The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 533, February 11, 1832. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

      That winter rains may never overflow,

      And when the summer droughts commence their reign,

      Stretch forth thy hand and let the brook remain."

      A FRAGMENT

      USEFUL DOMESTIC HINTS

      SHAVINGS

      Disposed as we are to give the Scotch full credit for superior domestic economy, a practice which we had frequently an opportunity of observing, some five or six years since in Edinburgh, astonished us, we confess, not a little; and which, had we heard of, not beheld, we should rather have been inclined to attribute to our thoughtless Hibernian neighbours.

      Every English housemaid knows, if every housekeeper does not, that shavings make a most valuable fuel; for lighting fires they are preferable to those faggots, small bundles of which fetch in London, and large provincial towns, what may be considered a high price, as they commonly swell the weekly expenditure of every family. In Edinburgh, at the period to which we allude, a great deal of building was going on, and it was impossible to walk the streets without passing, (especially in the immediate environs) new houses in various stages of completion; but invariably we found, that the custom of the workmen was, to collect in heaps the shavings from the carpenter's work, and burn with other rubbish, these, which might have been sold for fuel very advantageously; nor was the waste of this practice the only thing to be reprehended; it was dangerous, since such bonfires were lighted before the houses in the open streets, to the great peril of passengers, and at the risk of frightening horses and other cattle, as the high winds prevalent in our northern metropolis carried about in all directions the light, blazing shavings, and sparks.

      M.L.B.

      FEATHERS

      Valuable as are feathers, and essential as is that article, a feather-bed, to the domestic comforts of the poor, who can rarely afford to purchase one, it has often struck us, as a singular want of thought and economy in humble cottagers residing on village-greens or commons, upon which much poultry is kept, that they should not collect, (a work easily performed by the youngest children) the numerous soft, short, downy feathers, which may be observed floating about. These in time would amount to a quantity worth consideration, but they are usually left, first to litter the land, and secondly to be destroyed by rain and passengers. This is particularly the case in Norfolk, celebrated as everybody knows as well for its geese as its turkeys, and where, it is asserted, that the former fowls undergo regular pluckings for the sake of their feathers, ere submitted to "the poulterer's knife." But experience, unfortunately, only confirms the old observation, that "the poor are the worst economists in the world," and the least obedient of any people to our Saviour's command: "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost."

      M.L.B.

      TO TAKE INK OUT OF PAPER, AND STAINS OUT OF CLOTH, SILKS, &C

      Mix one teaspoonful of burnt alum, 1/4 oz. of salt of lemons, 1/4 oz. of oxalic acid, in a bottle, with half-a-pint of cold water; to be used by wetting a piece of calico with it, and rubbing it on the spots.

      S. AE.

      THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

      LADIES AND DWARFS

      One of the oddest of all odd books that ever fell into our hands is Captain Colville Franckland's Narrative of a Visit to the Courts of Russia and Sweden, in 1830 and 1831. It is one of the hop-step-and-a-jump tours that your fashionable folks make for making acquaintances and then making books. The gallant author does not stay long enough in a place to be dull; for he is lively and flippant in every page, and throws a dash of the service into every chapter. He feels that Dr. Granville has left him nothing to say which may not be found in his two great big books; yet the Cholera and the Polish war have supplied him with two topics throughout the whole book; and, dull as these subjects are in themselves, they have enabled our tourist to produce a rambling, rattling, frolicsome work of seven or eight hundred pages. His attentions to the softer sex sparkle every where. At Hamburgh, "we dined at a most excellent table d'hote, but thought the ladies plain and dowdy." "We laughed much at the Holsteiner peasantry, the women being dressed like devils, and men like merry-andrews." Again,—

      "One of the most pleasing characteristics of Hamburgh, is the neat little, rosy-faced, fair-haired soubrette, tripping along the Yungferstieg, with a basket under her right arm, covered with a handsome shawl of glowing colours. These enticing damsels look as happy and as coquettish as you can well imagine, and might induce many a traveller to pass a few weeks in Hamburgh who had time to dedicate to the pursuit of the fair nymphs of the Alster.

      "But, alas! no good is unaccompanied by evil; hideously deformed dwarfs haunt the streets and promenades of the good town, and the eye of the observer, after having rested with complacency on the round and well-turned form of the smart soubrette, reverts with horror to the miserable Flibbertigibbets which abound in a frightful proportion to the whole population."

      At Hamburgh he finds fun in every thing.

      "I was a good deal amused to-day by the funeral cortège of some citizen of consequence. The bier was surrounded by men dressed in the old Venetian costume of black, with ruffs, well-powdered wigs, and swords by their sides. I regret to say that I must quit Hamburgh without seeing the Schöne Marianna; but I hear she is now rather passèe, and I must console myself for this mortification by gazing upon the first pair of bright eyes which I shall meet to-morrow on my route to Kiel."

      The Russian dwarfs afford our Captain much amusement.

      "Madame Divoff, like many other Russian ladies, has a dwarf in her house, who remains constantly СКАЧАТЬ