1874.] 01 



advertised for getting rid of cockroaches — the efficacy of one of which, however, is 

 i-endered doubtful by tlie announcement of its powers being headed by a fancy 

 portrait of a stag-beetle as one of the noxious creatures — it may be of service to 

 make known the following personal experience with a method that is not " Registered," 

 nor " Patented," nor " Brevete' s.g.d.g." 



Several years since I read an extract from the Boston " Journal of C'liemistry " 

 that cockroaches had an intense aversion to borax, and any place they frequented 

 woidd be cleared of them if tlie powder were placed in their haunts. Circum- 

 stances favoured an experiment, and in tlie course of two or three weeks I found 

 that the prescription, used daily, had rendered my kitchen free from the hordes of 

 these hexapod banditti that had long made their nocturnal raids there, their carcases 

 every morning showing the havoc that had been made in their ranks. It has been 



said that 



" We murder to dissect," 



but I did not make any post-mortem examination of the "Subjects" to ascertain 

 how the borax had effected them ; — I was satisfied they were dead. I may avoid the 

 felonious imputation altogether by saying, as indeed has been said already, that in 

 such a case " Killing is no murder." 



Eecently, I saw an extract from the American "Cultivator" to the following 

 effect : — 



"No insect which crawls can live under the application of hot alum-water. It 

 will destroy red and black ants, cockroaches, spiders, bugs, and all the other crawling 

 pests which infest our houses. Take two pounds of alum and put it in three or four 

 quarts of boiling water ; let it stand on the fire until the alum is melted, then apply 

 it, while nearly boiling hot, with a brush to every joint and crevice in your closets, 

 bedsteads, pantry-shelves, and the like. Cochroachcs will flee the paint which has 

 been washed in cool alum-water. Powdered alum will keep bugs at a respectable 

 distance, and travellers should always carry a bundle of it in their hand-bags to 

 scatter over and under their pillows in hotels, &c. While staying at an hotel once, 

 with a party, most of whom complained sadly of the nightly attacks of these dis- 

 gusting insects, I was able to keep them entirely at bay by its use, and I distributed 

 the contents of my bundle among the party, to their great relief." 



It should be pleasing to housekeepers, as well as to travellers, to know of the 

 above cheap remedy for the house pests mentioned. But is it I'cal ? Possibly some 

 liousekcepers may favour the world with the result of their experiments with the 

 alum-cure in the matter of " cockroaches, ants, spiders, and all other crawling pests " 

 — except bugs. These latter are things that no one will confess to having in his 

 dwelling; — hotel and lodging-house keepers are virtuously iaidignant at the bare 

 suspicion of such creatures, and will declare that the vennin, if found on their 

 premises, must have been brought by tlie lodgers themselves. Once, indeed, I am 

 told by a friend, that at an hotel in Paris, the cliamhri^re, on being shown a full- 

 grown Acanthia on the bed in tlio month of April, merely said, with gi'cat naivete, 

 " I never saw one so early;" but this was an exceptional admission. Yet some 

 traveller, I hope, who has hitherto found, in more senses than one, 



" Ilib wannest welcome at an inn," 

 will have no couipunelion in telling us if he has tried llic effect of ahim-po\Ml<'r 



