At least try other methods before such washing is resorted to. More things can be washed in soap and water, if they are washed cleverly, than is generally realized. Articles of delicate colour and texture can often be dry-cleaned with potato flour, powdered French chalk, or powdered magnesia. Rub the flour or powder gently into the fabric, and allow it to remain there several hours. Then shake it out and repeat the process. It is also a good method to put the article to be cleaned into a box, powder it all over with one of these substances and then shut it up for two or three days. Several times each day shake the box well.
Light coloured articles, which may not be wet, such as walls, furniture, rugs, fur, curtains and worsted shawls, may sometimes be improved by rubbing flour and corn meal into them and then shaking and brushing it out again. I am told that white fur can be made clean if it is rubbed with plaster of Paris, shaken, and then rubbed with a damp cloth. I cannot vouch for plaster of Paris, but I can for corn meal and flour, for with it I once successfully cleaned a white kitten.
Housewives make various arrangements by which the family wash may be done with less expenditure of time and strength on the part of the household than it usually requires. Some have a woman in to do this work; some have the clothes washed out of the house and sent home rough dried for ironing; others send the flat pieces to a laundry and have the others done at home; others yet send the elaborate pieces out and do the flat wash in the house. A somewhat different sort of compromise can be made if the woman of the house realizes that light washing is pleasant, skilful work. She can considerably lessen bills for washing and ironing if she will herself do the handkerchiefs, napkins, doilies, stockings, and other small pieces.
A word or two may well be said in regard to a few of the commonest difficulties that arise in this work.
A rainy or violently windy day is probably the most frequent emergency. If one has an attic or a cellar, temporary lines can be put up in either or both; if one has not, there may be room for a line or two in the kitchen and the clothes horse must help out. If there is no place where clothes can be hung in the house, either put the washing off, or get all the white clothes to the stage of the second rinsing, then put them into the tubs with clean water and leave them till the storm is over. The coloured things must wait, the woollens also, unless there are so few that they can be washed and hung up in a bedroom, or some equally unusual place.