Honschold Clcanincr 



307 



or in any other office in which there is usually 

 a fire. 



Bright iron bars of grates necessarily re- 

 quire a different mode of cleaning from that 

 employed for polished steel ; they are usually 

 stained with the flame, and browned with the 

 moisture or bitumen from the coal. To re- 

 move this, many plans are in use among 

 housemaids ; a good one is to cover the bars 

 with a little sweet oil, which is suffered to 

 remain on while the housemaid cleans away 

 the cinders from the grate, and with her pro- 

 per brush sweeps down all lodgments of soot, 

 as high up the chimney as her brush will per- 

 mit. On this point it may sometimes be 

 necessary to remind her, or the family may 

 be inconvenienced by the falling of the soot, 

 if not by the firing of the chimney upon 

 any high flame or sparks flying upwards 

 and reaching some of these collections of 

 soots. 



This being done, and the grate cleared of 

 ashes and cinders, the oil may be removed, 

 and the bars polished, either by rubbing on 

 them with the leather a little of the smooth 

 white ash formed by the Staffordshire coal, 

 or, where these are not used, by rubbing 

 them either with the Bath brick dust, or with 

 fine emery paper. 



Cast-iron grates and fenders are cleaned 

 with blacklead used in different ways. The 

 housemaid commonly mixes a portion of 

 blacklead with water, of a consistence rather 

 thicker than cream ; this, after having cleared 

 her grate of ashes, she puts on the sides and 

 back of her grate with a small brush, and 

 afterwards, when that is dry, with a hard one 

 she rubs the grate with force and briskness 

 until the polish is brought. Blacklead need 

 not be put on the grates more than once, or 

 perhaps twice a week, but each morning the 

 housemaid should brush her grates with the 

 polishing brush. 



Another mode is to boil a quarter of a 

 pound of best \\oxy blacklead in a pint of 

 small beer, adding to it a bit of soap about 

 the size of a walnut; this mixture is laid 

 on Avith a painter's brush, and afterwards 

 polished with the hard brush, as above 

 directed. 



VIII. CLEANING BRASS-WORK. 



Fenders, if of lacquered brass, or any lac- 

 quered brass ornaments, admit of very little 

 cleaning beyond that of rubbing with a clean 

 leather; when the lacquer is worn off, and 

 they look dull or greenish in appearance, the 

 plates or ornaments may be re-lacquered at a 

 trifling expense. 



Fenders with common brass mouldings may 

 be cleaned, like other brass-work in a house, 

 either with oil and rotten stone rubbed with 

 fine dust of the Bath brick on leather, or 

 polished with polishing paste. 



IX. CLEANING DRAWING-ROOM ORNAMENTS. 



Glass lustres require very careful dusting 

 and rubbing with wash-leather ; when washed, 

 cold soap and water, applied with soft flannel 

 is best. 



Ormolu time-pieces, or other ornamental 

 drawing-room articles, although usually pro- 

 tected from the dust by glass coverings, re- 

 quire occasional dusting, but which should 

 be done with a brush of feathers or silk 

 dusters : the friction of linen, cotton, or any 

 harsh substance would injure them, as would 

 also any moist application. 



Alabaster figures or vases can scarcely be 

 cleaned by ordinary servants, and should be, 

 therefore, generally encased in glass, and 

 covered over, as much as possible, with silver 

 paper bags. 



Looking-glasses and mirrors may be washed 

 with a moist sponge dipped in spirits of wine, 

 no more of the glass being wetted at once 

 than what may be immediately wiped off, as 

 damp, in altering the temperature of the glass, 

 unsettles the backing of the tin coating, which 

 gives it its power of reflecting objects. While 

 wet, the glass should be dusted with powdered 

 blue, or whiting tied up in a muslin bag, and 

 then rubbed off with a soft linen duster or silk 

 handkerchief. 



The gilding of pictures and mirror frames, 

 when it is what is termed oil gilding, may be 

 cleaned by washing it gently with soap and 

 water ; but if of burnished gilding, which is 

 most usual, it should never have any moisture 

 api:)lied to it. A brush of cotton wool or of 



