A new system of practical domestic economy.

Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new system of practical domestic economy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/524 (page 45)
    Either of these methods is much safer than mixing poison with saccharine substances. Indeed, we recommend not the domestic use of poison in any instance, where it can be avoided, not even for the destruction of rats and mice ; for which, however, a safe but not a very humane method is sometimes used, by mixing ground glass with oatmeal: but this is much more cruel, and not more efficacious than a method recently found to answer, of cutting sponge in small pieces, and dipping them in melted dripping, to be laid where those vermin resort. If scented with a little anni- seed it will attract the rats more readily. The last subject to mention, is the cheapest and readiest mode of getting rid of unpleasant Vapours. The drains in London are often extremely offensive, particularly to the inhabitants of cellar kitchens, to whose lot it seldom falls to breathe an air any way resembling “gales of Araby;” but the almost putrid effluvia, that arises occasionally from these drains, may often be carried off with very little expense, simply by the adoption of what the bricklayers expressively term a stink- trap, and which even the clumsiest of the frater- nity can set in h!fflr an hour. The unpleasant smell of new paint is best re- moved by time and atmospheric ventilation: but tubs of water placed in the apartment, will act more rapidly ; with this inconvenience, however, that the gloss of the paint will be completely de- stroyed by them. Unpleasant smells from water- closets, or all articles of furniture connected with them, may be modified by the application of lime- water, to which may be added the soap-suds that have been used in washing, which neutralize the pungently offensive salts: a little quick-lime put