Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million ...

Begin at the top of the house; first take up the carpets, and, if they require it, let them be scoured; or as carpets are sometimes injured by scouring, they may be well beaten, and if necessary, washed with soda and water.

Remove all the furniture from the room, have the chimneys swept where fires have been kept, and clean and blacken the grates. Wrap old towels, (they should be clean), around the bristles of the broom, and sweep lightly the ceiling and paper; or, if requisite, the paper should be cleaned with bread, as elsewhere directed.. Then wash the paint with a flannel or sponge, and soap and water, and, as fast as one person cleans, another should follow, and with clean cloths, wipe the paint perfectly dry. Let the windows be cleaned, and scour the floor. Let the furniture be well rubbed; and the floor being dry, and the carpets laid down, the furniture may be replaced. The paper should be swept every three months.

2. To clean Bed-rooms.-In cleaning bed-rooms infested with bugs, take the bedsteads asunder, and wash every part of them,

but especially the joints, with a strong solution of corrosive sublimate in spirits of turpentine; as the sublimate is a fatal poison, the bottle containing the above solution should be labelled "Poison;" it should be used very carefully, and laid on with a brush kept for the purpose. Bugs can only be removed from walls by taking down the paper, washing them with the above poison, and re-papering.

In bed-rooms with fires, a whisk-brush is best to clear the curtains and hangings from dust.

To remove grease or oil from boards, drop on the spots spirits of turpentine before the floor is scoured.

The house-maid should be provided with a box, with divisions, to convey her various utensils, as brushes, black lead, &c., from room to room, and a small mat to kneel upon while cleaning the grate.

3. Scouring Bed-rooms.-This should never be done in winter if it can be avoided, as it is productive of many coughs and colds. If inevitable, a dry day should be selected, and the windows and doors should be left wide open till dusk. A fire ought always to be made in the room after cleaning.

4. To clean Carpets.-Before sweeping a carpet, sprinkle over it a few handfuls of waste tea-leaves. A stiff hair-broom or brush should be used, unless the carpet be very dirty, when a whisk or carpet-broom should be used first, followed by another made of hair to take off the loose dirt. The frequent use of a stiff broom soon injures the beauty of the best carpet. An ordinary clothes-brush is best adapted for superior carpets.

When Brussels carpets are very much soiled, take them up and beat them perfectly free from dust. Have the floor thoroughly scoured and dry, and nail the carpet firmly down to it. If still soiled, take a pailful of clean, cold water, and put into it about three gills of ox-gall. Take another pail, with clean, cold water only; now rub with a soft scrubbing-brush some of the ox-gall water on the carpet, which will raise a lather. When a convenient-sized portion is done, wash the lather off with a clean linen cloth dipped in the clean water. Let this water be changed frequently. When all the lather has disappeared, rub the part with a clean, dry cloth. After all is done, open the window to allow the carpet to dry. A carpet treated in this manner, will be greatly refreshed in color, particularly the greens. Kiddermin

ster carpets will scarcely bear the above treatment without becoming so soft as speedily to become dirty again. This may, in some measure, be prevented by brushing them over with a hot, weak solution of size in water, to which a little alum has been added. Curd soap dissolved in hot water, may be used instead of ox-gall, but it is more likely to injure the colors, if produced by false dyes. Where there are spots of grease in the carpeting, they may be covered with curd soap dissolved in boiling water, and rubbed with a brush until the stains are removed, when they must be cleaned with warm water as before. The addition of a little gall to the soap renders it more efficacious.

The carpets should be nailed on the full stretch, else they will shrink.

Fullers' earth is also used for cleaning carpets; and alum, or soda, dissolved in water, for reviving the colors.

5. To clean Turkey Carpets.-To revive the color of a Turkey carpet, beat it well with a stick till the dust is all got out; then, with a lemon or sorrel juice, take out the spots of ink, if the carpet be stained with any; wash it in cold water, and afterwards shake out all the water from the threads of the carpet. When it is thoroughly dry, rub it all over with the crumb of a hot wheaten loaf; and, if the weather is very fine, hang it out in the open air a night or two.

6. Cheap Carpeting.-Sew together strips of the cheapest cotton cloth, of the size of the room, and tack the edges to the floor. Then paper the cloth, as you would the sides of a room, with any sort of room paper. After being well dried, give it two coats of varnish, and your carpet is finished. It can be washed like carpets, without injury, retains its gloss, and, on chambers or sleeping rooms, where it will not meet rough usage, will last for two years, as good as new.

7. To beat a Carpet.-Hang the carpet upon a clothes-line, or upon a stout line between two trees; it should then be beaten on the wrong side, by three or four persons, each having a pliable stick, with cloth tied strongly in a knob on the end, in order to prevent the carpet from being torn, or the seams split, by the sharp end of the stick. When thoroughly beaten on the wrong side, the carpet should be turned, and beaten on the right side.

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