The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-11-10
FYeIENIc LOIS C%LEANINe.
ia should Alt BE Done with Damp
MOP ana SOFT Cloths b Atoil
the Dust.

According to the most advanced hy-
gienic theories alarming diseases are
literally thrown at the unsuspecting
heads Of every individual member Of
q family whose domesticity isl dis
tuFbed by a pronounced tendency for
sweeping And this because the erst-
while innocent but now condemned
broom stirs up dust and fills the att
mosphere with matter to which, in all
probability, germs" are clinging To
scatter these germs broadcast over
furniture is bad enough, but more dam
gerous is it to distribute them over
pictures and walls, where they secrete
themselves with malicious intent.
This is not to achieve that cleanliness
which is next to goodness, but rather
to spread evil in the home,
And let not the housewife fondly
imagine because she vigorously applies
her broom on the carpet that she is
getting out the dirt, even if she has
at one end of the room the accumu-
lated dirt-enough, perhaps, to fill her
dust pan. This proof of the pudding
is no proof at all, though she has al
ways at the end. Of her labor been
wont to regard the pile with tremen-
dous. satisfaction. That was because
she was merely an energetic house
wife and not a scientist and did not
know that while she was welding her
broom she vas doing two reprehensi-
bic things-one, rubbing down through
the carpet with every stroke twice as
much dirt as was visible on the sur
face, and the other, waiting upward
in air currents germ-tainted hoccu-
lent dust.
The only proper way to clean a car
pet is to have it taken up once q week
and beaten out Of doors. But this
would increase the labors of house
cleaning, and dismay even that ener-
getic type of housewife who delights
in perpetual cleaning, to the terror
and discomfort of the masculine sex.
As an expedient, therefore, and a
substitute for the broom, the carpet
sweeper is permitted, according to hy-
gienic law. This modern improvement
is scorned by many housewives, but it
now behooves them to learn it's worth.
Rubbed gently e the carpet it raises
no germ-tainted, focculent dust, but
picks up and throws into a receiving
chamber all the dirt, thereby achiev-
ing a general cleanliness beyond the
power of the broom, says a domestic
exchange.
Along with the broom is condemned
the "despicable feather buster" which
many women swish over walls and fur
niture under the mistaken impression
that they are removing dust. Hun
dreds of housewives are loyal to the
feather buster, when it seems as if to
the simplest mind the fact would be
apparent that the feather buster
merely scatters the dust.
To be strictly hygienic and up to
date, all the cleaning of a house
should be done with a damp mop and
soft cloths. Carpets should be ban
ished along with the broom andtfeath-
er buster, and on the oil-fnished floors
should be rugs that can be easily re-
moved and beaten out of doors. Rooms
cleaned with a mop are never filed
with clouds of dust settling down
again in hooks and corners, and the
mop does its work on the floor thor
oughIy. The furniture of the room
should then be carefully wiped with
soft cloths, which take up every yes
tige of dust blown in from the outside,
and thus the room is purified and
made hygienically clean.