The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

TO EXTINGUISH FIRE IN A CHIMNEY.

Put a wet blanket over the whole front of the fire-place, which will stop the current of air, and thus extinguish the flames.

TO CLEAN BOOT TOPS WHITE.

Take an ounce of oxalic acid, dissolve it in a pint of soft water, and keep it in a bottle well corked; dip a soft sponge into the mixture to clean the tops with, and if there are any spots which refuse to disappear, rub them with a little fine Bath brick dust: sponge the tops afterwards with clean water. Take particular care always to have any mixtures, or powders for boot-tops, labelled with the word poison in large letters, as fatal accidents have arisen from oxalic acid, being so like Epsom salts in appearance, as to be often taken for them in mistake.

TO CLEAN BOOT TOPS BROWN.

Take a pint of skimmed milk, half an ounce of spirits of salt, half an ounce of spirits of lavender, one ounce of gum Arabic, and the juice of two lemons; mix them well together, and keep them in a bottle closely corked; rub the tops with a sponge, but use no brick dust; and when they are dry, polish them with a brush or piece of flannel.

TO REMOVE UNPLEASANT ODOURS.

The unpleasant smell of new paint is best removed 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 destroyed. Unpleasant smells from water-closets, or all articles of furniture connected with them, may be modified by the application of quick-lime, 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 into a night-chair will destroy all disagreeable effluvia.

Aromatic pastiles of the following composition may be burned with great success: take of camphor, flowers of benzoin, powdered charcoal, powdered cascarilla bark, powdered Turkey myrrh, and powdered nitre, each equal quantities; beat them with syrup sufficient to form a mass, and divide into pastiles of conical shape. They may be mixed up with spirit of turpentine, or any thing inflammable.

TO CLEAN KNIVES AND FORKS.