HINTS FOR THE HOME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2230, 24 October 1908, Page 4 (Supplement)

HINTS FOR THE HOME.

To Clean Raincoats. —Cravenettes can bo cleaned by brushing TVitfc A stiff brush dipped in cloudy ammonia, after being well shaken to remove dust, etc. To Mend China. —A strong cement for china can be made of plaster or Paris made into paste with the white of an egg. A little vinegar added will prevent it setting before it can bo used. A Hint to Pastry-Makers.—Before placing pastry in the oven, sprinsm lightly with cold water.- I find bv doing this that the pastry rises Letter, and more quickly. To Save Greasing the Pan. "When cooking pancakes, if two or three tablespoonsful of hotter (melted) are well beaten with the hatter you will not need to' grease the frying pan, and so will save much time whim cooking.

To Prevent Jam Burning.—Place three half-crowns in the bottom of the preserving pan. These move about with the boiling, -and prevent the jam from sticking. It does aivay Avith the need of stirring, Avliich tends to make the jam cloudy, and not a good bright color.

Keep the Ricmvater for Washing Day.—Reboil, add a small piece of borax, and the waste of sperm candle ; strain, and you Avill have a much nicer starch for table linen than the starch usually purchased. I always have boiled rice for a breakfast dish on washing-day. Ricewater, when quite fresh, AA r ith the addition of lemon juice and sugar, makes a very pleasant and nourishing drink.

A Use for Worn Long Lace Curtains.—Long AvindoAv curtain's made or laco generally break away in the centre (oAving, no doubt, to that part being someAvliat finer and thinner than the rest of the curtains), while the gides will often remain comparatively sound and in good order. Alter the curtains'are past mending pud using for the window - , by cutting the worn centre strip , out you have the four sido pieces left, and these can bo utilised as lace for trimming bedtops, and will last a long time. We 'have had a lace bed top made in this way in use for two or three years, and it is still quite strong, and nobody would ever guess that it was .made out of the sides of a pair of lace curtains past use for the windows. The edges AA'ere vandyked, Avliich makes it look like the usual bedtop lace. Of course, 'ifurtaiiis Avith straight edges could be used just as avgll as the vandyked for the purpose mentioned, but the latter gives the bedtop a better appearance,

THE SAMENESS OF FASHION.

“Thousands of hotels, drawingrooms, bed-room®, boudoirs, smokingrooms, tables set out for meals, oi ornaments furnished all alike in a style imitating refinement but alAvays characterless; thousands of women dressed after a very few models supplied from Paris, their male companions still more closely resembling each other; their plays, songs, pictures, and novels, constructed on about half a dozen kinds of artifice; dinner table talk, all running on one tune, tea-table talk on another, or a slight alteration of pitch; the common places of meeting, greeting, parting, exchanged on fixed lines; the same curt slang on tho lips of men and women; the popular newspapers echoing the thought that their conductors imagine reflects the common mind of all classes —peers and peeresses, shopboys, city men, clerics, tradespeople—these aro the signs and characteristics of the croAvd Avhich thinks itself distinguished.” Such is modern society as summed up in an article, “The Sameness of Fashion,” by a writer in the “Nation” recently. He contends that, this sameness in thought and deed is eliminating true culture arid aristocracy of intellect. There is a constant rush and hurry to keep up Avith the moli; a feverish desire to wear the same clothes, read the same books, play the same games, visit the same country resorts, admire tlie same actress, rave about the. same music—a consuming impulse to be part of a pattern that is made up of purely physical sensations and impulses. In this mad rush to keep in the SAvim there is no time for thinking, and no place lor those pleasures of the intellect Avhich require reflection ; just as' motors have taken the jilaco of horses, so has chatter superseded conversation. The Avhole . object of modern life is to arrive at a giA’en point by the quickest means possible. The beauties of nature or of thought along tho route are overlooked or skimmed quickly past. The one idea is to arrive, and haAdng arriA’ed, not to rest and enjoy, not to “loaf and invite the soul,” but to depart again as quickly as. possible. “True culture—the poAver of receiving and assimilating ideas—is necessarily absent from such a society, and is, indeed, repugnant to it,” says the Avriter. “But the counterfeit of culture is eA’eryAvherc. Opinions on all subjects are entertained by all the members of the croAvd. They are turned out ready-made, like it s objets d’art, and haA’e the same neat, formal affectations of truth. Apparently refined talk, apparently refined entertainment, apparently refined presentations of actual life on the stage abound. Tho aim is CA-erywhere material.”

Are avc not all familiar AA’ith this counterfeit of culture eA’en in our oaa’U city, far as it is from the hub of the monotonously revohlng wheel. Have avc not, too, our own fads and UGAvest crazes? To-day avc are all American : last year aa'c were all Japanese; yesterday avc all dined .in red dining-rooms. to-morroAV avg Avill fake our meals beneath a tree, or on the verandah. But Avhatever it is to be done, Ave all do it; not because our individual tastes run that Avay; but because it is the thing, or it is artistic, and Ave AA’otild be considered dowdy and old-fashioned if Ave did not keep up with the mob. And in this ever increasing race for uniformity character must suffer. There is no time for the deA'elopment of the deeper channels of our hearts; no place for the broader sentiments and emotions. We are SAvayed by physical impulse, and .there is no place for the life of the soul. The writer looks to Avomen for the remedy, and suggests that Avomen “who find special need of tlie ideal, and for Aviiose satisfaction art largely exists, may stem the tide of vulgarity. The discontent of Avomen AA’ith an existence -spent on a plane of loaa- interests is a perceptible feature of modern civilisation. From them may conic a moA’ement. vehemently religious and aAvakening: shattering for a time the great business of amusement, or producing & secession of enlightened folk driven into forms of semimonastic life, of a rule of conduct, under Avliich the soul would ©gain haA’e space to exist and grow.’-'