Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1881 — USEFUL HINTS. [ARTICLE]

USEFUL HINTS.

Drive two large nails through two spools, as far apart as your broom handle is thick, and hang your broom on, brush up, to keep it straight. Woodwork strongly impregnated with tungstate of soda or silicate of soda—by treatment in strong aqueous solution of these salts—will be found to be quite uninflammable. A lump of bread about the size of a billiard ball, tied up in a linen bag and placed in the pot in which greens are boiling, will absorb the gases which oftentimes send such an unpleasant odor to the regions above. When water has onoe been made to boil the fire may be very much lessened, as but little heat is required to keep it at a boiling point. There is no advantage whatever in making water boil furiously; the heat will escape in steam, without raising the heat of the water. Do not put carpets in your closets; oil-cloth or matting is much better, and can be easily kept free from dust. Matting, after being swept, should be wiped with a damp cloth. Hot salt and water will thoroughly cleanse it and will not discolor it If one could afford to do it, it would be a healthful plan to lay aside the carpets of sleeping-rooms during the summer, and substitute the cool, fresh mattings. The most economical and easiest way of making coffee is by filtering. The French coffee biggin is valuable for this. It consists of two cylindrical tin vessels, one fitting into the other and the bottom of the upper being a fine strainer. An- , other coarse strainer, with a rod running from the center, is placed upon this. Then the coffee, which is finely ground, is put in and another strainer is placed at the top of the rod. The boiling water is poured on and the pot set where it will keep hot, but not boil, until the water has gone through. This will make a clear, strong coffee, with a rich, smooth flavor. The advantage of the two extra strainers is that the one coming next to the fine strainer prevents the grounds from filling up the fine holes, and so the coffee is clear and more easily made. When milk or cream is added to filtered coffee it does not turn a rich yellow as in the case of that boiled with an egg. Filtered coffee is very nice for an after-dinner drink, and when taken without milk and sugar is said to aid digestion. Fatty oils have a greater surface tension than oil of turpentine, benzole or ether. Hence, if a grease spot on a piece of cloth be moistened on the reverse side with one of these solvents, the tension on the greasy side is larger, and, therefore, the mixture of benzole, or fat or grease will tend to move toward the main grease spot. If we were to moisten the center of this spot with benzole, we should not remove it, but drive the grease upon the clean portion of the cloth. It is, therefore, necessary to distribute the benzole first over a circle surrounding the grease spot, to approach the latter gradually, at the same time having blotting paper in contact with the spot to absorb the fat immediately. Another method—namely, to apply a hot iron one side, while the blotting paper is applied to the other—depends upon the fact that the surface tension of a substance diminishes with a rise of temperature. If, therefore, the temperature at different portions or sides of the cloth is different, the fat acquires a tendency to move from the hotter parts toward the cooler.