The complete servant: Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tablesAdams, Samuel, servant
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The complete servant: Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables
Adams, Samuel, servant
Home economics; Household employees
The business of the footman below stairs being done, he next proceeds
to clean the lamps in the best rooms. The oil in them should be fine
and good, and changed once a week or ten days, and the cottons should
be thick and closely woven, always kept dry, and cut even at the top,
and soaked a little when fresh put in, by letting down the oil to them
for a short time.
For cleaning boots and shoes, he takes care to provide himself with
proper brushes and good blacking. In boots he will not clean the tops
till he has finished the feet and legs, when it will be necessary to
cover the legs whilst he is cleaning the tops.
Ladies’ shoes are to be cleaned with milk, and other liquids, according
to their colour, and merely the edges of the soles are to be blacked
and polished, but in cleaning these and gentlemen’s dress shoes, great
care must be taken not to soil the inside linings.
Afterwards, the next business in rotation in the morning, will be to
clean the mahogany and other furniture, in the parlour and best rooms.
Whether the tables, side-boards, cellerets, chairs, &c. be of a light
or dark colour, they must be cleaned with a preparation or oil of an
appropriate colour.
In using the different compositions, have two pieces of woollen cloth
for each, one to put it on with, and the other for polishing. Sometimes
a hard brush will be required to lay on the paste, and a piece of soft
cork to rub out the stains. Always rub the wood the way of the grain,
and remember to dust the furniture before you begin to clean it.
If oil be used, let it be rubbed off as quickly as possible, and then
polished with another cloth. When wax is used, let it be applied very
sparingly, and polished off with another cloth.
The brass rods or other ornaments to side-boards, cellarets, &c. should
be cleaned before the mahogany is touched. The dirt on these ornaments
may be removed with flannel well soaped, and polished off with the
plate leather. If any brass work has the lacquer worn off, it may be
cleaned with brick-dust and leather.
Every article of furniture should be cleaned and rubbed in the middle
of the room, when convenient, to prevent smearing and injuring the
walls.
_Looking Glasses_ being very costly, should be cleaned with great
care. First, take a clean soft sponge, just squeezed out of water,
and then dipped in spirits of wine; rub the glass over with this,
and then polish it off with fine powder blue, or whiting tied up in
muslin, quickly laid on, and then well rubbed off, with a clean cloth,
and afterwards with a silk handkerchief. If the glass be very large,
no more of it should be wetted with the spirit at a time, than can be
cleaned off quickly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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