The amount of washing done at home depends on circumstances and occasions. It may be difficult for the lady who lives in a flat in one of the big apartment buildings always to wash a great many clothes, since she cannot dry the wash on the roof if the building is a towering one of many stories; while it may be easy for the lady who lives in the country, or in a villa in the suburbs, to do a great deal of washing, since it is a simple matter to hang it out on the roof or in the garden.

In many houses built in the modern European style there is a special place for the laundry, in which you will find an apparatus for heating water by electricity, coal, or gas, a washing table, and a zinc tub with a tap, like a bathtub, used for washing and for boiling clothes. The housewife can now equip the laundry room of her house with the latest inventions needed for washing and ironing clothes.

The Dast, or Boiler

This is the old-fashioned type of copper boiler that was used in times gone by. The water is usually heated by setting the fire beneath it or in a hollow cylinder, the fuel being ordinarily coal or wood; and these boilers can consume every kind of rubbish, refuse, and debris to be found in the house. After use the boiler should be cleaned well, dried, and covered with its lid — and before the fire is lit it must be filled with fresh water, and the water must not be emptied out of it before the fire is put out.

The Copper Heaters Used for Baths

There is also a kind of copper apparatus used in small houses to heat the bath water on the same floor of the house or on a floor below it. It is a copper boiler filled with water from a tap above it, with gas lit underneath. When the water grows hot, the tap is closed and another tap is opened, connected to a pipe leading to the bath, so that the hot water flows from the boiler to the bath, while as it runs down it is replaced by fresh cold water from another tap above the boiler.

Washing Machines

Mechanical washing machines run either on gas or on electricity. At the present time we find that the machines run by electricity are heavier in expense than their counterparts run by gas. Most of them are fitted with a wringer, and some are fitted with a second tub in which the clothes are rinsed. All washing machines contain an internal agitator that makes the water churn around the clothes and penetrate them, so that they come clean without any need of rubbing. The lady should choose the machine of simple construction, with a crank handle that she can turn by hand. In these machines there are fans that revolve and dry the clothes with air, and in some of them there are metal baskets; most machines of this kind are used only in large houses.

As for the essential materials needed for the wash, they are:

1 — Water. Water is the first thing the housewife needs, and it must be clean, fresh, and soft.

2 — Soap. This must be of a good kind.

3 — Soda. It must be used with precision and caution, for too much of it ruins clothes; it is very useful for cleaning dirty clothes soiled with grease or oils.

4 — Salt. Used for cleaning and for preserving the colors in colored clothes.

5 — Ammonia. Useful in washing woolen clothes or those made of flannel; it must be used with precision and caution.

6 — Starch. Used in ironing clothes; it is well known and widespread.

7 — Vinegar. Exactly like salt, it benefits clothes by preserving their colors and restoring the luster of the dyes to them when they fade; it is mixed with water. The housewife should note that clothes needing mending or special attention — such as the removal of stains and the like — must be attended to before washday.

The linens, bed sheets, and table covers should be separated together; the woolen, silk, and colored clothes are separated by themselves; the handkerchiefs are likewise separated by themselves (the white together and the col-ored together); while the kitchen towels and the things that are dirty or soiled with oils and grease are separated together and boiled.

The washing process, whether done by hand or by the special machine, is one and the same. Its basis is to immerse the clothes and the other things to be washed in soap, and then to remove the dirt by rubbing and agitating them in the water. There are, however, certain differences: some clothes must be boiled, some must be soaked in water mixed with soap and not rubbed, and some need much rubbing — and here I shall explain this in what follows:

They must be soaked overnight in water, so that they may be