288 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July 
For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
Aii “Annex” to a Coffee Mill. 
--O-- 
H. P., Denver, Decatur Co., Tenn., is proud 
of his wife’s kitchen, which he considers a 
“model kitchen.” We should share in his 
pride, for he adds, 
‘ ‘ Almost every con¬ 
venience in it was 
learned from the 
American Agricul¬ 
turist.''’ He, how¬ 
ever, has one con¬ 
trivance that he did 
not get from our 
pages, which he con¬ 
tributes to them. It 
is a box to stand on 
an ordinary coffee 
mill to hold the 
coffee, and to meas¬ 
ure the quantity re¬ 
quired to be ground 
for each meal. The 
mill, with the box 
attached, is shown 
in figure 1; the 
box is of 3 /finch stuff, has a cover at the top, 
and is of the proper size to fit the mill. Near 
the bottom of the box is the slide, of tin or 
sheet iron, shown in figure 2. When the box 
is filled with coffee, a single movement of 
the slide will let the required quantity down 
Fig. 2. —the “shut off,” ok slide. 
into the mill. The distance between the two 
arms of the slide is ascertained by placing 
the proper quantity of coffee in the box, and 
marking the bight at which it stands, and 
making the slot for the slide to work in at that 
place. The rest is shown by the engraving. 
A Hammock for the Baby. 
There is no reason why a small child should 
not enjoy the comfort which a hammock 
gives to older persons during the hot weather 
of mid-summer. So thought Mrs. “M.,” Car- 
roll Co., Md., when she made a bag hammock 
in the following manner : For the ends two 
pieces of inch pine boards, about 18 inches 
long and 8 inches wide, were rounded upon 
one edge, as shown in the engraving. The 
two side pieces, 3 feet long, were made of 
inch material, and their ends fastened to the 
upper corners of the end pieces. Strong 
cloth—sacking, canvas, etc.,—was tacked se¬ 
curely around the frame, and a rope fastened 
to holes in the end pieces, by means of which 
the hammock was hung up ready for use. 
Maggots aia«l Iflotli*.— Maggots in 
hams, and moths in clothing, can only occur 
when the parent insects can deposit their eggs 
in them. Actual exclusion will preserve 
either from their attacks. Wrapping the 
hams in paper, putting in a barrel or box, 
and covering with wood ashes, will keep out 
the Bacon Beetle. So with woolens and furs. 
Whatever package is so tight, as to effectual¬ 
ly exclude the moth, which, by the way, can 
pass through a very small crevice, will pre¬ 
serve the contents. A tight box, with paper 
pasted over every joint and crack, will ans¬ 
wer. A whiskey-barrel is sometimes used— 
there is no special value in the whiskey, but 
such a barrel is quite sure to be tight. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
The Children’s Feet. 
Is the Chinese system of treating feminine 
feet likely to come into practice in America ? 
Last week a seven-year-old neighbor of mine 
stayed at home from school a few days be¬ 
cause her corns, the result of tight shoes, 
hurt her so she could hardly walk. Another 
little neighbor suffers so from her tight shoes 
that she can hardly limp to and from school, 
and suffers continually as she sits in -the 
school-room. Another one still (all three less 
than ten years old), offered me a cure for bun¬ 
ions the other day (lemon juice, if I remem¬ 
ber rightly), saying that she had bunions be¬ 
cause “the last pair of shoes before these” 
were too tight, and always hurt her feet. 
The snuggest possible fit seems to be the rule 
by which parents now go in getting little 
girls shoes, and the children seem to take it 
as a matter of course that they should suf¬ 
fer in “ breaking-in ” a new pair of shoes— 
very needless suffering, if the shoes are not 
really too tight, or the feet injured by previ¬ 
ous tight shoes. One of the little girls, men¬ 
tioned above, said that the shoe-dealer told 
her father not to take off the shoes if they did 
hurt her at first; the shoes would stretch af¬ 
ter a while. One day she was walking home 
from school as slowly as possible, under an 
umbrella, in the rain, hoping that the wet 
grass would cause her shoes to stretch so as 
to be comfortable. Is it not a most barbarous 
idea to use a child’s soft, growing feet, as lasts 
upon which to stretch leather ? 
Pathology is taught in our public schools 
now, and this is one of the lessons my boy 
heard,—that “going barefoot in childhood 
causes the feet to grow of an unnatural 
shape ! ” The other day I came across this 
testimony from a person who had spent many 
years in the Indian Territory : “ I have never 
seen a boot or shoe on one of these Indians. 
Instead of having large, ill-shapen feet in 
consequence of leaving them free and easy, 
their feet are models, being small, straight, 
and slim, and, of course, innocent of corns 
and bunions. ” It is not very long since it was 
supposed that Nature could not be trusted to 
develope a female waist properly. Indeed we 
have not yet emerged from those dark ages. 
Last night a little girl, 13 or 14 years of age, 
was playing by our gate, who already wears 
corsets. Once they were put upon girls much 
younger, in the hope that the waist would re¬ 
main so small, as the child grew tall, that it 
would never “have to be” reduced in size 
by tight lacing after she grew up. And the 
people who committed these outrages upon 
their poor children did not consider them¬ 
selves heathens, as one might suppose. Did 
you never think wdiat insults human beings 
offer to the Creator when they injure or alter 
the human form with the idea that they can 
improve upon its beauty as God planned it ? 
None but the Chinese themselves admire 
the deformed feet of Chinese “ladies.” To 
them the horrible stumps upon which their 
women hobble about seem decided improve¬ 
ments upon Nature. The feet are bandaged 
when the girls are very young, and at first 
the victims, suffer very greatly, but after a 
long continuance of the outrage, the sense 
becomes deadened, and the suffering gradu¬ 
ally ceases as Nature gives up the struggle. 
Feminine Vanity .—I am quite unwilling 
that all these “reforms against Nature,” or 
processes of deforming the female body 
should be attributed solely to the vanity of 
women. The fathers fit the shoes to their 
little girls, as far as my observation goes, and 
male journalists publish as one of the most 
important bits of news about a woman who 
attracts the public gaze, for her beauty and 
fine dress, the wonderful smallness of her 
foot, and the number of shoe she wears. 
“Number two” was the size of shoe worn 
by the full-grown wife of a prominent man 
in Washington a few years ago—a woman 
wdio dressed magnificently, and whose 
“beauty” was much talked about. I per¬ 
ceive that we shall have quite a crop of 
“ number two ” women within the next dozen 
years or so. The injury done to the feet of 
these girls is very small compared with the 
injury done to their minds. The heart and 
intellect are dwarfed along with the feet or 
waist thus sacrificed on the altar of vanity. 
What kind of religion is the child thus taught? 
How will she reverence God, and wdiat obe¬ 
dience will her life render to His laws ? 
In the best daily paper in our vicinity, a 
newspaper excellent in some respects, we are 
treated in every Sunday Supplement to a few 
columns of “What women want to know.” 
I never see that heading there, without shame 
and a sense of insult. The tendency of most 
that finds its way there is to cultivate the sil¬ 
liest feminine vanity. Regular fashion books 
are much less harmful. I always look it over 
carefully, because I am anxious to know wdiat 
young women are being brought up on, and 
what men are thus told that women “ want 
to know.” Besides, all that it contains is not 
objectionable. There we have, in man’s own 
paper, reports of parties and society doings, 
in which accounts of the toilets of the ladies 
present are the chief items of information 
given, and these are spoken of as though it 
is a most commendable thing in the ladies to 
“vie wdth each other ” in richness and beauty 
of toilet, and as though this is the principal 
function of woman in “society.” These 
things seem to be written chiefly by men, 
and the fine toilets are sought and worn as 
much to please men as for any other reason 
—to gratify the vanity of husbands and to 
attract admirers and lovers. If men really 
disapprove of extravagant and senseless fem¬ 
inine toilets, they can easily frown them down. 
Trouble with Irouiiig. 
A correspondent complains that she cannot 
make her white starched clothes, particular¬ 
ly the shirt bosoms and collars, look bright 
and clear and glossy. She is sure she washes 
them clean, and hangs them to dry turned 
wrong side out, but when they are ironed, 
they have a dingy look. Perhaps she does 
not keep her irons clean. This fault is not 
uncommon. It is well to wash the irons all 
over carefully once in a while, before they 
