Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-11-18
WASTE PLACES
IN THE HOME
Some Ways and Means of Making Life
HAPPIER and More Comfortable
ONLY NECESSARY TO USE SOME BRAINS
With But Small Expenditures of Money There Are
Places Where There Can Be Saving In the
Living Rooms and In the Kitchen. Without
Sacrifice of Pleasure, Comfort or Enjoyment.


With all these old-fashioned thing.
they believed that they were acquiring
simplicity of life. But the neighbol
would calmly smile when her friend.
lI )tested against her parting with the
heirlooms. AS she sat quietly in hel
kitchen with oil-cloth covered fiool
and table, lighted with electricity, SHE
replied that all her life before she haC
used her time and strength entirely OF
the scrubbling Of the white woods anC
the polishing Of the brass and silver
because she had not money enough t.
buy cheap but less exhausting substi.
tutes. Now, without this care, she hat
time for rest and reading and think.
ing, for which she had always longed
That was a truly wise woman, who
had not become so owned and possess.
ed by the things that she could not see
and appreciate her chance for free.
dom.
In her definition of home economics
Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, professor ir
Institute of Technology in Boston, says
that ut stands for the utilization of al
resources Of modern science to i'm.
prove home life, and also the freedom
Of the home from the dominance Of
things and their due subordination tc
ideals"
It is Mrs. Richards, also, who says
in her very practical and valuable lit.
tie book entitled The Cost of Living as
Modified by Sanitary Science: How
far really valuable mechanical appli-
ances are found In house! How little
attention is paid to saving of labor!
Household architecture Is so years be-
hind shop building and factory con-
struction!"
But just now, when the increased
cost of living appears in capitals ev-
erywhere, money waste is one in which
even we Americans are interested
We seem in the past to have beer
quite proud of our reputation as a ma
ton of spendthrifts and have glorie6
in the statement that almost any other
nation could live we'll on what we
throw away. Perhaps the increase In
our prices, which were already far
above those of other nations, may
prove in the end a blessing by MAX
ing us pause and consider the foolish
ness of our ways. 1t takes no brains
at all to throw money away. 1t is
rather the sign Of no brains used on the
subject Mrs. Richards Is again my
authority for the statement that about
one-half Of our incomes Is wasted, "or
in other words our incomes go only
one-half as far as they should" The
author Of an article in the current
number of the Good Housekeeping
says, I'VE hear a great deal about for
eign households living handsomely on
what American cooks throw away
This is true enough, but by no means
in the sense that foreigners live on
the refuse of our kitchens. Rather
we in our ignorance throw away as
refuse that which these wiser ones
know to be the soul of substance
| The use of the left-overs Is a subject
which could take hours of study, and
| in very brief time I will not attempt
much more than mention Of it. The
French housekeeper has thought OF
| many good ways to use every edible
material which comes into the home
from the pea-pods to the chickens legs
and feet, extracting the good of the
| materials by boiling when they cannot
be served themselves. And the French
are noted for their attractive and deli
cious food. We are not willing to con-
cede the French woman more brains
than the American woman, so 1t be-
hooves us to get our minds to the sub
| ject and see what we can make OF It.
To be sure 1t takes thought on our part,
and we cannot leave 1t to the cook, II
we have one, but it is worth the effort
to remove the reproach Of ineff1ciency
from our name. Making a salad, soup,
or a hash is too easy to really count
as a way for utilizing leftover mate
rial, though not every one knows how
to make these delicious with proper
seasoning and f1avoring. The sopho-
more cooking classes have been max
| ing attractive batter cakes and muf-
| fins this week from leftover cereals
rice oatmeal and hominy and cream
| of wheat.
The fat which cooks out of breakfast
bacon is better for frying potatoes
and eggs than any other fat Beef
fat, or suet, makes the best shortening
for pastry and biscuit and is good in
cakes If carefully clarified, The water
in which most vegetables have been
cooked contains a fairly large amount
of valuable food and a flavor very use
full in making sauces or soups. These
are as you see, simply random Sugges-
tions. Every housekeeper knoweth her
own left-overs and it Is for her to stu
| dy their use.
Another waste place" may be in
our fuel bill. The kind of fuel used
may differ largely in different parts of
| the United States, and even in the
same locality may be dependent upon
whether one lives in town or country.
But 1t is we'll for us to consider the
question sometimes. 1t does not take
| great deal of arithmetic to see that
when a fire is to be kept up for long
time, as In a kitchen range, cord
| of hard wook-oak or hickory-at S4.5O
Is cheaper than a cord of pine at $3.50,
since the pine burns at least twice as
| fast as the hard wood. Do you call 1t
economy to live in house with sin
Lola in l.
Grafton the cords of wood burned in a
few years, just to heat the cold air
coming up through the thin floor?
Aside from the anxiety and possible
sorrow, is it cheaper to allow case
of typhoid fever in our family than to
spend money on procuring uncontam-
! mated drinking water or screening all
food from the possibility of infection
with the disease by flies lighting on
it? 1t might even pay us to spend
several dollars on books which could
tell us more about household means of
preventing disease than we already
know.
We may also find a leakage in our
choice in buying-whether of foods or
other household necessities. In our en-
deavor to be economical we are often
actually extravagant. When choosing
between two things of different price,
our ideas of comparative expense must
be governed not only by present cost,
but by total value. We may proudly
boast of having curtained a room with
muslin at cents yard instead or
paying 12 cents, quite ignoring the
fact that one material will not last
even half as long as the other, and our
time and energy will be wasted as well
as our money. Verify, in the words
of the Prophet Isaiah, we spend
money for that which is not bread and
our labor for THAI which satisfieth
not" largely because we have not real
lied the real business of housekeep-
ing. A business should be carried on
with business methods-not necessarily
with those of another business-but
surely with some method, or it is like
ly to he all madness. A plea that he
has no head for business" would not
excuse a man for inCapacity, nor will
it free a woman from the responsibility
for the best possible conduct of the
business of the household, upon which
rests largely the power of its members
to follow other business or pleasure.
1t is Professor Divine, l think, who
says that greater prosperity depends
not so much on increased incomes,
but upon wiser spending.