These small French irons are to be got of different sizes, and answer remarkably well for nightcap-borders, or frills of any kind. When making use of them you should be near a stove or fire, where they can be frequently heated, for, as they cannot be used when very hot, for fear of singing the lace, they require to be constantly heated, and must be wiped with a cloth each time before being used. The care of the silver plate will also be part of the housemaid’s occupation in a family where no footman is kept. Every day, what is in daily use will require to be washed perfectly free from grease, in boiling water, then rinsed through cold water, wiped with a clean linen cloth, and rubbed up with soft chamois leather; very little daily rubbing will be required if, once every week, the different articles are washed with a sponge in pretty strong soap lye, well rinsed in warm water, and rubbed up with the chamois leather; it is the rubbing well that gives polish and brightness, and where plate is cleaned regularly once a week with soap, it has a beautiful pale bright silvery look, very different from that dark lustre which plate, cleaned with rouge, presents. Quicksilver is generally mixed with those plate-powders sold in the shops, and the high lustre which it gives at first is soon effaced, and gives place to a dark, tarnished appearance; besides, if plate-powder of this nature is frequently used, the article becomes so brittle that a silver spoon or fork may be broken by a fall on a stone floor. Once in the three months it may be well to clean all the plate thoroughly by washing it first with soap-lye and hot water, and then rubbing it, either with the finest sifted whiting and spirits of wine, or strong spirits, or with prepared hartshorn and spirits of wine, and, when quite dry, polishing briskly with the soft chamois leather, and also with the palm of the hand—the longer plate is rubbed the brighter it will look. The rouge sold by silversmiths is generally composed of prepared hartshorn mixed with quicksilver, and coloured with a little rose-pink, and an extravagant price is demanded for it: but in many houses, where the plate has been remarked for having a particularly beautiful appearance, it has been ascertained, that washing with soap lye, and polishing with chamois leather and the palm of the hand, had done all, and that only twice during the year had the plate been cleaned with plate-powder; prepared hartshorn, with only so much rouge as to give it a pale pinkish appearance, were then used.