This section is from the book "Facts Worth Knowing", by Robert Kemp Philip. Also available from Amazon: Inquire Within for Anything You Want to Know.
To Destroy Flies in room, take half a tea-spoonful 01 black pepper in powder, one tea-spoonful of brown sugar, and one table-spoonful of cream, mix them well together, and place them in the room on a plate, where the flies are troublesome, and they will soon disappear.
Where A Chimney Smokes only when the fire is first lighted, it may be guarded against by allowing the fire to kindle gradually.
Whenever Oil Is Used for the purpose of artificial light, it should be kept free from all exposure to atmospheric air; as it is apt to absorb considerable quantities of oxygon. If oil is very coarse or tenacious, a very small quantity of oil of turpentine may be added.
Family Clocks ought only to be oiled with the very purest oil, purified by a quart of lime water to a gallon of oil, in which it has been well shaken, and suffered to stand for three or four days, when it may be drawn off.
To Heat A Bed at a mo-ment's notice, throw a little salt into the warming-pan and suffer it to burn for a minute previous to use.
Introduce a glass goblet between the sheets for a minute or two, just when the warming pan is taken out; if the bed be dry, there will only be a slight cloudy appearance on the glass, but if not, the damp of the bed will assume the more formidable appearance of drops, the warring of danger.
Flowers And Shrubs should be excluded from a bed-chamber.
Water of every kind, except rain water, will speedily cover the inside of a tea-kettle with an unpleasant crust; this may easily be guarded against by placing a clean oyster-shell in the tea-kettle, which will always keep it in good order, by attracting the particles of earth or of stone.
In Preparing Tea a good economist will be careful to have the best water, that is, the softest and I impregnated with foreign mixture, for if tea bo infused in hard and in soft water, the latter will always yield the greatest quantity of the tanning matter, and will strike the deepest black, with sulphate of iron in solution.
In Making Coffee, observe that the broader the bottom and the smaller the top of the vessel, the better it will be.
To Drive Away Moths from clothes, wrap up some yellow or turpentine soap in paper; or place an open bottle containing spirits of turpentine in the wardrobe.
 
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