II
The Late-Dinner Bogey.
"For a long time it was the late-dinner bogey which caused us to keep more servants than we needed, and to live expensively and rather uncomfortably.
"At last my husband's dislike of cooks became so passionate (and not without reason), that I determined to change my household arrangements, arguing that we could scarcely have worse food than we were having already. My husband, I must explain, is one of those men who cannot eat a heavy lunch and work after it, so he needs a hot and substantial dinner. How was this to be arranged with only one servant who went out twice a week, and a wife who only wished to cook in the morning?
"Well, we managed thus. We bought a neat electrical heater for the dining-room, and put the hot dishes ready on it and all the cold things on the sideboard. Then when dinner was announced, the maid waited, and as she never had to leave the room, she managed well, even when we had friends to dinner.
"After all, in restaurants food is not cooked just for you, it is prepared and finished or kept hot in hot cupboards or on hot plates. Managing as we now do our hot food is always hot, and the saving in wages, upkeep and food considerable. On Sunday night we have supper with hot soup, and on the other nights I choose such a menu as soup, stewed oxtail with carrot and turnip, potato cake, cold sweet or cheese, celery, etc. Coffee (if we need it) we make in an apparatus in the dining-room.
"Of course, we had to have a labour-saving house, otherwise I could not have done the work with one servant and a nurse."
The writer of this letter uses an electric heater, but in a "gas house" the "Utility" gas ring with hot plate would take its place.
An illustrated booklet and price list of this excellent contrivance may be obtained from the Gas, Light and Coke Company, Horseferry Road, S.W.
PLATE XXXIII
THE ELECTRIC IRON (NEVER BECOMES DIRTY)
(The Brompton and Kensington Accessories)
PLATE XXXIIIa
AN ELECTRIC HEATER FOR THE SIDE TABLE
(The Dowsing Radiant Heat Co.)
A Letter from a Professional Woman who does her own Housework.
"In reply to your letter, I will describe my domestic methods. You can testify, can you not, that my little flat is well-kept and that the meals are nicely served?
"As you know, the flat consists of sitting-room, bedroom, bathroom, tiny kitchen, linen cupboard and box cupboard, and a cupboard in which I keep all cleaning utensils.
"In the bathroom is a fitted basin, so I have not even a washstand in my bedroom. The kitchen sink and bathroom are served by one gas geyser, and I have gas fires and a gas cooker. I should like a coal fire in the drawing-room, but it would make too much work. There is electric light.
"There is an 'in' and 'out' indicator in the hall, and a little box under it for my cards and notes.
"My floors throughout the flat are covered with a soft, streaked, green linoleum (not the plain, as that shows every mark). My dining-room table (just large enough for four) is round, and folds flat against the wall in the hall when not in use. I have rugs which I can go over with my Bissel sweeper, or with my Good Housewife suction cleaner. I use the latter for the chairs, sofa, mattresses, and curtains. The linoleum I dust and polish with long-handled mops, and as I object to crawling about on hands and knees, I have a special long-handled mop and pail with wringer attached for washing floors and a long-handled scrubber for the kitchen and hall. But when you do your own housework, and have no coal, it is wonderful how clean things keep. My knives are stainless steel and need no polishing. I have glass rather than silver, and fireproof china ware in which I cook and serve the food. I have no polished metal, and I use newspapers for most purposes for which other people use cloths. I never dry plates and cups, but just put them in a rack to dry.
"My rooms are rather empty, but what is in them is really good.
"My day is arranged thus. Foreign-fashion breakfast, put ready over night on a tray (covered), with coffee and milk ready mixed. This I heat. I light the geyser, and while the water heats have my breakfast in bed. In cold weather I can switch on my bedroom fire from my bed, and as my gas-ring has a long tube, heat my coffee without getting out of bed if I please.
"After breakfast I get up and put on an overall instead of my dress. With no fires and no washstand work and my long-handled cleaners the work is quickly done. I prepare what I need for lunch and dinner; food is so simple a matter when you live alone: my lunch, for example, is generally milk pudding, cheese and fruit, and my dinner of two courses, meat or fish and sweet or cheese, and often I buy cooked food if I am very busy.
"I work from eleven until three or four. Then I go out and generally have tea with friends or at my club.
"I come in, dine, tidy up, put breakfast ready, and often work for an hour or two, or read, and go to bed.
"I give up Friday to special turning out and cleaning, mending, etc.
"My entertaining consists of tea or dinner (not more than four). Then I have a waitress who clears away and washes up. For such dinners I have soup, fish au gratin, stewed pigeons with savoury rice, or chicken en casserole, potato croquettes, cold sweet, cheese, coffee, dessert. The kind of dinner which can all be put ready for the waitress down to the last detail.
"I should detest to exist in a squalid muddle, but really it is not necessary to do so. Living as I do I can save money. If I kept a servant I should spend all I earn and be no more comfortable."
About Washing Up.
"I wonder if ladies who do their own work realise that it is possible to wash up and still keep one's hands nice by using rubber gloves and different sized mops. When I began to do my own work for a family of husband and four children I had great trouble with my nails splitting. Now my hands are as nice as ever they were. I have three mops of different sizes, one with a brush on the back for hard rubbing. I wear a rubber glove on my left hand (they cost 1s. 3d. a pair, and I have had one pair for months) and use the water practically boiling, as one can tilt up plates, etc., out of the water with the mop, and plates slipped into a rack will then require no drying. My saucepan brush has a long handle and the wire bristles are put in on the slant. I can wash up after any meal without wetting one finger. I have an old skewer stuck in the woodwork beside the sink, and on to it I slip the glove to dry between washings up. I have found it a great saving of time and trouble, too, to have long-handled sweeping brushes, and I have ordered a long-handled hard scrubbing brush, mop, and wringer, so that I can do the scullery and kitchen, etc., without getting down on my knees or putting my hands in water."
"The higher a woman's education, the better housewife she ought to be. When Molière was so hard on learned women, he was not making fun of erudition, but of the affectation of erudition, which relegated into a corner all homely virtues."
"First Aid to the Servantless,"
By Mrs. J. G. FRASER.