All materials into the composition of which wool enters, require great care in washing if they are to retain the properties which render them, in one form or another, so valuable in all climates. It need hardly be pointed out that they are at once hopelessly spoiled by a short immersion in boiling, or even very hot water. For the frequently changed garments of European residents of the Tropics little else is required than immersion and rinsing about in luke-warm or cold soap and water, and there is rarely need to guard against their being spoiled by heat, as neither soap nor hot water are much used by persons following the trade of washing in semi-civilised lands; but the severe beating and manipulation to which they subject everything that comes into their hands is almost as effectual in felting and spoiling woollen goods as great heat. It is pretty well impossible to induce a native to so alter his methods as to wash such articles in the orthodox European fashion, unless, indeed, one were disposed to occupy one’s time in personally superintending the process; but by cautioning against rough and excessive manipulation, and steadily refusing to pay for articles spoiled, it is generally possible to minimise the evil. While touching on the subject of the washing of clothes, it may be well to remark, that although personal superintendence of the process may be out of the question, it is certainly important to find out and inspect the place where the washing is done, which in such countries as India and China, and doubtless elsewhere, will too often be found to be some filthy stagnant pool, redolent with the accumulated dirt of all classes of the population. But for the powerful germ-killing powers of the tropical sun to which the articles are subjected in the process of drying, there can be no doubt that disease would be spread in this way much more frequently than is actually the case, but it will not do to trust this natural disinfection too far, and without counting suspected instances of the transmission of really serious diseases, there can be no doubt that the troublesome skin disease known as “dhobie’s itch,” is often contracted by Europeans in this way. The policy of sparing the imagination by shutting the eyes is, in this case again, a fallacy which may lead to considerable personal inconvenience and perhaps to danger. If, as is not unfrequently the case, all the public washing places are undesirable, it is well worth while providing the simple arrangements required by natives following this calling within one’s own enclosure.