FROM KITCHEN TO GARRET PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON FROM KITCHEN TO GARRET _HINTS FOR YOUNG HOUSEHOLDERS_ BY J. E. PANTON _SEVENTH EDITION_ London WARD & DOWNEY 12 YORK STREET, CONVENT GARDEN 1890 TO ‘PRIMROSE’ ‘MOLLIE’ ‘FRÄULEIN’ ‘CHERRY BLOSSOM’ AND MANY OTHERS WHO FROM CORRESPONDENTS HAVE BECOME FRIENDS THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF THESE HINTS TO YOUNG HOUSEHOLDS This Work is Dedicated BY THEIR ATTACHED MENTOR AND GUIDE THE AUTHOR PREFACE. In presenting this book in a completed and augmented form to the public, I think a few words of explanation are necessary, lest the way in which the chapters are written may lay me open to a charge of egotism. About two years ago I began writing a series of short articles in the pages of the ‘Lady’s Pictorial’ on the absorbing subject of housekeeping, meaning to confine myself strictly to the house and home of the British matron who begins life with little money and less experience, never thinking anything more would come of them than a mere temporary access of work for a few weeks; but I had not begun them for more than a month when, through the office of the paper, a regular and increasing mass of correspondence began to reach me, asking questions on every subject under the sun, from the proper management of a house and the feeding of a baby to the fearful inquiry whether I thought a wife should leave her husband or not when she discovered all too late she liked somebody else better than she did her lord and master. Since then I have become a species of ‘mother confessor’ to hundreds of unknown and valued friends in all parts of the world. I have correspondents in New Zealand, India, America, and in all parts of the Continent, and they have demanded of me that I shall produce a book evolved from my articles and from the pages of ‘Answers to Correspondents,’ which have been my work and my great pleasure since the articles on the home began; and as they persist in asking for my experience and my opinions I am obliged to give them, though knowing and fearing I shall be accused of speaking everlastingly about myself; still I have never mentioned a thing I have not tried or experienced, nor spoken of a single chair, table, or, in fact, anything that I have not honestly and truly tried myself.