[270] ‘Dictionary of Hygiene.’
DUST-BIN. A dust-bin on any premises may become a nuisance and a peril to health if certain precautions are not observed with respect to it.
It should have a tolerably tight-fitting cover, and one that is waterproof also, if, especially as it ought to be, the dust-bin is situated in the open air. The bottom should never be the bare earth, but one that is properly bricked or tiled. It should be lime-washed occasionally, in summer time the most frequently. Only dry refuse, such as ashes and the sweepings of rooms, &c., should be thrown into it.
On no account should fragments of vegetable or animal nature be put in, such as fishbones, potato parings, cabbage stalks, dirty or discarded pieces of apparel, or bits of rags or dusters. These should be at once burnt on the kitchen fire; the best kind of stove for consuming these is that known as the kilnhouse. Meat bones should be got disposed of as soon as possible, as they frequently give rise to unpleasant and offensive odours. Finally, the dust-bin should not be too large. If too capacious, it acts as a guile for servants not to have it cleaned out as often as it should be, the frequent removal of its contents being a most essential condition toward the preservation of health.
DUSTING. This very important branch of household labour is sometimes very inefficiently performed. Very frequently the dust of an apartment is not removed, but merely disturbed or driven from one place to settle down on another.
It should always as much as possible be got rid of by means of a duster or a brush and dust-pan.
As the dust should adhere to the former, this should from time to time be taken out into the open air and shaken. During the time a room is being dusted the furniture should be collected in as small a space as possible, and enveloped in the dusting-sheet. The dusting-sheet on its removal should be carefully folded together, taken into the air and shaken. The furniture may then be dusted and returned to the proper places.
A duster should never be rubbed over furniture standing close to a wall, or a dirty mark on the wall-paper will be the result. The same caution applies to mantel-pieces, where
the paper may soon be spoilt by the act of dusting, unless contact with the duster be avoided.
DUTCH DROPS. The dark-coloured residue left by the dry distillation of turpentine. (Hager.)