The domestic world : a practical guide in all the daily difficulties of the higher branches of domestic and social economy / by the author of "Enquire within".

  • Philp, Robert Kemp, 1819-1882.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The domestic world : a practical guide in all the daily difficulties of the higher branches of domestic and social economy / by the author of "Enquire within". Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    give a charm and zest to home, which no other place can possess. Whatever acoim- plishments were cultivated in earlier years should not be neglected when the sterner duties of domestic life afford opportunity. Accounts.—Where credits are taken from tradespeople (which are best avoided where possible) great care will be necessary in keeping and checking the accounts. If there is any looseness or neglect in this matter it will soon be discovered, and the temptation to dis- honesty be taken advantage of. Domestic accounts should be strictly examined and settled weekly, because the housekeeper’s memory may then be of use in assisting to recollect all the articles which are charged, or to rectify any mistakes that may have occurred. It is a good plan, and serves as a check both on trades- people and servants, to have books kept in the kitchen, in which every article is entered that is brought into the house. Each tradesman should enter in the book appropriated to him the quantity of the commodity, with its price, which has just been delivered; and his bill, if cor- rect, should tally with his book. After these weekly settlings the amount should be entered in the housekeeping-book; and at the end of every month, this book should, in its turn, be added up, and the sum total entered into the cash-book. Thus your housekeeping-book shows you your current expenses for each week, and the cash-book the amount of the whole monthly, besides including every other expense that occurs to you. The cash- book should be balanced every three months; by which you cannot fail to discover whether you are keeping within bounds or exceeding the income upon which you propose to live. Every house- keeper should keep a strict account of all her expenditure, should see that each bill be receipted when paid, and file all receipts, and keep them for a year at least. The mistress should examine each bill herself, as thus she will detect, and can check, any inaccuracy on the part of the tradesmen, or extravagance on the part of her servants. Books for these purposes are kept by every sta- tioner, and may be purchased for a few pence. (See Marketing.) Adulterations. — “Adultera- tion,” says Dr. Arthur Hill Hassall, the eminent analyst, “ I find to prevail in .nearly all articles that it will pay to adulterate.” The doctor then enumerates the following articles, giving the ingre- dients that they are mixed or adulterated with :— Annatto is adulterated with chalk, wheat flour, rye flour, salt, and soap for bulk and weight; for colour, it is adul- terated with turmeric, a ferruginous earth, and, probably, with Venetian red and red lead. Arrowroot, with sago, potato, and tapioca starches. Anchovies are mixed with Dutch, French, and Sicilian fish, and sometimes these fish are passed off as the anchovy itself; bole Armenian and Venetian red are also added to colour the liquid which surrounds the fish. Bread, with mashed potatoes, alum, “ hards,” and sometimes with sulphate of copper. Butter, with water. Bottled fruits and vegetables, with cer- tain salts of copper, usually the sulphate or acetate. Coloured confectionery, with East India arrowroot, wheat and potato flours, hydrated sulphate of lime ; and coloured with cochineal, lake, indigo, Prussian blue, Antwerp blue, artificial ultramarine, carbonate of copper, or verditer, carbonate of lead, or white lead, red lead, vermilion, the chrome yellows, or chromates of lead, lemon, orange, deep gamboge, and various combinations of those pigments, and also bronze powders. Coffee, with chicory, roasted wheat, rye and potato flours, roasted beans, mangel-wurzel, and a substance re- sembling acorns. Chicory, with roasted wheat and rye flours, burnt beans, sawdust, carrots, mangel-wurzel; and coloured with ferru- ginous earths, as Venetian red and umber, and burnt sugar, sometimes de- nominated “ black jack.” Cocoa and chocolate, with Maranta East India, and Tacca or Tahiti roots, tous-le-mois, the flours of wheat, Indian- corn, sago, potato, and tapioca, and various mixtures of these, sugar anc