xii HEALTH AND SICKNESS 99 
 
 very rightly encourage all sorts of out-door games 
 for boys. They are a great means of health. 
 
 217. Finally, we must not neglect to keep our 
 bodies clean. The skin with which our bodies are 
 covered is composed of thousands I might say 
 millions of tiny pores or outlets, through which 
 waste matter is carried off from inside. If these 
 pores get clogged up with dirt, the waste is not 
 carried off properly, and our internal organs suffer 
 and get out of order. Waste is also carried off by 
 bowels, lungs, and kidneys, and if we do not keep 
 the pores of our skin active then more work is 
 thrown on them, and those organs surfer from over- 
 work. If you were to paint your body all over with 
 AspinalPs enamel, and thus close up all the pores, 
 then so much work would be demanded of kidneys 
 and lungs that they could not do it, and like every- 
 thing else that is overworked, they would strike and 
 do nothing, and you would just die. We keep our 
 skin clean and active by washing and rubbing. If 
 you are extra dirty, soap is necessary to help in 
 thoroughly cleansing the skin. People in ancient 
 times used to anoint themselves with oils and 
 unguents of various kinds to keep- the skin clean 
 and supple. Some skins secrete more oil than 
 others, and then an extra supply is not needed. 
 But a very dry or thin skin is often benefited by a 
 little rubbed well over it in cold weather. Friction 
 with rough towels is also very helpful to a sluggish 
 skin. It excites the capillaries, or tiny blood-vessels, 
 which bring the blood to feed the skin, and they do 
 their work better for this stimulus. 
 
 218. So much for cleanliness of our persons. But 
 as to our houses, what difference can it make to our 
 health (people often say) whether they are dirty or 
 clean ? 
 
ioo DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 It makes a very great difference. In a dirty 
 house the air is full of dust, and the rooms smell close 
 and stuffy, and this has a depressing effect on the 
 nervous system. Children are generally the first to 
 show the bad effects of a dirty house, because they 
 are more sensitive to smells than grown people. 
 If in any one house the children are often ailing, the 
 first question that should be asked is : Are the drains 
 kept clean ? It does not follow that there will be an 
 outbreak of typhoid fever or diphtheria if the sewers 
 are not flushed as they should be, and if there is an 
 evil odour hanging about the kitchen sink or in the 
 passages ; that may or may not come ; but what does 
 follow as a certainty is a low state of vitality which 
 predisposes the children to anything that is going 
 about. One will have sore throats, another ear-ache, 
 a third pimples or breakings-out, and all of them are 
 more or less fretful, especially in the evening when 
 the fresh air from outside is excluded. All these 
 ailments and many more come from the blood having 
 got into a poor condition from imperfect oxygena- 
 tion, when whatever tendency there is to mischief in 
 that particular constitution will be sure to show itself 
 sooner or later? Like the dropping of water, which 
 wears a hole in the stone at last, it is the continuous 
 action of evil conditions of living which is so fatal. 
 That is why I have laid such stress on the four rules 
 for healthy life ; and if there is anything the matter 
 with any member of the household the first thing to 
 be done is to find out if any of those rules have been 
 habitually disobeyed. 
 
 219. Of course sickness may come in many other 
 ways ; I only want you to understand that if you 
 disobey the laws of health it is pretty certain to 
 come somehow* 
 
 Our bodies are very complex, and their functions 
 
CHAP, xii HEALTH AND SICKNESS 101 
 
 may get disturbed without our own knowledge and 
 experience being sufficient to detect the cause. In 
 that case we must get medical advice, for it is useless 
 and worse than useless to attempt to remedy anything 
 of which we do not know the nature and the cause. 
 
 220. Still,- in daily life there are two or three things 
 which a housewife should be able to deal with herself. 
 She need not, and she cannot send for a doctor every 
 time any one is sick or has a stomach-ache or a 
 headache. Such troubles very generally come from 
 having eaten too much, or of an indigestible kind of 
 food, or too hurriedly, or when the body was so over- 
 tired that it had no energy left for proper digestion. 
 To get rid of this unused and unusable food in the 
 stomach is the only course. And the simplest 
 method of doing this is to drink plenty of hot water 
 at intervals, and eat no solid food at all till the 
 stomach is all right again. The hot water helps to 
 dissolve and carry off the undigested material which 
 is causing pain and discomfort, and generally nothing 
 more is necessary; though hot fomentations ex- 
 ternally may also be used if the pain is severe. 
 
 221. Another very common ailment which all should 
 know how to deal with is caused by what is called 
 " catching a chill." If you get into a thorough draught 
 or sit in a cold, damp room when the surface of your 
 body is hot and perspiring, then the pores of the skin 
 suddenly contract, and the tiny ducts which were so 
 busy carrying off waste matter become clogged and 
 congested, and you will feel ill all over, and your 
 internal functions may become seriously disordered. 
 In case this happens, the wisest plan is to go to bed 
 at once, and to try by all means in your power to get 
 into a perspiration again. Take a warm bath first if 
 you have the means at hand to do so, but any way go 
 to bed and wrap yourself up in plenty of blankets and 
 
102 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART n 
 
 drink hot water, or hot tea very weak, or hot broth if 
 you have not had any food lately. But do not eat 
 anything while you are feeling so queer, for you could 
 not digest it. Peppermint tea, or ginger tea, or any- 
 thing else that will help to make you hot is also good, 
 but not beer or spirits. 
 
 222. These two very simple bits of advice if fol- 
 lowed out will save many a doctor's bill by stopping 
 the beginnings of disorder ; and it is all that can be 
 fitly said about illness in this little manual except this 
 one further warning : that in case you have any reason to 
 suppose that you have caught an infectious disease, 
 or if you have met with an accident at all serious, you 
 should send for medical aid at once. 
 
 223. The only place sickness holds in Domestic 
 Economy is the place of an enemy, and it must be 
 fought with and turned out of the house as soon as 
 may be. But the best way of fighting and the skill 
 to fight must be learned from books specially written 
 on the different forms this foe puts on, and the action 
 of different medicines on diseased conditions, or from 
 the directions of the doctor and the nurse. 
 
PART III. THE PURSE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MONEY 
 
 224. It is important to all, but especially to the 
 housewife, to learn something about money. It is 
 the basis of all our calculations. We do not, and 
 could not, under the present system of social life, go 
 about exchanging one article for another as people in 
 old times did. Exchange or barter is still used in 
 eommeree when one country exchanges corn for 
 something else it has more need of, say manufactured 
 iron goods. But even then the value of the goods 
 is appraised in money before the exchange can be 
 settled. And in our daily life it is a matter of fact 
 that without ready money we are in a sad plight. 
 What then is this money, how do we get it, and how 
 should we use it? are questions which concern all 
 housewives to answer. We may say of it, as has often 
 been said of fire, that " it is a good servant but a bad 
 master." It goes our errands, it buys us food and 
 clothes, it builds our houses, it provides means of 
 education for our mental faculties when we are not 
 able or willing to do these things for ourselves. And 
 that is the part of a good servant. But let our lives 
 once be devoted to it to getting it, hoarding it, 
 
104 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART ill 
 
 waiting on it, and loving it, we shall find it a very 
 bad master indeed. Its only virtue is in its use- 
 fulness. 
 
 225. There are two separate kinds of money in 
 general use Coins, which are made of gold, silver, 
 and bronze or copper, and these have a definite 
 value in exchange ; Paper money, such as bank 
 notes, cheques, etc., which are only promises to pay 
 so many coins on demand ; and whose value con- 
 sequently depends on the credit of the persons who 
 make the promise. Paper money, is a matter of con- 
 venience. You want to send 20 to a person at a 
 distance and a bank-note for that amount can go in a 
 letter, while twenty sovereigns could not. The Bank 
 of England stands first in being worthy of credit 
 amongst all the banks in the world, and therefore its 
 notes have practically the same value as so much 
 coin : for on the faith of the rich English nation that 
 promise to pay on demand is made. There are 
 other banks which are allowed to issue notes on 
 their own credit, that is the credit of the persons who 
 own the bank. It may or may not be good, but it is 
 never so good as that of the Bank of England. 
 Banks sometimes fail or " break," as it is called, and 
 then their notes are worth little or nothing. But as 
 long as England is a nation and unconquered, its 
 credit is good, and its promises as safe as promises 
 can be. 
 
 226. Cheques are another form of paper money 
 which pass about, from hand to hand as a matter 
 of convenience instead of large amounts of coin 
 or cash. A cheque is a piece of paper on which 
 any person who has money in any bank may write 
 an order for so much cash to be paid out to 
 another person. You will see that the value of a 
 cheque depends upon the credit of this one person 
 
CHAP, i MONEY 105 
 
 who writes it. If he has no money in that bank, 
 though he tells you he has, that order to pay 
 is worthless. If you get a cheque as payment for 
 goods, it is best to take it to the bank and get money 
 for it at once, so as to be sure. If left for a month 
 or a year that person (even if he had the money there 
 when he wrote the cheque) might have drawn it all out, 
 or the bank might have failed. In both cases the 
 cheque would be returned to you "dishonoured," 
 and you would have lost your money. 
 
 227. The making of all coins in use in Great 
 Britain is undertaken by its Government ; and, as 
 well as bank-notes and cheques, they are made under 
 certain laws and regulations carefully laid down to 
 protect against cheating. Coins, when they have been 
 in circulation for a long time, lose in weight and the 
 signs on them are defaced. They are therefore called 
 in at intervals and re-made. Sometimes a fresh sort 
 of coin is given out, sometimes an old one is made 
 no longer. For instance guineas are no longer in 
 use; their value was 21 shillings. Now we have 
 sovereigns value 20 shillings, which are more con- 
 venient to calculate with ; and florins, which are 
 worth two shillings, are also new coins. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 INCOME 
 
 228. Before we begin to spend our money it is 
 quite clear that we must get it. The amount we get 
 per week or per year is called our income. The 
 amount we spend per week or per year is called our 
 
106 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 expenditure. That will be dealt with in the next 
 chapter. Now we will consider what ways there are 
 of getting an income. It can be got by earning, by 
 inheritance, by gift. 
 
 229. If a man or woman earn their own income 
 they have a greater pleasure and profit in the using 
 of it than can possibly be got out of money obtained 
 in any other way. They know the value of each 
 sovereign and what it means to earn another if they 
 waste that ; therefore they generally learn how to take 
 care of it. 
 
 Wages for labour performed, or recompense for 
 skill acquired through years of learning and much 
 outlay of time, is the most usual way of getting an 
 income ; and fortunately for humanity this way brings 
 in its train opportunities, as well as the necessity, for 
 acquiring some of the great virtues or qualities without 
 which the richest man can live neither wisely nor well. 
 Prudence, for example, has always been numbered 
 amongst the four cardinal virtues ; and self-denial is 
 considered to be of such importance in the develop- 
 ment of our moral nature that all religions recommend 
 artificial restraints to be imposed on our desires, if 
 opportunities to practise it are not an integral part of 
 our daily life. 
 
 230. Those who get an income by inheritance 
 often congratulate themselves that they have not to 
 work for a living ; but unless they undertake some 
 kind of work voluntarily, and continue to do it as a 
 duty, their inheritance is no blessing to them. Idle- 
 ness and laziness are on the contrary distinct curses. 
 We say a man is idle if he does nothing, and we 
 always say it in blame. We say he is lazy if he has 
 no will to work, and we say it with scorn. Still, a 
 man or woman who gets an income by inheritance 
 need not be either idle or lazy. We often have to 
 
CHAP, ii INCOME 107 
 
 say of such " they have leisure," and we always say it 
 with a faint shade of envy in our hearts. They have 
 leisure for doing many things which we fain would 
 do and yet cannot find time for. Leisure to study, 
 leisure to follow the fine arts ; leisure to improve the 
 waste places of this earth, leisure to cultivate the tree 
 of knowledge and to dispense its fruits to those who 
 have none. Moreover, domestic economy is as need- 
 ful for them to practise as it is for those who must 
 earn an income, since money can be wasted however 
 it is got, and leisure is of no value when not spent to 
 some end. 
 
 231. Those who get an income by gift are usually 
 the unfortunate or the criminal, dependent in both 
 cases on the charity of others, and this book is not 
 meant for them. They have to be managed for, 
 since they are incapable of doing, or will only to do 
 wrong. 
 
 232. It is chiefly to those who have to earn an 
 income that I address myself now, and I will point 
 out next in what way this can be done, on what 
 conditions, and bound by what rules. 
 
 (i) It may be earned by manual labour, or doing 
 things with our hands. 
 
 Of this kind of work there are two sorts, viz. skilled 
 and unskilled, and naturally the first -named com- 
 mands the highest wages. But any one who can 
 work with his hands well at any sort of labour useful 
 to the community is certain of earning money in the 
 shape of weekly wages so long as he is in health, and 
 has the strength of an adult man. It is the idlers 
 and the inefficient who complain that they can earn 
 nothing. Skilled manual labour runs up very closely 
 into the professions, but it retains the characteristic 
 of being paid for regularly in the shape of wages for 
 work done, and is thus the least risky of all ways of 
 
io8 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 earning an income. Clerks, writers, artists as well as 
 craftsmen, all fall under this head. 
 
 233. (2) By trading or buying things to sell 
 again in smaller quantities and more convenient 
 forms. 
 
 Under this head we have all the vast range of 
 buying and selling, beginning with the petty shop- 
 keeper who brings a little of everything from the 
 town and sells to the villager who stays at home, and 
 ending with those large commercial companies who 
 trade or deal with every nation under the sun, and 
 whose ships crowd every port. There are varying 
 grades of wholesale and retail merchants and shop- 
 keepers; there are stockbrokers, commission agents, 
 and what not, men who, sitting at an office desk, 
 pay away thousands of pounds for goods they have 
 not seen, and pedlars who haggle over farthings as 
 they tramp from door to door, but under all these 
 guises the principle of trading is the same ; and the 
 money gained is just the difference between the sum 
 that the goods cost to buy, to carry, and to store, 
 and the sum they can be sold at. Thus underlying 
 everything there is always an element of risk, and 
 the income gained must be uncertain and extremely 
 fluctuating. It requires a certain amount of capital 
 to begin with, and a knowledge of the laws of supply 
 and demand ; and it also calls for knowledge of a 
 variety of kinds if the trader is not to be cheated over 
 his transactions. 
 
 The manual labourer requires a technical educa- 
 tion, the trader a commercial one. 
 
 234. (3) By following a profession that is, acquir- 
 ing knowledge and imparting it to the world for a 
 consideration. 
 
 What are called the three learned professions 
 are Law, Physic, and Divinity, but there is an end- 
 
CHAP, ii INCOME 109 
 
 less number of callings which have knowledge, not 
 labour or skill, or goods for their basis ; and in all 
 this class we pay for opinions, thoughts, instruction, 
 and it depends on the esteem these intangible things 
 are held in whether the rate of pay is good or bad. 
 There is also the profession of arms so called, which, 
 as it is necessary to the State, is paid for out of the 
 national pocket at fixed rates. 
 
 We have been speaking of men all along, but 
 there are some professions which are open to women, 
 some trades which they can follow, some manual 
 work in which they can engage. But on account of 
 their lesser degree of muscular strength, and owing 
 to their being handicapped in various ways, their rate 
 of pay is always less than that of men. The great 
 business of women in life, and one, in which no man 
 can compete with them, is that of guiding and serving 
 the house and home. If a girl is brought up to know 
 and practise all the arts which serve this end she is 
 certain of being able to earn an income in either the 
 lower or higher branches of housekeeping. So long 
 as the world lasts a woman who can sew well, cook 
 well, bring up children well, need never fear lack of 
 employment or want of money, whether she is married 
 or single. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 EXPENDITURE 
 
 235. The money which comes into our possession 
 in the course of a week, a month, or a year is called 
 our income. We say of a poor man, " he only earns 
 
i io DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 i a week, that is all his income." We say of a rich 
 man, "he has ^2000 a year, he must be able to live 
 very comfortably as well as to lay by some of his 
 income." We say of a housewife, "she has to keep 
 house for a family of eight upon 20 per month ; it is 
 not a large income, but she manages well, and it is 
 enough." 
 
 The great thing is to learn how to spend our in- 
 come profitably. Whether it be large or small, it is 
 easy enough to waste it. And wasted money, like 
 wasted time, never returns. 
 
 To spend to profit it is necessary to make some 
 sort of a plan ; to apportion our income to the 
 needs and number of the family ; to settle what 
 things we must have, and what we can do without ; 
 to buy the necessaries first, to provide for emergen- 
 cies next (that is, unexpected outlays which are not 
 part of our regular expenditure, such as doctor's bills 
 or breakages), and last of all to indulge ourselves in 
 luxuries, if there is any money left over. 
 
 236. Let us take a case which is neither poverty 
 nor riches, and imagine a good housewife dividing her 
 yearly income to meet her needs. We will suppose 
 a man earns ^300 a year, and that he has a wife 
 and four children to provide for. He will need a 
 third of this to pay for his own personal expenses, 
 and provide for house-rent, rates, and taxes, insurance, 
 etc., and there will be ^200 left to be handed over 
 to his wife for housekeeping. 
 
 237. Food, fuel, and clothes are necessaries ; in 
 what proportion shall this sum be divided amongst 
 them? 
 
 238. Three grown-up people (for they will certainly 
 keep a servant) and four children may be reckoned 
 as equal to five adults as food consumers. Any 
 average person can be provided with everything that 
 
CHAP, in EXPENDITURE in 
 
 
 
 is necessary for health and comfort in the way of 
 food, at the rate of 73. per week, if there are five per- 
 sons to share meals. Thus, speaking roughly, ^90 
 will be spent in providing meat, bread, vegetables, 
 fruit, groceries, and dairy produce, leaving ;no for 
 everything else. 
 
 239. Fuel is the next item, in which lighting must 
 be included. Coal may be reckoned at i8s. per 
 ton, and six tons of coal and a chaldron of coke will 
 keep a kitchen fire going all the year round, and do 
 all the cooking and heating of bath water for a 
 family of the size supposed. A parlour fire for six 
 months will require about half this quantity. The 
 whole cost, inclusive of wood for lighting, would be 
 about ^9. Gas may be reckoned roughly at ^4 in 
 addition, making a total of ^13 per annum. And 
 we have ^97 left. 
 
 240. Clothes for herself and four young children 
 ought not to cost the housewife more than ^25, or, 
 if we include the renewal of house linen, say ^30. 
 
 Next comes servant's wages, say 12. Washing 
 if put out ; if done at home, there will be 
 the heavier wages and a heavier grocer's bill. We 
 have now 42 still in hand, but there will probably 
 be school bills for two children, and the small travel- 
 ling expenses of bus or rail, which, if they live in 
 town, must be reckoned for, and if they live in the 
 country will come to much the same figure, though 
 in the shape of carriage of goods. Say 12 for 
 school fees, ;io for books and small journeys, and 
 the housewife has still ^20 to put by for emergen- 
 cies. This is not too great a margin with a stationary 
 income. Families grow, though incomes may not. 
 Children growing fast demand greater outlay on 
 education and clothes ; and parents growing old need 
 more comforts. 
 
DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 241. Food .... 
 
 Fuel . . . . 13 
 
 Clothes . . . . 30 
 
 Laundry . . . . 13 
 
 Service . . . . 12 
 
 Schooling, etc. . . . 22 
 
 We have allowed for no luxuries in this scheme, but 
 the family will be amply fed and clothed; and if 
 there are no grave emergencies in any given year, 
 there will always be some amount of money which 
 can be spent on treats or holidays. 
 
 242. Let us consider what the master can do with 
 his ;ioo. The rent of a house to hold such a family 
 would be. about 40 in a town, and rates and taxes 
 would be included if they lived in the country, while 
 in town they might be as high as 12 extra. 
 His own clothes and personal expenses could hardly 
 be less than another ^25, leaving the remainder to 
 be put by for a rainy day, either in the form of 
 insurances or investment. In the next chapter,, I 
 shall say more about this. 
 
 243. Now I have one thing more to point out. 
 The smaller a man's income is, the larger is the 
 expenditure relatively on food. The larger your 
 family the smaller in proportion is the outlay for 
 food, because there is always a certain amount of 
 waste in cooking and serving meals, and if this waste 
 is divided amongst twenty instead of two or three, it 
 is less in proportion. For instance, a family of ten 
 could be fed quite as well on 6s. or 73. per head per 
 week, as two persons alone could on los. per 
 head. 
 
 Of course a scheme is only a scheme j in actual 
 
CHAP, in EXPENDITURE 113 
 
 practice we find prices do not fit our plans with 
 precision. Some things cost more and some less. 
 Every housewife must make her own scheme accord- 
 ing to circumstances. But to carry it out as near 
 as possible involves foresight and thrift, and if she 
 cultivate these she will find a hundred ways of 
 managing and saving which cannot be put down on 
 paper, and her purse will never be empty, and her 
 heart never anxious over unpaid bills. 
 
 244. The matter of most moment to the house- 
 wife in the planning of her outlay is to know if the 
 income she has to spend is fixed or fluctuating". 
 If it is certain, and she gets it on certain days, she 
 may spend much nearer to the sum total, than if it is 
 received irregularly, and in unequal amount. Then 
 the only safe way is to allow a large margin over. 
 
 Whether the income be small or large, certain or 
 uncertain, the good housewife will keep an accurate 
 account of her income and expenditure. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BUYING 
 
 245. A plan of expenditure is an excellent thing. 
 But if the housewife does not know how to buy 
 wisely her plan will be of little avail. It is all very 
 well to say or put down on paper " a family of five or 
 more can be well fed for is. per head per day," but if 
 when she goes out to shop she has no idea of the 
 difference between what is cheap and what is dear, 
 her purse will empty itself before her wants are sup- 
 plied. There are also things that are cheap and 
 
ii 4 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 good (see 147), and things which are cheap and 
 nasty. Then, again, there are things which can be 
 bought in a quantity at a lower rate than in small 
 parcels ; but if they are things which spoil by keep- 
 ing, like almost all nitrogenous foods, it is no saving 
 but only waste to lay in a stock. 
 
 246. Thus meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit should 
 be bought in small quantities for immediate consump- 
 tion, and a housewife should acquire the art of judg- 
 ing at sight how long a given piece or measure will 
 serve her family, and whether it will be good to the 
 end. Then of the articles which will keep and per- 
 haps improve by keeping, she can lay in a store at 
 her convenience, such as soap, candles, tea, coffee, 
 and dry groceries generally ; of these she need never 
 fear to have a month's stock. Flour will keep as 
 long if it is in a perfectly dry place ; but it is perhaps 
 safer to get it in weekly. 
 
 247. Materials for making clothes can be bought 
 at good opportunities, for they can be stored without 
 damage but ready-made clothes never look so fresh 
 if folded away for any length of time. Besides, 
 fashions change so rapidly, that to buy things which 
 are cheap at one season, and then not to wear them 
 till the next is not wise. For all persons wish to 
 look well in their newest garments and wear them 
 for best. 
 
 248. Cheapness and clearness are relative terms. 
 A pound of coffee at lod. may in the end be dearer 
 than a pound at 2s. It all depends on the quality. If 
 the cheap coffee is adulterated, that is mixed with 
 some inferior stuff which is not coffee, and weighs 
 heavy, you may find that half-a-pound of the good 
 would last you longer and be more nutritious and 
 pleasant in the using than double the quantity of the 
 bad. Which is then the cheaper ? Or, if you buy a 
 
CHAP, iv BUYING 115 
 
 cheap dress which only lasts a few weeks, are you as 
 well off as if you paid double the price for one which 
 will wear a year ? 
 
 249. Everything is dear if we are not in need of it. 
 Some people love to get what are called bargains, 
 by which they mean something sold under cost price. 
 But all goods sold for less than their original value 
 must have some flaw ; or else they will not keep ; or 
 some one has lost instead of gained on producing 
 them. For which of these reasons are they to be 
 eagerly bought ? It may be that you want the thing 
 badly, and not being able to get a better specimen 
 are willing to put up with the damage. But if you 
 really need the article, a good, sound one is always 
 cheaper in the end. It may be that you want the 
 thing for immediate use, and therefore the fact that it 
 will not keep is no prejudice. But such a fortuitous 
 accident does not often occur, since a housekeeper 
 who wants something in a hurry has to get it in 
 a hurry, and has no time to go bargain-hunting. 
 And for all good articles, well made, and in demand 
 on account of their usefulness, the producer is sure 
 of a recompense for his labour over and above the 
 cost of the material. Therefore the bargain is gener- 
 ally a take-in. 
 
 250. This love for bargains which is so prevalent 
 has wider issues than its effect on Domestic Economy. 
 The sweater is called into existence by those whose 
 chief desire in shopping is to pay as little as possible 
 and to get as much. And the sweater and sweating 
 system are evils which must be reckoned with in 
 both Political and Social Economy. And the very 
 woman who rejoices at a purchase in which she 
 believes she has got an article for 205. which is 
 worth 253., forgets that the poor producer, robbed 
 of his rightful profit, must be kept from dying of 
 
ii6 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 starvation by the poor-rates which have to be drawn 
 out of her purse; or helped in sickness by the hospital 
 she subscribes to. She virtually prefers to support 
 him by paying double the amount instead of letting 
 3Jaim support himself. Good pay for good work is the 
 cheapest plan in the end, and certainly brings the 
 least trouble. 
 
 251. The best counsel that can be given to buyers 
 is : be willing to pay a fair price for the best article 
 of the class you need, and take your money in your 
 hand. 
 
 252. This applies in the main to all shopping. 
 But there is sometimes a great saving to be effected 
 in the buying of second-hand furniture, or even 
 kitchen utensils of a superior sort. For some reason 
 or other a home has been broken up, and its contents 
 have to be sold on a fixed day. Now a forced sale 
 of a miscellaneous lot of goods always means that the 
 owners are willing to take a small price for their 
 goods rather than have the expense of taking them 
 away. Therefore they are sold for what they will 
 fetch, not for what they are worth. If furniture was 
 good to begin with, a few years' wear has not hurt it 
 much, while the buyer has no chance of being taken 
 in by unseasoned wood, since the shrinking must 
 have shown itself by this time. And often a really 
 good and valuable piece of furniture may be bought 
 at half-price with no injustice to any one. It is thus 
 wise to wait as long as possible for the opportunity 
 of getting a second-hand chest of drawers, table, 
 or sideboard. And sound, solid copper cooking 
 vessels may often be bought thus for a fraction of 
 their original cost, and, with re-tinning, last you 
 for life. These are genuine bargains. 
 
 253. To buy on credit is never economical. 
 Shopkeepers naturally ask more when they have to 
 
CHAP, iv BUYING 117 
 
 wait for their money. To have a bill at every shop 
 you deal with is extremely harassing, and makes 
 a housekeeper always feel short of money, since 
 every quarter-day she must settle up her debts and 
 then run in debt again at once. 
 
 254. The secret of economical buying is neve?' 
 to buy anything that you do not really need, and not 
 then unless you can spare the money to pay for it at 
 once. 
 
 And it is well to remember that those things which 
 will last for years should never be bought in a hurry ; 
 whilst those articles which are of everyday need can 
 always be laid in beforehand, since it is a housewife's 
 duty to foresee and provide for the wants of her 
 family. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SAVING AND INVESTING 
 
 255. I spoke in the last Chapter of the saving of 
 money in buying, i.e. not spending more than is 
 necessary, and by the use of good judgment and 
 suitable opportunity saving a penny here and a 
 shilling there. 
 
 There is an old saying useful to remember, "a 
 penny saved is a penny got " ; but when you have got 
 your penny, what you shall do with it is the next 
 question. 
 
 These pennies saved every day by good manage- 
 ment, soon become pounds, and what is wanted is 
 to keep them safe against a rainy day, which is 
 an expression used to signify a time when your 
 income may be less than it is now, or some 
 
ii8 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 emergency when you may require a little extra 
 expenditure, such as a doctor's bill, or a country 
 trip, or special teaching for a talented and industrious 
 child. Then, again, there is always old age to look 
 forward to, and if that is not already provided for in 
 other ways, some saving should be specially ordained 
 to meet it. But whatever you want to save your 
 money for, the great thing is that it should be kept 
 safe and yet that you should be able to get it when 
 you want it. 
 
 256. There are several ways of putting by your 
 spare cash. One is hiding it, so that no one else 
 knows where it is. That is not a good way, because 
 if it is so hidden it cannot grow, that is, get any 
 interest, or be of any use ; and it may even be stolen, 
 or lost altogether, or destroyed if it is paper money. 
 
 257. Again, some people lend their money to a 
 friend or neighbour, and get in return an " I.O.U," as 
 it is called, or a " promise to pay on demand " say 
 ;io or whatever sum it is. Neither is this a good 
 way of keeping money against a rainy day, for those 
 who borrow are the last people likely to be able 
 or willing to pay back your cash just when you ask 
 for it. 
 
 258. Next we must consider the various ways of 
 investing money, which means lending money to 
 people who want the use of it, and are willing to 
 pay you interest for the use. People who are in 
 trade, and want more capital than they have of their 
 own to buy a stock of goods, will do this. But trade 
 is always uncertain, and the only security that a 
 tradesman can in general give is an agreement to 
 pay a definite sum per annum ; and if his trade or 
 business fails, you may perhaps never get any of your 
 money back, or only a small part. 
 
 259. This is therefore a risky investment, although 
 
CHAP, v SAVING AND INVESTING 119 
 
 it may offer a high rate of interest, as indeed all risky 
 investments must, or money would never come in for 
 them. But for any one to whom small savings are 
 of consequence it is never wise to run any risk of 
 losing them. People who have plenty and to spare 
 may run such risks if they choose, but it is not for 
 such I am writing. 
 
 260. Small savings should always be invested in 
 something that is certain to pay you back your capital 
 on demand, and your interest, however small, regularly. 
 A high interest is from 5 per cent upwards. A low 
 interest 2 or 2^ per cent, which means 2 or 
 2 : i os. for each ;ioo that you lend each year. 
 
 261. The safest investment in all the world is 
 to put your money into what are called " British 
 Government Securities." You can do this by means 
 of the Post-Office Savings Bank, in which you can 
 deposit not less than one shilling. Through the Post 
 Office you can invest from is. to $oo in Consols. 
 Any post-master will give you full instructions how to 
 do this. The rate of interest you will get for each ^i 
 put in the Savings Bank is Jd. per month, or 6d. a 
 year, which is 2% per cent. In the Consols you get 
 a little more, about 2f. It varies slightly from causes 
 which I cannot explain here. 
 
 262. There is yet another way of investing money 
 open to you, and that is to put it on a Mortgage. 
 It is considered a safe investment, and the rate of 
 interest is about 4 per cent. But there is always a 
 good deal of trouble attending this sort of investment. 
 I will explain what a mortgage is. A man wants, we 
 will suppose, to buy a house which costs ^1000, and 
 he has not got the ready money to do it. He gives 
 the title-deeds of the property as security to any per- 
 sons willing to lend this sum, so that if he does not 
 pay his promised interest for the use of it, they may 
 
120 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART in 
 
 be able to sell the house over his head and get their 
 money back. You may perhaps be able to lend part 
 of this sum, say ^500, and some one else lends ^300, 
 and a third makes up the required amount with 
 200. You cannot all have the title-deeds, so they 
 must be put into a lawyer's hands, who will act for 
 all three of the lenders, receive the interest from the 
 owner of the property, and divide it among you. 
 But then everything which passes through a lawyer's 
 hands pays toll as it goes, so you do not get after all 
 the 4 per cent, perhaps only 3 per cent. And if the 
 borrower does not pay up regularly, there is the 
 expense and bother of what is called foreclosing 1 , 
 that is, selling him up. Again the lawyer has to be 
 called on to do it, and to be paid. Thus, though 
 you are pretty safe to get your money back unless 
 more money has been lent on the property than it is 
 worth, which you always have to find out you are 
 also pretty certain of trouble and worry about it, 
 unless under very fortunate circumstances. 
 
 263. There are also railway companies and others 
 to which it is tolerably safe to lend ; but if you do 
 not thoroughly understand the buying and selling of 
 shares you will often make mistakes or get cheated. 
 
 264. Whereas, if yon put into the Post-Office Sav- 
 ings Bank or other Government securities, you may 
 be quite sure you will not be cheated, and that every- 
 thing has been so carefully arranged for the benefit 
 of small savers that it will not be easy to make a 
 mistake. 
 
 265. The Government has also several schemes 
 out of which you can choose if you wish to insure 
 your life or buy an annuity against old age. To 
 insure your life means to pay a small sum yearly, and 
 in return, when you die, a large sum, amounting to 
 much more than you have paid out, will be handed 
 
CHAP, v SAVING AND INVESTING 121 
 
 over to any person or persons whom you name. The 
 man who is the breadwinner of the family finds it 
 wise to do this if he cannot settle anything else on 
 his wife and children. To buy an annuity means to 
 pay down a fixed sum, and get in return so much a 
 year for your life. This is always a larger interest 
 than you could get any other way, but it ceases when 
 you die, and the sum you paid in is not yours to will 
 to any one. A woman who has no one depending 
 on her finds it wise to do this with her savings. The 
 older you are before you buy the annuity the larger 
 interest you get ; while, on the contrary, if you insure 
 your life, the younger you are when you begin to pay 
 in the more your family get when you die. 
 
 There are different sorts of insurance, and also of 
 annuities some called deferred, and some return- 
 able. You have only to ask at any post-office and 
 full information is given, so that all you have to do 
 is to choose which sort suits your circumstances best. 
 
 266. To have an easy mind about the future, both 
 for ourselves and those dear to us, is a great safe- 
 guard against worry; and worry, as all doctors will 
 tell you, causes more sickness and premature death 
 than anything else except bad drainage. Persons 
 who are fairly strong to begin with can stand hard 
 work, and short food, and heat and cold, without 
 doing themselves much harm or any at all. But 
 it seems as if no one could bear up under worry. 
 And so to buy an annuity may be looked at in one 
 way as buying life. This fe proved by statistics, 
 which show us that people in receipt of a small 
 regular income in middle age or later life, live much 
 longer on an average than those whose income is 
 insecure. 
 
PART IV 
 
 THE ORDERING OF THE HOUSE 
 
 267. In speaking of the ordering of the house 
 we assume two things : first, that there is some one 
 to rule it; second, that the object of that rule is 
 order. 
 
 The person who rules is clearly the housewife or 
 mistress, and to rule well she must be possessed of 
 certain qualities. 
 
 268. Human character stands four-square on the 
 pillars of justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude, 
 as we all know ; but of these qualities justice is per- 
 haps the most prominent, either as excellence or 
 defect, in one who has to govern, be it state or house- 
 hold. For if equal measure be not meted out to 
 all members according to their merit and their need, 
 jealousy is the certain result ; and jealousy is of all 
 foes the most fatal to peace and right development 
 of character. 
 
 269. And it is to tffis due development of char- 
 acter that the mistress has to look for the object of 
 her toil, and the reward of her skill. What boots it 
 that her husband is well fed and clothed, her children 
 healthy, and her house clean, if her home be no centre 
 of life and growth ? Shall material means lead only 
 to sensual ends ? Or may she hope to see the higher 
 
PART iv THE ORDERING OF THE HOUSE 123 
 
 dispositions of the mind spring out of the good habits 
 of the body ? 
 
 270. We talk a great deal about the effect of 
 "environment," and in no case is circumstance 
 more close and pressing than in the home. And 
 these circumstances are to an almost infinite extent 
 in the hands of wife and mother. It is she who 
 must plan the scheme of life, and she who must see 
 that it is carried out. She must apportion to all the 
 daily duties they have to perform. A good organiser 
 will get far more into a given time than a bad one ; 
 just as a good packer will get twice as much into a 
 box as a bad one can. It all depends on skill and 
 management. She must make a plan of all she 
 wants or hopes to do in life, and then divide it into 
 times and seasons, years and days, and even hours 
 and minutes. 
 
 271. No one can make a good working scheme 
 and afford to ignore the great divisions of Time laid 
 down. They govern the whole world, and we must 
 adapt ourselves to them ; they will not alter for us or 
 our wishes. "Time and tide wait for no man," as 
 the old adage has it; and another bids us "take 
 Time by the forelock." And we know from our own 
 experience that if we let the morning hours slip by 
 in idleness, our day's work cannot be fetched up in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 272. Accordingly, in laying down the rule of life 
 in her home, the mistress plans for beginning work 
 early. But here again she is tied to no fixed hour, 
 but must adapt herself to the seasons, which she 
 cannot alter. 
 
 To begin work by six o'clock of a summer morn- 
 ing in full daylight and with soft airs blowing through 
 the house, is one thing ; to light gas or candle, and 
 vainly try to sew or study with chilled fingers and 
 
124 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART 
 
 feet before either breakfast is ready or fires kindled, 
 is quite another. It may have to be done, but its 
 effects have to be taken into consideration. 
 
 273. Again, there are certain things to be done in 
 the summer which cannot be done in winter, such as 
 preserving fruit, washing blankets, whitewashing and 
 cleaning generally, and in this way the family learns 
 the value of time ; for if the work is not done when 
 the right time for it comes, it goes, and goes for ever. 
 This rule is also applicable to the lesser divisions of 
 time, the days, hours, and minutes. 
 
 274. One of the first lessons we teach children is 
 to be able to read the clock and know what time of 
 day it is ; and we do this because punctuality or the 
 keeping to set times is such a large element of success 
 in all that we do. For instance, no one can cook a 
 meal properly unless she knows what time each article 
 requires for cooking, and at what time the meal must 
 be served; and if the persons for whom it was prepared 
 are not ready when the meal-time comes round, the 
 whole may be spoiled. Consequently punctuality is 
 a virtue to be acquired by every one, and the mistress 
 should set the example by fixing the hours for all 
 work and all meals in her house, and not only fulfill- 
 ing her own part, but insisting on every one else fulfill- 
 ing theirs. 
 
 275. Next to the keeping of Time and Season, 
 comes the virtue of Order and Method. For every- 
 thing brought into a house there should be fixed a 
 certain place, as well as for every person. To see 
 that every article of daily use is put back in that 
 place when done with is a lesson that should be 
 learnt by every one who has neither time nor money 
 to throw away. And who is there that has ? By 
 insisting on habits of order the housewife not only 
 makes a neat and comfortable home, but forms the 
 
iv THE ORDERING OF THE HOUSE 125 
 
 environment out of which the next generation 
 emerges better equipped for the battle of life. For 
 we may fairly say that if punctuality is the soul of 
 business, order is the seat of the soul. 
 
 276. I said the battle of life, and for what is it 
 we are fighting? Is it only for bread to eat, and 
 clothes to wear, and a house to sleep in ? Is it not 
 for means of growth and intellectual advancement ? 
 The whole range of human enjoyment is bounded by 
 our capacities for action. To be able to do anything, 
 and to do it well, is reward enough for the trouble of 
 learning how to do, but it is also the possibility of 
 doing more. Growth, both of body and mind, pro- 
 ceeds on fixed lines, and only through regular stages 
 is evolution possible. To him that hath shall be 
 given. 
 
 277. The housewife must recognise this and act 
 on it. For any member of her family with a special 
 talent, or with a special aim in view, it is hers to pro- 
 vide suitable nurture, and convenient opportunities 
 for the exercise of such talent, or for the furtherance 
 of such aim. It is not for her to say, " The children 
 are mine, they must look at life through my eyes, 
 my will must be their law." Not so does growth 
 come. They are not hers to do as she likes with ; 
 they are hers to do the best she can for. 
 
 278. What is the best that can be done for them ? 
 Is it not to train them in such habits as will fit them 
 for any work? I have named Punctuality and 
 Order, which are never learnt without constant prac- 
 tice at home, and without which no good work can 
 ever be done. And there is another quality which 
 must be striven after, and that is the habit of self- 
 denial, of doing without what we like. To give young 
 people all that they fancy, to wait on them hand and 
 foot, to save them from all the responsibilities of life, 
 
126 DOMESTIC ECONOMY PART iv 
 
 and shield them from every risk, is the surest way to 
 turn out idlers and cowards. Not of such stuff are 
 Fortune's favourites made. To them has been given 
 the constant opportunities of self-denial out of which 
 springs self-control. For them are fashioned the dis- 
 ciplines of Law and Justice, the trammels of decent 
 custom. 
 
 279. And it is in the increase of righteous action 
 and the development of knowledge and wisdom, 
 that the whole justification of the Art of Domestic 
 Economy lies. 
 
INDEX 
 
 THE FIGURES REFER TO PARAGRAPHS 
 
 ACCOUNTS, 244 
 
 Action, 279 
 
 Adulterations, 112, 128, 248 
 
 Ague, 47, 57 
 
 Air, 24, 31, 162 ; composition 
 
 of, 25 ; saturation of, 30 ; 
 
 sea, 29 ; in towns, 31 
 Annuitants, 266 
 Annuities, 265 
 Antiseptics, 64, 164 
 Aspect, 14, 82 
 Atmospheric pressure, 28 
 Attics, 77, 79, 83 
 
 BAKING, 172 
 
 Bargains, 249 
 
 Basement, 20, 78 
 
 Battle of Life, 276 
 
 Beds, 85 
 
 Bedrooms, 36, 80 
 
 Birds, 157 
 
 Blinds, 90 
 
 Body heat, 100 ; weight, 126 
 
 Boiling, 29, 52, 174 
 
 Braising, 169 
 
 Bread, 127, 153 . 
 
 Breathing, 27, 216 
 
 Broiling, 171 
 
 Brick, 15, 17 ; ventilating, 
 
 19 
 
 Building, 15, 37, 66 
 Butter, 130 
 Buying, 245 
 
 CALICO, 113 
 
 Candles, 185 
 
 Carpets, 91 
 
 Chalk, 12 
 
 Cheapness, 248 
 
 Cheques, 226 
 
 Character, 269 
 
 Chills, 221 
 
 Chimneys, 34, 196 
 
 China, 96 
 
 Cisterns, 50 
 
 Clay, 12 
 
 Cleaning, 191 ; time for, 194 
 
 Cleanliness, 217 
 
 Clothing, 98 ; cost of, 240 ; 
 
 mending, 117; purchase, 109; 
 
 shape of, 108 
 Coal, 178, 190 
 Coins, 225, 227 
 Coke, 179 
 Colds, 221 
 
 Conductors of heat, 100 
 Cooking, 1 68 ; utensils, 94 
 Cotton, 104, 205, 206 
 Country, 23, 39 ; rents, 68 
 Credit, 225, 253 
 Crockery, 96 
 Curtains, 90 
 Cutting out, 120 
 
 DAMP, 10, 17 
 Damp-proof course, 18 
 Death-rates, 22 
 
128 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 Decay, 165 
 
 Dirt, 218 
 
 Dilapidations, 71 
 
 Disinfectants, 64 
 
 Disorder, 213 
 
 Domestic, i ; economy, 1-3 
 
 Domus, i 
 
 Drains, 57, 58, 63 
 
 Draughts, 32 
 
 Dressmaking, 122 
 
 Drying, 30 
 
 Dust, 191 ; bins, 62 
 
 EARLY rising, 272 
 Economical buying, 254 
 Economy, 2 
 Electric light, 186 
 Environment, 270 
 Exercise, 216 
 
 Expenditure, 235 ; scheme of, 
 241, 243 
 
 FAT in drains, 63 ; as food, 
 
 130, 138 ; for frying, 176 ; 
 
 increase of, 143 
 Feathers, 102 
 Fermentation, 165 
 Filters, 53 
 Fish, 156 
 Flannel, 207 
 Flesh-formers, 137-139 
 Flies, 1 66 
 Floors, 92 
 Food, 123 ; cheap, 147, 150 ; 
 
 cost of, 238 ; dear, 148 ; 
 
 nitrogenous, 140, 141, 158 ; 
 
 nutritive value, 136; plentiful, 
 
 149 ; quantity required, 123, 
 
 125, 238 
 
 Foundations of house, 15 
 Frying, 176 
 
 Fuel, 177 ; cost of, 239 
 Fur, 102 ; on kettles, 42 
 Furniture, 84 
 
 GAS, 25 ; carbonfc acid, 25, 41 ; 
 coal, 1 80 ; combustion of, 
 181 
 
 Germs, 159, 163 
 Gift, 231 
 Grates, 188 
 Gravel, 12 
 Groceries, 135 
 Ground-rent, 67 
 Growth, 138, 277 
 
 HAIR, 85 
 
 Health, 212-214; conditions for, 
 
 2I 5 
 
 Heat-givers, 138 
 
 Home, making of, 5 ; ordering 
 of, 267 
 
 Home-made bread, 128 
 
 House, building, 15, 66 ; choos- 
 ing, 4, 8, 22 ; ordering of, 
 267 ; rent, 67, 242 
 
 Householder, 8 
 
 IDLE money, 256 
 
 Income, 228 ; earning of, 229, 
 
 235 ; fixed, 244 
 India-rubber, 106 
 Indigestion, 220 
 Infectious disorder, 222 
 Inheritance, 230 
 Instinct, 137 
 
 Insurance, 242, 265; fire, 74 
 Interest, 258 
 Investments, 258 ; risky, 259 ; 
 
 safe, 261 
 
 JUSTICE, 268 
 
 LEASES, 71 
 Leather, 107, no 
 Lending, 257 
 Life, length of, 23 
 Light, 14, 90, 187 
 Lime, 42 ; as food, 145 
 Linen, 105 
 Liquid, 26 
 Luxuries, 97 
 
 MADE soil, 13 
 Manual labour, 232 
 Marketing, 147, 151 
 
INDEX 
 
 129 
 
 Marsh water, 47 
 Materials for cleaning, 193 ; for 
 clothing, 99, 247 ; mixed, in 
 Meat, 131, 154; to choose, 155 
 Mending, 117, 119 
 Milk, 132 
 Moisture, 30, 161 
 Money, 6, 224 
 Mortgages, 262 
 Moths, 115 
 
 NECESSARIES, 237 
 Needlework, 117, 118 
 Nitrogenous food, 139, 142, 
 158 
 
 OIL lamps, 184 
 Order, 213, 275 
 Ovens, 172 
 
 PEAT, 183 
 
 Perishable food, 150, 158 
 
 Permanganate of potash, 64, 
 
 164 
 
 Petroleum, 184 
 Planning the income, 236 ; the 
 
 rooms, 76 
 Place, 275 
 Plenty, 149 
 Pond water, 47 
 Potash, 146 
 Potatoes, 129 
 Professions, 234 
 Pumps, 44 
 Punctuality, 274 
 
 RAILWAYS, 263 
 Rain-water, 41 ; pipes, 59 
 Rates, 73 
 
 Ready money, 97, 251 
 Rent, 16, 67, 72, 242 
 Repairs, 70 
 Rivers, 46 
 Roasting, 170 
 
 Rooms, 76 ; to clean, 195 ; 
 underground, 77 
 
 SAND, 12 
 
 Salt, 144 
 
 Saving, 255 
 
 Savings, small, 260 
 
 Savings banks, 264 
 
 Schools, 8 1 
 
 Seasons, 273 
 
 Second-hand goods, 252 
 
 Self-denial, 278 
 
 Shelter, 9 
 
 Shoddy, 112 
 
 Shopkeepers, 152 
 
 Sickness, 211, 219, 223 
 
 Silk, 103, 208 
 
 Site, 10 
 
 Skin, 217 
 
 Soap, 210 
 
 Soil, 12 
 
 Solids, 26 
 
 Space, 23, 80, 8 1 
 
 Spendings, 235 
 
 Springs, 48 
 
 Starch as food, 138 
 
 Starched clothing, 209 
 
 Steaming, 175 
 
 Stewing, 173 
 
 Storage of clothing, 114, 116; 
 
 of food, 158, 246 
 Stoves, 1 88 
 Sugar, 133, 138 
 Sunshine, 14, 90 
 Supply, water, 49 
 Sweating, 250 
 
 TAXES, 73 
 
 Tea, 134 
 
 Tenants, 69 
 
 Time, 271 ; value of, 151, 273 
 
 Town life, 23, 39 ; rents, 68 
 
 Trading, 233 
 
 Traps, 6 1 
 
 Treacle, 130, 138 
 
 Trimming, 112 
 
 Turf, 183 
 
 UTENSILS, 84, 94 
 
 VEGETABLES, 146 
 Ventilating shaft, 60 
 
130 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 Ventilation, 32, 33 ; exit, 34 ; 
 
 inlet, 35 
 Vermin, 197 
 
 WAGES, 229, 232 
 
 Walls, 15, 93 
 
 Wardrobes, 87 
 
 Warmth, 160 
 
 Washing, 198, 204 
 
 Waste, 54, 65 
 
 Water, 38, 51 ; boils, 29 ; cis- 
 
 terns, 50 ; hard, 42 ; pure, 
 40 ; rain, 41 ; rate, 39 ; river, 
 46 ; soft, 42 ; subsoil, 43 ; 
 supply, 49 ; well, 43 
 
 Weight of body, 126 
 
 Wells, 44, 45 
 
 Wind, ii 
 
 Windows to clean, 196 
 
 Wood, 88, 182 
 
 Woodwork, 15 
 
 Wool, 101, 207 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh 
 
printers. 
 
 UNDER THE JOINT EDITORSHIP OF 
 
 Professors HUXLEY, ROSCOE, and BALFOUR 
 
 STEWART. 
 Pott 8vo. Cloth. Illustrated, is. each. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. By T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S. 
 CHEMISTRY. By Sir H. E. ROSCOE, F.R.S. With 
 
 Questions. 
 
 PHYSICS. By B. STEWART, F.R.S. With Questions 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. By Sir ARCHIBALD 
 
 GEIKIE, F.R.S. With Questions. 
 
 GEOLOGY. By Sir ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F.R.S. 
 PHYSIOLOGY. By Prof. M. FOSTER, M.D., F.R.S. 
 ASTRONOMY. By J. N. LOCKYER, F.R.S. 
 BOTANY. By Sir J. D. HOOKER, K. C.S.I., F.R.S. 
 LOGIC. By W. STANLEY JEVONS, F.R.S. 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. By W. S. JEVONS, F.R.S. 
 
 *** Others to follow. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE. 
 
 ELEMENTARY COURSE OF PRACTICAL 
 
 SCIENCE. Part I. By HUGH GORDON. Illustrated. M. 
 
 FIRST PRINCIPLES OF AGRICULTURE. By 
 
 HENRY TANNER, F.C.S. is. 
 
 PRIMER OF HORTICULTURE. By J. WRIGHT. 
 GARDEN FLOWERS & PLANTS. By J.WRIGHT. 
 GREENHOUSE & WINDOW PLANTS. By C. 
 
 COLLINS. 
 
 MANUAL OF DAIRY WORK. By T. MuiR, 
 
 M.R.A.C. is. 
 
 THE FOOD OF PLANTS. By A. P. LAURIE, is. 
 FIRST LESSONS IN PRACTICAL BOTANY. 
 
 By G. T. BETTANY. i*. 
 
 -DOMESTIC ECONOMY. By E. A. BARNETT and 
 
 H. C. O'NEILL, is. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT and COOKERY. 
 
 Compiled by W. B. TEGETMEIER. is. 
 
 THE SCHOOL COOKERY BOOK. Compiled and 
 
 Arranged by C. E. GUTHRIE WRIGHT, is. 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASS COOKERY BOOK. . 6d. 
 
 PRIMER OF NAVIGATION. By A. T. FLAGG. . 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. 
 
MACMILLAN'S 
 
 anb literature flnmerB. 
 
 Pott 8vo. is. each. 
 
 EDITED BY JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR. By R. MORRIS, LL.D. 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR EXERCISES. By R. 
 
 MORRIS, LL.D., and H. C. BOWEN, M.A. 
 
 EXERCISES ON MORRIS'S PRIMER OF 
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR. By J. WETHERELL, M.A. 
 
 ENGLISH COMPOSITION. By Professor NICHOL. 
 QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES IN ENGLISH 
 
 COMPOSITION. By Prof. J. NICHOL andW.S.M'CORMICK. 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. BySxoPFORD BROOKE. 
 SHAKSPERE. By Professor DOWDEN. 
 CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF LYRICAL 
 
 POETRY. By F. T. PALGRAVE. In Two Parts, each i*. 
 
 GREEK LITERATURE. By Professor JEBB. 
 ROMAN LITERATURE. By Prof. A. S. WILKINS. 
 HOMER. By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 PHILOLOGY. By J. PEILE, M.A. 
 GEOGRAPHY. By Sir GEORGE GROVE, D.C.L. 
 CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY. By H. F. TOZER. 
 GREEK ANTIQUITIES. By J. P. MAHAFFY. 
 ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. By Professor WILKINS. 
 ENGLAND. By ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY. 
 EUROPE. By E. A. FREEMAN, D.C.L., LL.D. 
 GREECE. By C. A. FYFFE, M.A. With Maps. 
 ROME. By Bishop CREIGHTON. With Maps. 
 FRANCE. By C. M. YONGE. With Maps. 
 INDIAN HISTORY, ASIATIC and EUROPEAN. 
 
 By J. TALBOYS WHEELER. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH HISTORY. By Prof. 
 
 T. F. TOUT. 
 
 *** Others to follow. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE. 
 
 A PRIMER OF ART. By Hon. JOHN COLLIER, is. 
 
 PRIMER OF PIANOFORTE PLAYING. By 
 
 FRANKLIN TAYLOR. Edited by Sir G. GROVE. M. 
 
 CUTTING OUT AND DRESSMAKING. From 
 
 the French of Mdlle. E. GRAND'HOMME. is. 
 
 DRESSMAKING. By Mrs. H. GREENFELL. is. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. 20/4/96. 
 
M 
 
 W P- 
 o 2 
 
 B ** 
 
 "I 
 E* 
 
 8 & 
 
 CT* 
 
 I 
 
 PL 
 
 
'/ 1 m