NKJCBE’S BUBAL NEW-YORKER. 
443 
J 
TJ 
3 
gomcfitic C^conomir. 
AUNT LOU ON EAG CABPETS. 
I HATE ruarle rag carpets several times, 
twice a hundred yards at once, and several 
times a smaller quantity. I And, where we 
have a family sufficient to furnish rags for 
carpets, there is decided economy in making 
rag carpets; but it is much better to buy 
your carpet at once than to buy the “rags ” 
to make one. The cheapest and most service¬ 
able carpet is made with the ground what is 
called “ hit-and-miss that is, all rags, cot¬ 
ton, woolen, light or dark, long or short, 
sewed indiscriminately together. Striping 
with red, white and black, which gives it a 
very bright appearance. The chain to bo 
used without coloring; thus, no coloring is 
necessary unless for the stripes, and a light 
carpet not only wears much, better, but is 
much more easily kept clean than a dark 
one. I have never had a carpet, made in this 
way, cost me more than thirty-three cents 
per yard. 
Again, when my imported carpets wear 
out 1 cut them in lengths that can be easily 
handled, give them a good washing, then cut 
into “carpet rage,” cutting across the carpet 
from selvedge to selvedge edge, overcast the 
t pieces together, get heaviest chain, send to 
the weaver, and, in addition to the plentiful 
dish of grumbling which she is sure to servo 
up to you, you will have a rag carpet that 
will last you a lifetime, and serve to thatch 
your grandchildrens’ cottages afterward. I 
have a carpet of this kind made fifteen years 
ago. It has been in constant use on a bed¬ 
room occupied l>y men in my husband’s em¬ 
ploy, and there is not a weak spot In it now. 
When such carpets are not wanted as carpets 
they may he used to advantage as rugs "before 
the lire or at the doors ; being heavy, they 
are not easily tom up by tripping feet; being 
very thick they absorb all watter, keeping 
the dampness from the other carpet; being 
so thick that the chain is completely imbed¬ 
ded in the wool, they are also fire-proof ; and, 
after all, they are not its you arc all ready to 
exclaim, at all “ugly.” Aunt Lou. 
-- 
IN EEGAED TO SERVANTS. 
One of the best proofs of the truthfulness 
of the Darwinian theory, if there is auy 
truthfulness about it, is that monkeys, human 
beings in general and servant girls in partic¬ 
ular, are the greatest of imitators. When 
ladies of the “upper ten” wore extensive 
skirts, looking like inflated balloon* and flow¬ 
er gardens pointing skyward adorned their 
hearts, eveiy kitchen maid in the land, white 
anti black, native and foreign, crowded cars 
and omnibuses with their immensity and 
overtopped public gatherings with their ele¬ 
vated head-gear. No sooner were their ski rts 
contracted and huge wisps of hemp heaped 
upon their heads, than all servant, girls be¬ 
came walking bean-poles and advertisements 
for hair dressers and jute dealers. No sooner 
was the pannier adopted by the fashionables 
than “hired help” became self-made drome¬ 
daries—herein is double proof for Darwin. 
Maids of all work will squeeze themselves 
fnto corsets, draggle long dresses and white 
underskirts, tucked and ruffled, about the 
wash-room because, forsooth, “my lady” in 
tho parlor wears corsets and dragging skirts ; 
they will sweat beneath a load of hairy imi¬ 
tations and useless flummery because she has 
nothing to do but to sit on a cushioned seat 
beneath her fashionable burdens or to carry 
them listlessly about. 
In their ideas of life, of their calling, its 
duties and responsibilities, they are no less 
imitators ; if the mistress of the house turn 
up her nose at useful labor, and especially at 
domestic toil; if her greatest ambition be to 
avoid it, to keep her head and heart (and 
most especially her hands) free from it; if 
she make ease, dress, fashion, show aud de¬ 
ceit the grand purpose of her life, her hired 
servants will learn to look upon their work 
as low and menial, will become careless and 
negligent, lazy and indifferent; will deceive 
and iinposo upon their employers; will be 
filled with high notions, put on airs, and con¬ 
duct. themselves in such a manner as, in their 
opinion, will give people to understand that 
“ They are as good as anybody,” and to en¬ 
deavor to bring them into subjection, to keep 
them in harness and render their services 
valuable by ennobling them, by a show of 
superiority or by the exercise of authority, 
will only add to instead of lessening the diffi¬ 
culty. So noted have domestic servants be¬ 
come for their unprofitableness, that careful, 
prudent, overworked housewives will drudge 
their very lives out. before they will be. “both- 
> ered with a hired girl.” 
And hero is an opposite extreme ; they are 
so anxious in regard to their reputation as 
housekeepers in mere trifles and matters of 
minor importance, that no one but them 
selves must care for nor have tho handling of 
their household gods, that they will have no 
confidence in hired help nor trust them with 
the performance of the most menial duties, 
however efficient anti trustworthy they may 
be, but class thorn all together an unendur¬ 
able “jiuisaneos,” and by malting their work 
their master, by the exhaustion of physical 
and mental faculties, mukiug it degrading, 
they are enhancing tho very wrong which 
they would remedy. 
“Tho fault is not In your ‘ help,’ 
Hut In yourselves, dear Indies, 
That you are underlings.” 
Thoio who are in the lower walks of life 
will ever strive to imitate those who are 
higher up ; and you who have wealth and 
social position, education and cultivated 
tastes, cannot expect such as have none of 
those to perform their life-duties better than 
you perform yours ; nor to make their work 
grander and nobler than you make yours. 
Only when fashionable women shall cease 
to be idle nonentities ; when they shall seek 
a remedy for their own uselessness and inef¬ 
ficiency ; when working women shall couse 
to become mere drudges aud beasts of bur¬ 
den ; when both shall so use 1 heir privileges 
and advantages, thoir minds and intellects, 
as to make all honest, useful employment 
elevating and ennobling ; when they shall 
put their own hands to tho (flow and them¬ 
selves conceive a right idea of and promote a 
right feeling in regard to the great import¬ 
ance of domestic labor ; shall know that to 
be well skilled in, and to have an understand¬ 
ing of the proper management of homo du¬ 
ties, is conducive to tame womanhood instead 
of being derogatory thereto, then shall they 
be blessed with well trained, efficient and 
conscientious servants, and never until then, 
(< KHALDIN IS Cl CKJIANC. 
-♦♦♦- 
SELECTED EECIPE8. 
How lo Make Tomato Fige —Pour boiling 
water over the tomatoes in order to remove 
the skins ; then weigh them aud place them 
in a stone jar, with as much sugar as you 
have tomatoes, and let thorn stand two days ; 
then pour off the syrup and boil aud skim it 
until no scum rises. Then pour as before, 
then boil and skim again. After a third lime 
they am fit to dry, if the weather Is good ; 
if not, let them stand in the syimyi until dry¬ 
ing weather. Then place on large, earthen 
plates or dishes, and put them in the sun to 
dry, which will take about a week, after 
which. pack them down in small wooden 
boxes, with line, wliitc' sugar between each 
layer. Tomatoes prepared in this manner 
will keep for years. 
Home-Made I Jeer. Boil in two quarts of 
water a handful of hops, und live ounces of 
sassafras root; add six quarts of hot water, 
a coffee cupful of molasses, six tablespoonl'ids 
of ginger, two teaspoon fills of winter green, 
and one of essence of spruce. When luke¬ 
warm, add a pint of good yeast, and let the 
whole stay m a warm place twenty-four 
hours ; then bottle and cork tightly, and let 
it stand in a cool place for another day be¬ 
fore using. When the roots and leaves can 
be obtained, it will be better, of course, to 
use these than the essence. 
Tomatopft .—The following method of pre¬ 
paring tomatoes for the table, we are assured, 
by one who has made the experiment, is su¬ 
perior to anything yet discovered for the 
preparation of that excellent, vegetable. 
Take good, ripe tomatoes, out them in shoes 
and sprinkle over them finely pulverized 
white sugar ; then add claret wine, sufficient 
to cover them. 
(Huger Beer.—One cup of ginger, one pint 
of molasses, one pail and a-httlf of water, and 
a cup of lively yeast. Iu warm weather 
scald the ginger with two quarts of hot wa¬ 
ter, add the rest cold. The yeast pub in 
when slightly warm. It should bo put in 
jars or bottles, and securely corked. It is 
pleasant and lively, and will keep several 
weeks. 
French Mustard. —Slice up an onion in a 
bowl; cover with good viuegar; leave two 
or three days ; pour off the vinegar into a 
basin ; put into it one teaspoonful pepper, 
one of salt, one. tablespoonful brown sugar, 
and mustard enough to thicken ; smooth the 
mustard for vinegar as you would flour for 
gravy ; mix it a) 1 together ; set’on the stove 
und stir until it boils, when remove and use 
It cold. 
Hop Yeast.— One and ono-half pounds of 
grated raw potato, one quart of boiling wa¬ 
ter, in which a handful of hops have been 
boiled, one teacup of white sugar (coffee 
sugar,) one-half teacup of salt; when almost 
colil put a little good yeast to start it, say 
about half a pint. One pint of tliis yeast 
makes four good-sized loaves of the most 
delightful bread you ever ate. 
Keeping Honey.—A wholesale honey deal¬ 
er says honey will not candy if a teaspoonful 
of cream tartar dissolved iu water be mixed 
with a gallon of honey when scalding hot. 
Care must be taken not to scorch the honey. 
Domestic Inquiries. — D. M. C. asks for di¬ 
rections for making hair switches. 
Consumption, we conceive to be, in its first 
stage, a local disease confined to the lungs ; 
but as it progresses, its effects become more 
general. It is simply an ulcer lu the lungs, 
and may arise from two different conditions 
of these organs, 4 cither inflammation, or 
what are termed tubercles, which are small 
tumorshaving the appearance of hardened 
glands, of different sizes, and often existing 
in clusters. Their firmness is usually iy pro¬ 
portion to thoir size, internally of a white 
color, and in consistence approaching a carti¬ 
lage. Consumptions arising from tubercles 
are more difficult of cure than those arising 
from ordinary inflammation of the lungs, 
A radical cure of consumption has so long 
been considered impossible, that we arc fear 
ful of hazarding the imputation of enthusi¬ 
asts or of dealers iu the marvelous should we 
assort anything to the contrary. But we are 
constrained to declare our belief that it is 
not on lmtrable disease; neither do we. 
believe that He who lias given us a remedy 
for all. other diseases has failed to give us 
medicine with which to cure consumption, 
After our physician has failed and we have 
tried those medicines that are advertised to 
cure consumption without relief, there is 
still hope if the digestive orgausare not badly 
injured by caustic or poisonous medicine, if 
wo can have faith enough to use these reme¬ 
dies that arc called simple, which nature has- 
given us to euro consumption 
We here give some useful remedies to cure 
consumption. Take half a teaspoonful of 
pulverized “crawley,” one-hall' as much of 
violet roots, and ono-half as much of lobelia ; 
put the whole into half pint of boiling water ; 
let it steep fifteen minutes ; stir it with a 
spoon while steeping ; take a tablespoonful 
once atl hour, take one-half of a teuspoonful 
of violet roots and add to it one-tenth as 
much blood root; take of this three times a 
day.- 
After the cough and inflammation, or hoc- 
tie fever are well abated, take five, drops of 
balsam of fir once a day ; aud take one-fonrth 
of a. teaspoonful bitter root and add the same 
amount of cinnamon bark ; take a half tea- 
spoonful three times a day, one hour before 
eating. 
These remedies are from a friend, not a 
selfish speculator. I have known “ crawley” 
over forty years ns a medical root and have 
seen it used in many obstinate fevers, and I 
have no recollection of a single instance, that 
it lias not caused a moisture on the surface 
in less than forty-four hours. —T>. 8. Roblyer. 
We give our correspondent's letter for 
what it is worth ; but we do not know what 
plant he means by “crawley,” We have 
quoted it, because it is unknown to us. 
-- 
HINTS FOE YOUNG MOTHEES. 
The three requisites for babies are plenty 
of sleep, pleuty of food, plenty of flannel. 
Tho saying that mac is a bundle of habits is 
as true of babies, as it is of grown children. 
If an infant is accustomed from its birtb t.o 
sleep from six o’clock at night until daylight, 
the habit of early sleep will be formed, and 
the mother may have all her evenings to her¬ 
self. If the baby sleeps all night, a long 
morning nap will naturally come about din¬ 
ner time, after which the child, except when 
very young, should be kept awake until six 
o’clock. Perseverance in this routine will 
soon result in securing quiet evening® for 
both tho child and parent. Some mothers 
have a long season every morning and every 
night in getting the baby asleep. They rock 
them and sing to them till Morpheus enfolds 
them. With most children this is entirely 
unnecessary. An infant can be accustomed, 
hy a few day's training, to go to sleep itself 
for a morning nap as well as for the longer 
rest at night.— Exchange. 
-♦-♦--*- 
HYGIENIC NOTES. 
Chronic Diarrhea .—I find in the Rural 
New-Yorker, of April 26, several prescrip¬ 
tions for Chronic Diarrhea ; also in May 17. 
They are different from any I have ever 
used. Had I been a reader of your valuable 
paper years ago, perhaps I should have re¬ 
ceived help thereby. I wish to express many 
thanks to you and those kind friends who 
answered my inquiry. It is a comfort and a 
help many times in our affliction to have the 
sympathy of others. H. V,, Corry, Fa., 
gives one which I have tested ; found it good 
so far. Should it fail, I will try others. I 
use good beef steak and toast with it. E. 
Fitz Simons sends a prescription, also a dia¬ 
gram with it ; I thank her very much. I 
think she was very kind in trying to send 
help to my little girl.—M rs E, K., Cuba, 
N. Y, 
Harmless Hair Restorative. —Tho Drug¬ 
gists Circular remarks:—“Tho basis of all 
the best; lotions for restoring hair is eanthnr- 
ides or ammonia. A solution of borax in 
camphor water is useful. It cleanses tho 
roots of tho hair, and acts very Hlightly as a 
stimulant; and thereby it will servo to pro¬ 
mote t he growth of the hair. But one of the 
boat stimulants wo know of that has not 
hitherto boon published, is this :—Vinegar of 
cantharides, 1 fluid ounce ; Glycerine, 2 fluid 
ounces; Rose water, 0 fluid ounces. Mix 
well. Let tho mixture stand for twenty four 
hours, and filter. 
Bitter Apple. —Iu Rural New-Yorker of 
May 2-1, page 833, something is said about this 
plant and inquiry made as to what it is ; 
asks for some other name of Bitter Apple, 
it is known by various other names, viz. : 
Squirting Cucumber, Wild Cucumber, L’olo- 
cynth, Botanical name I think is Cucumis 
Calory nl hi*. —F. A. j. 
<®lt^ ^pupnii, 
DO BEES INJUEE FRUIT 1 
£ noticed in the Weekly Tribune, of Juno 
25, an article on the destruction of fruit by 
boos, which coming from a man claiming 
scientific knowledge of the subject, constrains 
me to make a few comments. After an in¬ 
dictment against the bees for destroying fruit 
by one “Penn.,” this sapient Prof. Riley 
quotes one Widaudy of Jeff., Miss., who says 
ho lost his entire peach crop in 1872 by the 
ravages of bees. The learned professor sug¬ 
gests that legal redress is impossible, hut 
very decidedly advises Ins bee-hating friends 
to cultivate milk-weed, tho gluten of whose 
bloom adheres to the bee and it soon foils 
down and dies. Or again, tills modern Borgia 
suggests sweetened water and cobalt, which 
kills every bee that partakes. Again he says 
the bee-martin should be encon raged for 
their bee eating qualities. What shall we 
think of a professor who promulgates the 
doctrine that the useful honey be© that 
gathers honey from a thousand flowers that 
would otherwise waste their sweetness on 
the summer air, should be devoted to whole¬ 
sale devastation. He further says that he 
has known an apiary so decimated (probably 
by his advice) that one half of the hives gave 
out. 
1 am not a scientific man or a professor, but 
am a practical apiarian of many years, and a 
close observer of the habits and instincts of 
the honey bee, am bold in my contradiction 
of the professor when he charges bees with 
destroy ing grapes, peaches, plums and pears. 
I have au orchard of four acres of many va¬ 
rieties of fruit, in the suburbs of a city of 
18,Util) people, with many near neighbors, 
who also possess fruit, and L or they have 
never suffered from the depredations of the 
bees on fruit. 
1 have watched them closely and attribute 
the whole trouble to two reasons : the hor¬ 
nets and wasps, and tho nature of the fruit 
operated upon. It is well knowu that the 
Delaware grape and many varieties of thin 
skinned plums and pears, when dropsical 
with llieir juices crack open, their saccharine 
matter exudes and decay follows. Bees, ever 
on the alert for forage, feed upon it greedily, 
in every instance that has come to my no¬ 
tice, and they are many, fruit is first punc¬ 
tured hy wasps and hornets, or yellow 
jackets. They are the burglars who have 
broken open the store houses and the bees 
follow in their wake. Hornets and wasps 
alone possess the mandibles equal to the task 
of cutting the skin of the most tender graph, 
pear or peach, and I challenge the professor 
to show a well authenticated fact to the con- 
fcriuy, or that bees are rogues as charged. 
Again, 1 would say the professor has been 
deceived or has deceived himself, when he 
says bee-martins or king birds destroy bees. 
Three years ago I shot many of these birds 
after their scanty repast, around my hives, 
and iu every instance 1 found after dissecting 
their stomachs, what i honey bees 1 No, not 
one ! But tho black ant, larva? of the bee 
moth, and iu t wo out of ten birds a drone 
bee. So 1 think the professor will lie obliged 
to hunt up some other agent for the destruc¬ 
tion of bees. 1 could wish they were all as 
harmless as the bee-martin. I too encourage 
the bee-martin, but from a different motive, 
believing them to he the best scavenger I 
have in destroying insects, and the moth 
larvae, 
I cannot think so ill of any one as to sup¬ 
pose them desirous of the wholesale slaughter 
of the paragon of insects, so useful to man 
and one so self supporting.— -Chan. D. Hib¬ 
bard, Auburn, N. r., in Amer. Bee Jour, 
