Every housekeeper should keep a strict account of all her expenditures; should see that each bill is receipted when paid; should file all receipts, and keep them for a year at least - we should rather say two or three. All housekeeping bills should be paid every week, for it is easier to pay small sums than large ones; and besides, the correctness of the bills can then be ascertained. The mistress should look over each one herself, and thus she will detect, and can check, any inaccuracy on the part of the tradesmen, or extravagance on the part of her servants. Should she be her own housekeeper, let her deal regularly with respectable tradesmen, for they will rarely risk losing a good customer by sending bad goods. Bargain-hunting is always perilous, even to good judges. Cheap tea, coffee, sugar, etc, are all adulterated; cheap vegetables and fruit are generally stale; cheap meat is that which has been sent ready killed to the market, and therefore is by no means as fresh as might be wished; and cheap poultry and fish are to be regarded with very great suspicion.

Those who have store-closets will find their advantage in purchasing some things wholesale. Candles should be bought in the latter part of summer, when they are usually cheaper, and a store laid in, for they improve by keeping. So does soap. Coal, too, should be ordered in July or August, and if there is cellarage, a stock for the winter laid in. Many groceries may be purchased in quantities at considerable saving. The same remark applies to bacon, butter, and cheese; but unless there are good dry storerooms, these latter cannot be kept. It is useless to make pickles or preserves unless the house is dry - in damp localities these things mildew and spoil; nor are we sure that in small families it is economical to make them at all, they can be bought so reasonably. All stores should be kept by the mistress, and given out as required.

All good homekeepers will provide themselves with weights and scales, and thus be prepared to check the quantities of stores sent them by their tradespeople, who are as liable to make errors in weighing as in casting their bills. "We cannot too particularly impress this upon the attention of our readers, as an essential means of protecting themselves against errors in weight, whether arising from accident or design. Many heads of families are exceedingly particular about the price of their purchases, who are utterly regardless whether or not they have the weight they paid for. Tradesmen are aware of this trust reposed in them, and too often take advantage of it. Unlike the symbol of Justice, who, as she holds the scales in her hands, is blind to all partialities, some tradesmen (some especially amongst the class who are purveyors to the poor) are too open-eyed to see that they descend in their own favor.

In the realm which our housewife is to govern, order, cleanliness, punctuality, and economy must be the fundamental principles which, by precept and practice, she endeavors to enforce. It matters little whether her subjects are limited to a single maid-of-all-work, or general servant, as it is now the fashion to call this domestic, or whether she reign over two, three, or more "helps," still the principle must be the same; a certain routine of daily and weekly duties must be laid down, and it lies with the mistress to see that not only these are performed properly, but that all incidental matters are likewise attended to. However wealthy a family may be, they are not willing that their houses and furniture should be injured by neglect or mismanagement. Money can enable a man to hire more domestics, but it cannot provide that these persons shall be cleanly, diligent, trustworthy, and painstaking; it cannot secure him from the consequences of their ignorance, their carelessness, their extravagance. Nothing but the supervision of the mistress, or a good housekeeper, can do this. If, then, a rich man, who can pay the best wages, and hire the most experienced servants, finds still that he lacks something, how much more will one of moderate income or of limited means suffer, should he not find in his wife a housewife?

Work Table.

What I am now about to say, some of my readers may think perhaps out of place; nevertheless I shall say it. A woman cannot really do her duty as a wife, mother, or mistress of a family, unless she is fully sensible of the importance of health, and gives to all sanitary measures their due attention. With loss of health come diminished powers of usefulness. Languor and delicacy in a wife may call forth the sympathies, but do not increase the comforts or happiness of a professional or business man; neither do they render a woman more inclined for, or equal to, the performance of her part in domestic life. And too many of our young girls render themselves languid, feeble, and delicate, by inattention to the commonest requirements of human nature. The crying evil of small towns is usually the want of baths attached to houses, and the small size of bed-rooms; now these are in general accepted as things which must be endured, and little or no attempt is made to palliate them. All medical men, however, agree that plentiful ablutions of the body with cold or tepid water, and a good supply of fresh air in every sleeping and sitting-room, do more to preserve health than all the drugs in the pharmacopoeia. And next to these come early rising, avoidance of late hours and crowded assemblies, regular exercise in the open air, attention to diet, and abstinence from pernicious viands, as pastry, sweetmeats, rich gravies, unripe fruit, etc. Pork, veal, and various kinds of vegetables can only be eaten sparingly and occasionally by some persons. Spirits should only be used medicinally, that is to say, at times when common sense tells us they might be of benefit. To take them habitually is equivalent to slow poison.