A new system of practical domestic economy.

Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new system of practical domestic economy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    393/508 (page 377)
    INSTRUCTION. to working for the poor, but also to teaching them to work for themselves; as many females who have been brought up in factories, and manufactories of different kinds, from their infancy, are very defi- cient in the arts of sewing, cutting out, contriving and mending: insomuch that when they marry (which they usually do very young,) they are soon at a loss how to clothe their families, and let their children flaunt it in the cast-off garments which may be bestowed upon them, without any proper alterations; so that they look among their little companions, like the daw in borrowed plumes. A school opened for young women once or twice a week, to teach them their domestic duties, would produce the happiest effects under the superinten- dence of some benevolent lady, who might add to her instructions a few plain directions as to the mak- ing of broth, and preparing their humble fare in the most frugal, and yet the most palatable and nourishing manner. Mrs. Melroe’s Economical Cookery will be found a great help to a design of this kind, and a most useful present to the cotta- ger’s wife at a very trifling expense, as the work it- self consists of merely a few pages, and contains no account of dishes beyond the power of the indus- trious labouring man to procure. To these instances of judicious general philanthro- py, we shall add but two of individual benevolence, though we have numerous specimens before us. The Earl of Dartmouth, whose example ought to be held up to the imitation of the opulent, re- cently spent the winter at his seat, personally visit- ing and relieving his poor neighbours. His chari- ties during that time were very extensive : his dra- per's bill for bed-clothes alone amounted to 5001 A hundred quarts of soup were also daily distribut-