The Country Gcntkiuou, 



to clean in time some of the various articles 

 of furniture which comfort and convenience 

 require us to possess. So that to the other 

 evils of uncleanliness we may fairly add that 

 of waste of property. Thus on domestic 

 cleanliness how much depends ! comfort, 

 economy, health, and respectability. 



It must be acknowledged that in this 

 country, the taste for cleanliness, if the term 

 be permitted, has long been cultivated, 

 ilthough there may be room still for improve- 

 nent in it, as its universal prevalence depends 

 upon the cultivation of more qualities than one. 



Yet here we must observe that, indispen- 

 sable as the practice of cleanliness is, like 

 many other good inclinations and habits, it 

 may be carried too far. It may encourage 

 an inconvenient fastidiousness, a nicety that 

 must often be offended, and a consequent 

 tendency to irritation of temper. Such effects 

 would, in some degree, counterbalance the 

 advantages of cleanliness. 



There are families and situations in life 

 in which cleanliness can only be practised in 

 generals, not in details : in such cases the 

 love of it should be kept within the bounds 

 of possibility, or it may become a daily cause 

 of family uneasiness and discord. We delight 

 to see the supremacy of cleanliness, its victory 

 over dirt and smoke ; but it can only yield 

 such pleasure, when known to be the result 

 of a practical, orderly, and regular system, 

 and not of the severe, hard, daily duty which 

 ■vve imagine to be the characteristic of an en- 

 slaved existence. Cleanliness, like every 

 other good quality, must have its prescribed 

 limits. If these be overstepped, it may prove 

 a torment and inconvenience, instead of one 

 of the sources of domestic enjoyment. 



We now proceed to such details respecting 

 the practical part of our subject as may enable 

 the mistress of a family or her housekeeper 

 to form her system of household cleanliness, 

 and to direct its daily course : — 



I. CLEANING FLOORS. 



Floors of a house may be of several kinds — 

 of boards, of brick, and of stone. 



Boarded floors are commonly either of oak 

 or deal. The former, chiefly seen in country 



houses, or in the residences of the opulent, 

 forms an excellent substantial flooring, and is 

 often only partially covered with carpet. 

 Deal floors, on the contrary, are almost uni- 

 formly and entirely carpeted, except in the 

 apartments assigned to children and servants : 

 the mode of cleaning them is consequently 

 of less moment and less laborious than that 

 employed in cleaning floors of oak. 



Scouring — for which the housemaid must 

 be provided with a good-sized wooden pail 

 for water, a wooden bowl for sand, a piece of 

 flannel rather more than half a yard square, 

 and a hard scrubbing brush — consists in 

 scrubbing floors with the brush, some sand, 

 and clean cold water, and afterwards in wash- 

 ing off" the sand with the flannel. Soap is 

 sometimes used with sand ; but, instead of 

 improving, it injures the colour of the boards 

 when dry, giving them a blackish appearance. 



In scouring, the housemaid first dips her 

 brush in the water, then sprinkles it with 

 sand, and scrubs, with force, such portions of 

 the floor as her arms can reach at a time. 

 From these she washes off" the sand with the 

 flannel, drying and completing each portion 

 at once, so that she need not tread over the 

 boards until they are dry. In bedrooms, it 

 is desirable to scour first the boards beneath 

 beds, chests of drawers, or wardrobes, that 

 these parts, being less open to the air than 

 others in the room, may have the more time 

 to dry. When bedrooms and nurseries are 

 scoured in the winter, and when the windows 

 cannot be long open on account of the 

 weather, it is very prudent to have fires in 

 each room to accelerate the evaporation of 

 the moisture on the floors. The damp arising 

 from newly-scoured boards is as likely as any 

 cause whatever to encourage the inflammatory 

 diseases of childhood, or the coughs of indi- 

 viduals subject to them. 



For scouring, when necessary to be done 

 in winter, dry clear weather should be chosen. 

 During very frosty weather it ought rarely to 

 be done, the evaporation not being then rapid 

 enough to carry off" the moisture of the boards; 

 or if it freezes on the boards, which is some- 

 times the case, it then requires two days, 

 instead of one, to dry the room thoroughly. 



