Have a tray for holding necessary articles, soft cloth, paper, strong, sharp scissors, lamp chimney brush. When the lamp is to be cleaned, set it upon this tray. Take off all the easily removable parts. Fill the lamp through a funnel, and do not let the kerosene run over. Wipe off the charred wick with paper, and wipe the burner. Wash off the lamp in warm soap suds, wash and polish the chimney and shade, and replace. If you cannot get rid of odor, take the burner apart, boil it in a solution of washing soda, and put in a new wick. Cleaning a lamp is not nearly so disagreeable as many people think it, when it is done with good will. To shirk it means an unpleasant odor in the room and a poor light. Always fill the lamp in the daytime and keep it away from the fire. =Household insects.=——Keep out flies and mosquitoes by screens, but see first that your premises are clean, and do what you can in the whole neighborhood. Flies breed in dirty stables and mosquitoes in standing water. The stables must be cleaned and kept so, and water drained off or kerosene put upon it. Mosquitoes will breed in water in an empty milk bottle or old tomato can. If flies enter the house, kill them in some way. Wire or net fly killers cost only ten cents, and do good work. If the flies are very numerous, catch them in wire traps, or burn pyrethrum powder in the room. At night when they are on the ceiling, catch them in a glass of hot water and soap, not quite full, by holding the glass under the fly and gently knocking the glass against the ceiling. If the ceiling is high, tack an empty can on the end of an old broom stick and set the glass in that. Clothing moths are kept out by precautions already mentioned. If bed bugs appear, go over the bed with great care and examine the bedstead. Wash it off with kerosene, putting this well into the cracks. A single insect may be brought in on the clothing. If they continue to appear, all wall paper should be removed, woodwork varnished or painted. It may be necessary to resort to fumigation, but this should be done by an expert. Croton or water bugs are difficult to destroy, if they are once in a house. No garbage should be left about, to attract them at night. There are powders that drive them away, and another remedy is sulphur paste, which comes for the purpose, and which may be spread on slices of potato. The U. S. Department of Agriculture issues free bulletins on the suppression of household insects. =Precautions against fire.=——So many disastrous fires occur as a result of a careless act that we need to train ourselves in caution. The matches used should be of the safety type. They should be blown out, never shaken, and never thrown into a basket of papers. When matches are used, always have a small fire-proof receptacle in each room. Smokers are often careless in regard to their matches, cigars, and pipes. Be careful in summer to see that a breeze cannot blow some light curtain over a candle or lamp.