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.

    52/508 (page 36)
    RESIDENCES. hangings: and it must not be forgotten that old furniture paper may he very readily cleansed by the application of stale bread, taking care to rub the paper down in one direction:—a half quar- tern loaf should be cut into about four pieces, and the soft side of the bread applied. We have seen a recipe in an American paper, to make a very beautiful paint for the walls of staircases and lobbies, the cost of which is less than one-fourth of that of oil colour, and the beauty far superior: — Take four pounds of Homan vitriol, and pour on it a tea-kettle full of boiling water; when dis- solved, add two pounds of pearl-ash, and stir the mixture well with a stick until the effervescence ceases, then add a quarter of a pound of pulveriz- ed yellow arsenic, and stir the whole together. Let it be laid on with a pamt or white-wash brush, and if the wall has not been painted before, two or even three coats will be requisite. To paint a common-sized room with this colour will not cost more than twenty shillings. By increasing or di- minishing the quantity of arsenic, various tints of pea-green, and of apple-green, may be pro- duced. An important point in domestic cleanliness is to guard against the filth produced bv chimnies which are often not thoroughly divested of the soot which lodges near the fire-place, even when the chimney itself is not absolutely foul, especially in the country, where the attendance of a chimney- sweeper cannot always be commanded : an ingeni- ous gentleman has recently offered a plan for that purpose, to which he has also called the attention of the Society for abolishing the practice of sweep- ing chimnies by means of climbing-boys. He pro-