New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-10-09
washing Esay.
The Way ~ Is Managed In Different Coun-
tries.

Each country has its habits Of doing the
washing. Canadian women have a heavy
wooden paddle and beat the clothes instead
Of rubbing them. This they call battcrinT
the clothes, and it is an cfieCtual way of get
ting them clean. The New York farmers
wife pounds her washing out in the time
honored pounding barrel, ut least she does
when she hasn't Il machine. New England
housewives use washbOards, but rub with
their hands a great deaf, which is hardly fair
| to their knuckles. Maryland housekeepera =,
or their cOlored servants Tor them, call the
sun to assist i'll a curious way. They wet
the clothes, rub soap plentiiuly on the solcd
places and spread them dripping i'll the field
where the hottest sun reaches them. This
answers instead Of rubbing and boiling for
in an hour OF two the things are taken up,
nas...l out. of cold water and rinsCd without
any sleaming over a boiler, which is the most
dis agreeable part of washing. | own to
speaking from experience about washing mat
! .urs, for last summer didn't | find myse.G in
one of the lovlicst towns of New England, a
favoritc resort of city visitors, and not Il wash
erwoman to be had for love nor money? Not
a Yankee girl would do more than her own
washing, though she would work in a shoe
factory twelve hours a day for less than she
could make by laundry work. Some of the
b0arders sent their rutfled skirts and shirts
home to New Bedford, one hundred miles by
rail, every week to have them washed. But
the wife of the doctor of diyinity-hc was in
the Boston Legislature, too-and Mr.. I.ang's
pupil who played Beethoven for us and the
second cousin OF Beacon street blue blood
we all did our own washing on the hillside,
! and great fun it was. There were two old
| women who sometimes did washing as Il favor
and charged more than New York prices for
it, but they wouldn't ''go round'' among five
hundred people who wanted them. And
this is the state of things in more than one VIII
| lage Of intellectual New England. Since the
Mary AIMS and Abby James and Eliza Marias
are all educated and gone to teaching, we
| will have to do our own washing once in Il
way. Small harm will it be, too, for our
| overweight nerves cry out for physical eX-
/ ercise to balance and relieve the pressure Of
mind. With washing machines and wrngers
! there is no more work in family washing
than one woman ought to be. able to do.
/ Whether she ought to do it is another ques-
lion. But the exercise for arms and muscles
Of the chest is what every woman must
| have-what they suffer for unawareS. 80 il
any woman finds herself obliged to do her
/ own washing let her comfort herself that She
| is not deterorated by it. She has good re-
| commentator for her work. Mrs. Whitney
has given laundry work her recognition by
letting her lady-Iike HOlabird girls 90 into
the basement TO do it, and Jean IngelOw
shows her thorough Sentili,y By allowing one
of her heroines to follow the example Of her
grandmother who used to 'dO up'' their
linens and musins in the shade trees in the
lawn, while ruffled and perfumed gallants sat
the other eide Of the ironing table and Cos.
sped the afternoon away. Now / suppose
they sit in drawing-roonls and talk colooptera
and vbriones aud Prof. TyndalPs last lee
ture, and she has spinal irritation, and he
times, other mauners.-Hearth and H7me