Produced by Chris Curnow, John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=. Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book. There are only 3 in this book. A superscript is denoted by ^x or ^{xx}, for example S^T. A subscript is denoted by _{x}, for example H_{2}O_{2}. Basic fractions are displayed as ½ ⅓ ¼ etc; other fractions are shown in the form a-b/c, for example 9/10 or 1-5/16. Quantities are separated from the unit by a space, for example ‘3 ft.’ or ‘12½ lb.’ Some quantities had a linking - such as ‘12½-lb.’ For consistency this - has been removed in the etext. Numerous minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. SPONS’ HOUSEHOLD MANUAL: A TREASURY OF DOMESTIC RECEIPTS And Guide for HOME MANAGEMENT. [Illustration: (Publisher colophon)] London: E. & F. N. SPON, 125 STRAND. New York: SPON & CHAMBERLAIN, 12 CORTLANDT STREET. 1894 PREFACE. Time was when the foremost aim and ambition of the English housewife was to gain a full knowledge of her own duties and of the duties of her servants. In those days, bread was home-baked, butter home-made, beer home-brewed, gowns home-sewn, to a far greater extent than now. With the advance of education, there is much reason to fear that the essentially domestic part of the training of our daughters is being more and more neglected. Yet what can be more important for the comfort and welfare of the household than an appreciation of their needs and an ability to furnish them. Accomplishments, all very good in their way, must, to the true housewife, be secondary to all that concerns the health, the feeding, the clothing, the housing of those under her care. And what a range of knowledge this implies,--from sanitary engineering to patching a garment, from bandaging a wound to keeping the frost out of water pipes. It may safely be said that the mistress of a family is called upon to exercise an amount of skill and learning in her daily routine such as is demanded of few men, and this too without the benefit of any special education or preparation; for where is the school or college which includes among its “subjects” the study of such every-day matters as bad drains, or the gapes in chickens, or the removal of stains from clothes, or the bandaging of wounds, or the management of a kitchen range? Indeed, it is worthy of consideration whether our schools of cookery might not with very great advantage be supplemented by schools of general household instruction.