Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1875 — HOUSEHOLD HINTS. [ARTICLE]

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Equal parts of sand and plaster-Paris moistened with water makes an excellent mortar to stop cracks and holes in walls or ceilings. It hardens rapidly. To make com meal griddle-cakes, scald half a pint of Indian meal, half a pint of the same dry, flour, and stir all into a pint of milk, with a tablespoonful of butter ind one egg. Spread very thin on the griddle. To clean the insides of jars, fill them with water, stir in a spoonful or more of pearl-ash; empty them in an hour, and if not clean fill them again, and let them stand several hours. For large-sized jars lye is excellent. c Flour kept in barrels for a long time often acquires a peculiar odor, supposed to be derived from the barrel. This smell actually indicates an incipient decomposition prejudicial to bread-making, owing to the gluten having become partially soluble. It is therefore much preferable to keep flour in sacks, unless for short periods. , . Potatoes are adapted to be eaten with lean meat—the starchy potatoes furnishing the fattening and heating elements which lean meat lacks, while the lean meat supplies the bone and muscle-mak-ing elements not afforded by potato or fine flour bread. Fat meat affords beating and fattening elements, like potato, but in a form less easily digested by most persons. To keep the hair from falling out, wash the head every week in salt water and rub the skin of the head with a dry coarse towel. Then apply a dressing composed of bay rum and sweet oil, with which a few drops of tincture of cantharides have been mingled. This will stimulate the skin and keep the hair from falling out and turning gray. The dressing for the hair may be scented wita cinnamon oil or some such warming essence.— N. T. Tribune.

For scent-cases it will be necessary to buy an ounce of sachet powder (heliotrope, mille fleur, violet or Florentine orris-root). Cut out two layers of thin cotton wadding three inches square, sprinkle the powder between them and tack the edges together. Make a little bag of blue or crimson silk of the same size, run it round the edges, leaving one end open; tack the scented wadding smoothly in and sew the open end over and over. Trim around the case with a narrow-plaited ribbon and catch it through in four or five places with tiny ribbbn bows of the same color. —St. Nicholas for December. Children almost invariably dislike porridge, which is the more to be regretted as there is no kind of food that will more surely build up a strong and healthy frame. That it is an unreasonable prejudice is often shown by the fact that the child who apparently loathes his basin of porridge will, when grown up to man’s estate, esteem it the greyest luxury. Some parents apply the rod in such cases, bnt it is a pity when children’s food has to he whipped into them. Rather let the best of all sauces, hunger, give them a relish for what would otherwise be distasteful ; and occasionally, by way of va. riety, substitute stale bread scantily buttered, with weak, half-cold tea insufficiently sweetened, and if that does not bring the little rebel to appreciate his porridge try something even more uninviting still.— N. E. Farmer.

Three men in Portland, Me., tried a little experiment in the William Tell line, the other day, which didn’t work very well. The affair occurred in a cellar, and the order of exercises was for one to hold a cat by the tail, another to hold a light, and the third one to shoot the cat with a revolver. The revolver was discharged, .but the cat escaped unharmed, while the young man who held her was shot in the hand, and the one who held the light was hit in the arm by the same bullet. » t » The doctors do not always guess right. For example, in the case of James B. Hulse, the President of the Middletown (N. Y.) National Bank, who was badly injured in a runaway accident in August last, they pronounced his recovery impossible. Now, after lying in an insensible condition for nearly three months, he is rapidly recovering and expects soon to be about his business again.