How To Fasten Kerosene Lamp-Burners

Plaster of Paris mixed with resin soap is a good cement for this purpose.

How To Water-Proof Leather

Saturate with castor-oil. This is excellent for winter boots.

A Simple Life Preserver

It is not generally known that, when a person falls into the water, a common felt hat can be made use of as a life-preserver. By placing the hat upon the water, rim down, with the arm around it pressing it slightly to the breast, it will bear a man up for hours.

How To Bleach Linen

Javelle water, used for turning white the dirtiest linen and removing stains, is composed of bicarbonate of soda, 4 lbs.; chloride of lime, 1 lb. Put the soda into a kettle over the fire, add 1 gallon of boiling water, let it boil from ten to fifteen minutes, then stir in the chloride of lime, avoiding lumps. Use when cool. This is good for removing fruit-stains from white underwear.

Match-Scratchers

The best are pieces of shark-skin, or squares of fine wire gauze.

How To Kill Mice

Sprinkle some grain near the holes, and throw near by a few bits of cotton saturated in chloroform. This has been tested, and mice have been found dead, two or three at a time, lying with their noses near the cotton.

How To Remove Mildew

Make a very weak solution of chloride of lime in water (about a heaping teaspoonful to a quart of water), strain it carefully, and dip the spot on the garment into it; and if the mildew does not disappear immediately, lay it in the sun for a few minutes, or dip it again into the lime-water. The work is effectually and speedily done, and the chloride of lime neither rots the cloth nor removes delicate colors, when sufficiently diluted and the articles rinsed afterward in clear water.

How To Drive Off Mosquitoes

Rub the skin with essence of pennyroyal, or with a little coal-oil on a bit of cotton. The smell of the oil disappears in a few minutes.

How To Make Mustard Poultice

In making a mustard plaster use no water, but mix the mustard with white of egg, and the result will be a plaster which will draw perfectly, but will not produce a blister, no matter how long it is allowed to remain.

Pocket Mucilage

Boil 1 lb. best white glue, and strain very clear; boil also 4 oz. isinglass, and mix the two together; place them in a water-bath (glue-kettle) with 1/2 lb. white sugar, and evaporate till the liquid is quite thick, when it is to be poured into moulds, dried, and cut into pieces of convenient size. This immediately dissolves in water, and fastens paper very firmly.

Temporary Newspaper Binder

Take two pieces of light wire, strong enough to reach across the paper once, and three or four pieces of stout thread. Place one wire under the paper as far from the edge as you choose to bind it. Put the threads around the lower wire up through the paper, and tie them over the other wire on top. Temporary covers of stiff pasteboard may be added, having holes for the reception of the thread, the wires being placed on the outside of the cover. The successive papers are, of course, to he threaded, one by one, by means of an awl or coarse needle.