Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1889 — A Plea for Rugs. [ARTICLE]

A Plea for Rugs.

Buga arc free from many of the moat aerioua objections to carpets, even when they are fixed upon the floor, which in our estimation they never ought to be. It ia possible to wash well all around them, to remove the dust from the corners of the room, and even under the edges of the rug itself. But such a condition of affairs is still far from satisfactory. There is always more or less dirt about a stationary carpet in any room that is much lived in, and the housemaids in the world cannot rid an immovable rug of dust as readily on the floor as they could off it. Carpets ought, as a matter of health, to be taken up once a week, laid over a line, and thoroughly beaten, but where is the household where this rule is enforced ? The growing conviction of the superiority of rugs to carpets is shown in the newest houses, in many of which the floors are expressly arranged with stained borders, a parquet flooring, which it is possible to leave entirely uncovered. What a boon this is to persons of small means ? Nothing eats into a small sum of money for house-furnishing more disastrously than a carpet. It is useless to buy a cheap one; cheap carpets are never of any use, and the price of a good one is a formidable consideration. This is another argument in favor of rugs—cheap rugs wear a great deal better than cheap carpets, for the obvious reason that they are not pulled and stretched in every direction, and only subjected to legitimate wear and tear.