Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-28
WORLDS HOUSEWIVES.
How Women of Different Nations Boil
and Bake. Wash and Sew.
Sleep and Eat.
Cooking In Turkey Bed Rooms Of the Orient.
Leaf Wearers of India ivided skirt
of siam-BustIe OF Japan.
Special Correspondents o, the Gazette.

Special Correspondence OF the Gazette.
WASHINGTON, Sept. PA have spent
this week among the housewives of the
world. The National Museum has cook
ing utensils of every nation and every
Irioe' and you may see within it how
women wash and iron,. boil and bake,
stew and steam all the world over. A
picture of q Samoan kitchen has just
been received and there are complete
outfits of japanese and Chinese houses
with models of the women working away
within them. The Samoan range is a
hole In the ground and the cooking is
done with red hot stones. When the peo-
pie want feast they dig hole as big as
a cider barrel. fill it full OF wood and
cover it with stones. They light the
wood and when the stones are red hot
they pull they off to one side and clean
out the hole. They then put layer of
the hot stones in the bottom of it, and
upon this layer bananas, chickens and
vegetables wrapped in leaves are laid.
Another layer of red hot stones is put on
| top and on this is another layer of eata-
bles aud so on till the hole is tiled. Upon
the top a fire is built and the whole
steams and cooks away until the lightly
| dressed Samoan lady pronounces the din
| ner cooked. 1t is said TO be q feast for q
| king.
HOW THE ALAsKANs COOK.
The Alaskans also cook without stones,
md thara {, TT, DO,
IN the museum brought from the Esuui-
maux. The boiling baskets are of course
waterproof. and the water is heated by
dropping red hot stones into them. They
are of about the size of a peck measure
and are as beautiful as any fancy work.
basket you will find in the United States.
The baking baskets are little larger.
The food is put into them and is roasted
by hot stones beng rolled around over
them. The shaking of the basket keeps
il from burning and the people get fat
upon such food. Among some of the
tribes small cast iron stove has been
lately introduced. 1t stands in the CEN
ter of the room and the fuel is often
made OF seal oil. The chief food is fish,
and the kiudling wood Is grass.
The women are the woodcutters
of the family, but they are
the wash women only so far as their own
clothes are concerned. Every man in
Alaska washes his own clothes and IRON
ing is practically unknown.
THE WASHER WOMAN OF THE WORLD.
Every nation washes its dirty clothes
differently from every other nation. The
hardest worked washer women Of the
world are the Koreans. They have to
wash about dozen dresses for their hus-
bands and inasmuch Us every man wears
pantaloons or drawers so baggy that they
could come up to his neck, like those of
clown, they have plenty to do. The
washing is usually done in cold water
and often in running streams, and there
is here in the museum Korean ironing
board aud irons. The board Is nothing
but u block of wood and the irons are
two paddles. The clothes are laid on
the wood and are pounded with these
paddles until they shine like q shirt |
bosom fresh from Chinese laundry. |
The best dressed people in Korea are the |
men. They wear the most delicate COL |
ored gowns of cotton and silk, of red |
light blue, pink and green, and it takes |
woman half her time to do the wash |
ing. You hear this pounding going on |
day and night in any Korean town, and |
it is one of the aueerest characteristics of
the Korean people. The Japanese. rip
their clothes apart for every was hing and
they iron their clothes by spreading
them out on fiat board and leaning this |
up against the house to dry. The sun
takes the wrinkles out of the clothes,
and some of them have quite lustre.
The Japanese woman does her washing
out of doors. Her wsshtub is not more
than six inches high and is about as big
around as the average dishpan. s e has
never heard of washboard and she gets
the dirt out of the clothes by rubbing
them TO and from between her hands. She
sometimes uses japanese soap, which is
full of grease, and she works away in
her bare feet. If the weather is warm
she will pull her clothes down to her
waist and will feel no shame, though the
street be full of people: No blueing is
used. and as for boiling out the dirt in
tin boiler this Is unkno n. The Chinese
girls do their washing in much the same
way, save that there is not so much
publicity about it, and the pretty short
haired beauties of Siam wear their gowns
On them Into the big river and wash
them while taking their bath. When
they get through they trot up the steps |
)f their floating houses and wrapping q |
clean sheet around their bodies they clip
,f the wet clothes from under it and
wiring them out to dry. Many of the In
iian girls battle in tine same way IN the {
and the washing in Egypt is
Usually done by the men. The Egyptian
FISHERMAN stands naked on the banks of s
he Nile and slapsithe wet clothes, with
loise like the shot of pistol, on the
mooth stones at the edge of the running I
water, and such fellah women as wash I
,ound the dirt out of their clothes in the
anne way. The Scotch girls tramp the
irt out of the washing with their
hapely feet, tucklng their dresses up t
boye the knees as they tread the suds, 4
nd the French women pound the dirt 7
ut with paddles. often slapping the Z
lothes upon stones as the Egyptians. 4
SOME CURIOUS KITCHENS. v
The japanese kitchen is always sup II
lied with running water, and the cook v
lg stoves shown in the museum would e
g laughed at by an American housewife. {
hev are little affairs about two feet c
luare, anu the average stove cooks but q
ne dish at a time. They are heated I
18th charcoal, and in both Japan and a
hlna o great deal of cooking is done with K
tile round balls made of coaldust mixed | ii
18th mud. The Chinese and the Koreans Il
deal IF THAR ~, l-a,-z | =,