Spons' Household Manual A treasury of domestic receipts and a guide for home management

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  SPONS’

  HOUSEHOLD MANUAL:

  A TREASURY OF

  DOMESTIC RECEIPTS

  And Guide for

  HOME MANAGEMENT.

  [Illustration: (Publisher colophon)]

  London:
  E. & F. N. SPON, 125 STRAND.

  New York:
  SPON & CHAMBERLAIN, 12 CORTLANDT STREET.

  1894




PREFACE.


Time was when the foremost aim and ambition of the English housewife
was to gain a full knowledge of her own duties and of the duties of
her servants. In those days, bread was home-baked, butter home-made,
beer home-brewed, gowns home-sewn, to a far greater extent than now.

With the advance of education, there is much reason to fear that the
essentially domestic part of the training of our daughters is being
more and more neglected. Yet what can be more important for the
comfort and welfare of the household than an appreciation of their
needs and an ability to furnish them. Accomplishments, all very good
in their way, must, to the true housewife, be secondary to all that
concerns the health, the feeding, the clothing, the housing of those
under her care.

And what a range of knowledge this implies,--from sanitary
engineering to patching a garment, from bandaging a wound to
keeping the frost out of water pipes. It may safely be said that
the mistress of a family is called upon to exercise an amount of
skill and learning in her daily routine such as is demanded of few
men, and this too without the benefit of any special education or
preparation; for where is the school or college which includes among
its “subjects” the study of such every-day matters as bad drains, or
the gapes in chickens, or the removal of stains from clothes, or the
bandaging of wounds, or the management of a kitchen range? Indeed,
it is worthy of consideration whether our schools of cookery might
not with very great advantage be supplemented by schools of general
household instruction.

Till this suggestion is carried out, the housewife can only refer
to books and papers for information and advice. The editors of the
present volume have been guided by a determination to make it a _book
of reference_ such as no housewife can afford to be without. Much
of the matter is, of course, not altogether new, but it has been
arranged with great care in a systematic manner, and while the use
of obscure scientific terms has been avoided, the teachings of modern
science have been made the basis of those sections in which science
plays a part.

Much of the information herein contained has appeared before in
lectures, pamphlets, and newspapers, foremost among these last
being the _Queen_, _Field_, _Lancet_, _Scientific American_,
_Pharmaceutical Journal_, _Gardener’s Chronicle_, and the _Bazaar_;
but it has lost nothing by repetition, and has this advantage in
being embodied in a substantial volume that it can always be readily
found when wanted, while every one knows the fate of leaflets and
journals. The sources whence information has been drawn have, it is
believed, in every case been acknowledged, and the editors take this
opportunity of again proclaiming their indebtedness to the very large
number of lecturers and writers whose communications have found a
place within these covers.

  THE EDITORS.




CONTENTS.


  =Hints for selecting a good House=, pointing out the essential
  requirements for a good house as to the Site, Soil, Trees, Aspect,
  Construction, and General Arrangement; with instructions for Reducing
  Echoes, Water-proofing Damp Walls, Curing Damp Cellars          Page 1

  =Water Supply.=--Care of Cisterns; Sources of Supply; Pipes;
  Pumps; Purification and Filtration of Water                         12

  =Sanitation.=--What should constitute a good Sanitary Arrangement;
  Examples (with illustrations) of Well- and Ill-drained Houses; How
  to Test Drains; Ventilating Pipes, &c.                              35

  =Ventilation and Warming.=--Methods of Ventilating without causing
  cold draug