55o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 6 
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FROM DAY TO DAY. 
Some of the army doctors declare that 
nothing is worse for the men in camp 
than the cakes and other dainties sent 
in by sympathetic friends. If you want 
to send something to friends in the 
army, here is a list voiced unanimously 
by a number of men at Chickamauga : 
1. Towels aud soap. 
2. A “ housewife,” containing one pair of scis¬ 
sors, a dozen large safety-pins, a dozen steel 
trouser buttons, a dozen bone buttons, six 
pairs black shoe laces, a flannel pad for needles, 
six large needles, six medium-sized ones, a skein 
of heavy white cotton and one of black linen or 
shoe thread, a tailor’s thimble, a small emery, 
court plaster, and a comb. This “ housewife ” 
can be made of denim or drilling—a flat strip with 
flat pockets stitched on, and stitched off into com¬ 
partments. 
3. Handkerchiefs. Handkerchiefs are a posi¬ 
tive necessity for any degree of comfort in this 
dusty, sandy, perspiring climate. 
4. Dark blue “ regulation ” percaline or sateen 
shirts. The Government furnishes flannel ones; 
lighter material made exactly in the same way, 
sold at department stores for about 75 cents 
apiece, would be a godsend. 
5. Pajamas. It sounds a bit strained, but 
pajamas are having their day, as well as their 
night, in camp among those who can afford them. 
In coming in from drill hot and dusty and tired, 
to slip into these comfortable, loose garments is 
a luxury. These, too, made of dark blue sateen 
or French flannel would be most serviceable. 
* 
One of our friends at Tampa informs 
us that there is urgent need for pajamas 
there ; men in hospital who are able to 
be out of bed would be able to go about 
the wards in these garments. At Old 
Point, Va., the Government being short 
of suitable garments, the agents of the 
Red Cross Society bought all the avail¬ 
able pajamas in the district. Some 
amusement was created by the sight of 
pale, scarred troopers, booted and clad 
in pajamas, wandering about, and one 
narrator declared that it looked as 
though the town was populated by pink 
and blue-clad somnambulists. 
PHOTOGRAPHY FOR WOMEN. 
The ranks of the amateur photographer 
are pretty well filled just now, but there 
is a wide and comparatively new field for 
women in professional photography of a 
specialized order. The amateur who can 
produce a fairly good picture can be 
found on every side, and the work is 
worth nothing except to give the person 
and intimate friends a little pleasure. 
Common grade pictures do not pay, and 
never will. But good work in this line 
has its rewards, and it pays better than 
teaching school or scores of other com¬ 
mon employments for women. 
One of the best printers in a large 
photographic gallery in New York is a 
woman, and she has drawn $40 a week 
for a number of years. Her success is, 
probably, a little exceptional, for she is 
an artist in light and shade, and knows 
every detail thoroughly of her business. 
There are plenty of other women in the 
photograph studios who receive good 
salaries, and it is the testimony of their 
employers that they well earn them. 
Certain lines of specialized photog¬ 
raphy are open to progressive women 
who have the necessary lightness of 
touch, true artistic tastes, and an eye 
for light and shade. There has grown 
up a feeling that photography is a me¬ 
chanical operation that turns out an ex¬ 
cellent picture if one simply touches the 
button. It requires a few weeks of study 
and failure to convince a beginner that 
there is more in photography than she 
ever dreamed of. Photography is a 
branch of art, and it takes something- 
more than skill to excel in it. One may 
not possess any artistic sense of colors— 
for they can be entirely ignored in pho¬ 
tography—but a true artistic eye for 
proportions, outlines, and grouping, and 
above all for light and shade, is abso¬ 
lutely necessary for the highest success 
in this line. There is such a difference 
in the taking of pictures that people are 
willing to pay high prices for those 
which are nearly perfect. 
M aking a Beginning. —The way to be¬ 
gin this work is to secure a camera of 
known make and reliableness, and of 
sufficient size to take a large picture. 
Then experiments must follow until the 
beginner will be nearly discouraged. 
Nevertheless this study and composition 
can be pursued quietly at home until one 
has become proficient. Too many make 
the mistake of opening a studio before 
they have mastered the principles of their 
art, and the result often is they take in¬ 
different pictures, and make a reputation 
that they cannot live down for years. 
Take pictures with all the care possi¬ 
ble, making three exposures, at least, of 
each subject, and then develop them as 
intelligently as circumstances will per¬ 
mit ; then make a study of them. Study 
the lines of each, compare the light and 
shade of one with another, and note the 
defects with a critical eye. If one will 
do this persistently for six months, she 
may be able to correct faults that are 
so glaring in the pictures of amateurs. 
The photograph can be made to speak 
almost; its pictures in the hands of a 
true artist are alive with naturalness 
and power, and the very trees and air 
seem to wave and vibrate. But all this 
is lost in the poor picture. 
The Commercial Side. —This must be 
kept in view in making the pictures. 
Sometimes it is necessary to subordinate 
one’s taste to the coarser ones of a patron. 
An architect cannot build his house just 
as he would like to ; he must yield points 
to the wishes of the builder. So the pho¬ 
tographer must often take a house at an 
angle that is not pleasing to her, simply 
to bring in some odd feature or monstros¬ 
ity of the grounds or structure in order to 
satisfy the owner. A mother will often 
want her baby to pose in a way that the 
artist knows is wrong, but beyond gentle 
remonstrance, the photographer can¬ 
not go. 
Specialized photography requires 
women of a particular bent of mind, who 
are willing to make a study of certain 
groups of subjects, and become experts. 
House and landscape photography has 
its devotees, who, possessed with a fine 
sense of the beautiful in nature, can se¬ 
lect bits of scenery which will make ex¬ 
quisite pictures. It would seem as though 
any one could take the photograph of a 
house ; but if you study a dozen pictures 
of the same place made by as many differ¬ 
ent artists, a true realizing sense of 
what artistic photography is will be im¬ 
pressed upon you. 
Special Lines. —It is possible to work 
up a good line of customers in a large 
town or city without opening any regu¬ 
lar store. A woman who makes a spec¬ 
ialty of photographing children, visits 
the home of the youngsters, and takes 
such cunning pictures of the little ones 
that the parents are forced to take them. 
There are many babies who object to 
being photographed in a studio, and they 
persistently put on their worst manners 
at such times; but they can be coaxed 
into submission at home. 
Printing and developing pictures should 
be a special field for women. Here pa¬ 
tience, scrupulous cleanliness, and deli¬ 
cacy of touch must tell, and these quali¬ 
ties women generally possess. Skilled 
women who have mastered the art of 
developing and printing photographs 
should not long be without a paying posi¬ 
tion in some good studio. G. k. w. 
PASSE-PARTOUT FRAMES. 
This method of framing small prints 
and photographs is artistic and inex¬ 
pensive, and is now very popular. The 
following explicit directions were given 
by The Modern Priscilla, from which 
Fig. 257 is reproduced. An important 
point in mounting is to leave a very wide 
margin around the picture ; this greatly 
improves its appearance. 
Mount on thick cardboard having a 
good smooth surface : use glass perfectly 
free :rom marks and flaws, and well 
cleaned with vinegar aud water, or with 
a little spirit, and polish with chamois. 
Let the glass and the mounting-board 
be of exactly the same dimensions, 
meeting accurately all around the edges. 
When this is neatly prepared, two cuts 
are made in the cardboard, in the posi¬ 
tions shown in the upper part of Fig. 
257. A piece of narrow linen tape is 
then taken, a small brass ring is slipped 
on to it, and the two ends are passed 
through the cuts in the cardboard. The 
tape is just of sufficient length for the 
ring to appear above the cardboard with¬ 
out any of the tape being visible. The 
ends are glued or gummed in position in 
the cuts and on to the cardboard, and in 
order to make them more secure and to 
conceal them, two pieces of paper are 
gummed over them. The two ends of 
tape passed through the slits in the card¬ 
board, are turned back and gummed on 
to it ; the wrong side of the mounting- 
board, with the loop of tape and the ring 
attached to it is also figured. When the 
tape is in place, the board may be pressed 
under heavy weights until the gum is 
perfectly dry. Another way of hanging, 
which may be preferred by some, is 
shown in the center of Fig. 257. 
The picture is now mounted on the 
cardboard. If the picture has a good 
margin, it may be placed at once on the 
mounting-board, which must be of the 
same dimensions as the glass. If the 
picture has no margin, it must be put on 
an extra sheet of fine cardboard, and 
neatly pasted in place. Great care must 
be taken to put it exactly in the center 
MAKING a passe-partout frame. 
Fio. 257. 
of the board, and not to soil or smear 
it with paste. A simpler plan is to buy 
a ready-made mat of thick, white card¬ 
board with a beveled gilded edge, to 
surround and frame the picture. When 
this is ready, it is placed on the first 
piece of cardboard, and joined to it at 
the corners with a little gum; the glass 
is placed over the picture, and the whole 
is now ready for framing. 
The frame consists of four strips of 
paper, in any neutral tint ; these are 
stuck on over the glass on one side, and 
the back of the mounting-board on the 
other, with thick boiled starch. The 
strips of paper are about two inches 
wide for a large picture, but rather less 
for a small one. They must be laid on 
perfectly flat and smooth, and accurately 
mitered at the corners, so that neither 
strip overlaps the other, but meets it 
exactly. An opening is made at the top 
for the ring to slip through, if this 
method of hanging be used. The man¬ 
ner of putting on this paper frame is 
shown in the lower part of Fig. 257. 
When this is thoroughly dry, the paper 
frame is cut away on the right side, that 
is, on the glass, leaving a border of 
one-quarter inch or less. A very sharp 
penknife is needed for this work, and it 
is necessary to press a little on the 
blade as well as on the point; in 
order to secure a straight line, a guide 
of some kind, such as a flat brass-bound 
ruler, should be used. This is held 
firmly on the glass with the left hand, 
while the penknife held in the right 
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♦ Woman and 
The Home. | 
hand is pressed against the side of the 
ruler to prevent it from swerving. 
The paper to be taken off is moistened 
with a damp sponge; then, when the 
water has had time to soak through a 
little, it will come off without difficulty. 
In Fig. 257, the frame is shown nearly 
completed; the paper, all but the narrow 
rim at the edge, has been cleared away 
from the top and one side, and is in 
process of removal from the other side: 
Any traces of starch left on the glass 
can be easily cleared away with a damp 
sponge, taking care not to touch the 
narrow paper border. As soon as the 
glass is dry, it may be polished. 
'how the soldiers keep house. 
A DAY IN TIIE SANTIAGO CAMP. 
We are in the same place, and nothing 
has happened to make us think we won’t 
stay here, except a shortage of food. We 
got a day’s rations for to-day, and it con¬ 
sisted of a piece of bacon, almost all fat, 
3% inches long by 2% wide, and one inch 
thick, 12 hard tacks, and some coffee and 
sugar, enough for three cups. Now, 
when that bacon is cooked, you have to 
keep your eye on it, for if you lose sight 
of it for a minute, it takes hours to find 
it again. It is like a bird flying in the 
distance : as long as you are watching it, 
you can see it. We cook our hard tack, 
and that improves it, but it does not in¬ 
crease it. unfortunately. 
Talk about economical living ; I could 
live all Summer in the country for 10 
cents a day, in a tent, I mean. I should 
not care to do it, but I could. We figure 
that we live on seven cents a day, now, 
and I believe it, too. I can grind coffee 
without a grinder, and make a fire out 
of wet wood in fine style. We get up at 
4:30, and get our fires going for break¬ 
fast at once; then we cook what little 
we have, and eat it. This only makes us 
hungrier, of course, and gives an ap¬ 
petite, and we have nothing to satisfy it 
with. We cannot even get cocoanuts 
here, so we keep in the shade, and fuss 
around to watch our stuff, to see that no 
one steals it, until about 11, when we get 
ready to cook our dinner. We make our 
dinner, eat it, and wish we had a good, 
big, 10-course dinner, servedup any how, 
all together, if necessary ; no one is very 
particular. Well, wishing does not help 
much, so after a bit we let up on it, and 
scrape off our dishes with a stick, and 
put them up. 
The Trials of Housekeeping. —We 
cook in our plates, and make coffee in 
our cups, so we do not have very much 
trouble. Water is scarce, that is, there 
is plenty of it, about a quarter of a mile 
off ; but in the first place, there is noth¬ 
ing but canteens to bring it in ; they 
hold a quart and a pint; second, the 
brook from which it is got is at the bot¬ 
tom of one of the steepest hills I ever 
saw. The water spills along the paths, 
and one is just as liable as not to slide 
all the way down. We take turns going 
for water, each man carrying eight can¬ 
teens, and an armed man accompanying 
him, as there are Spaniards about, and 
they do not take prisoners. It is one of 
the prettiest paths I ever saw in my life ; 
all the tropical plants you can imagine 
seem to grow there. 
After we have got through discussing 
the situation for the thousandth time, it 
is 1 o’clock and time to prepare for a 
storm, none of your common, ordinary, 
New York or New Jersey storms, but a 
storm that is a storm, and remains so all 
the afternoon. We sit in our shelter 
tents while this is going- on, and keep 
our feet tucked up as well as we can— 
the tents are only five feet long—trying 
to keep things from floating out, and 
wish it would let up. 
HARTSHORN 
SHADE ROLLERS 
are perfect in action. Over 40 
years’ experience friiides the man 
ufacture. Get the improved. No 
tacks required. To avoid imita- 
tions.notice script name of Stewart 
Hartshorn on label. 
