19th century LIFE HACKS
TIPS AND HINTS FROM 1880S NEWSPAPERS
TO EASE SUNBURN: A young lady who suffered much from sunburn during the holidays, wishes to advise anyone similarly afflicted to rub a little new flour on the skin. It will take away the burning sensation immediately.
TO HOLD ONE'S MOUTH PROPERLY: The proper mouth of the present season is worn in a constant but mild smile, the corners being drawn back horizontally, with the lips left closed. The expression is one of amiable quiet satisfaction with all the world, as though the mind is free from sorrow and the feet free from corns. Care should be taken not to broaden this into an active grin, except on mirthful occasions, nor should the lips be compressed. All should be in repose.
TO KISS A GIRL WELL: Throw the right arm languidly around the fair one's shoulder, tilt her chin up with the left hand until her nose is pointed at an angle of forty-five degrees, or rather until it has an aspect resembling the bowsprit of a clipper-built sloop, then stoop slowly and graze about her lips in a quiet, subdued sort of way and tickle her nose with your moustache until she cries "Ouch!"
TO MAKE GINGER BEER: Take four pounds sugar, a quarter-pound bruised ginger, quarter-pound cream of tartar and three or four lemons, sliced. Put all in an earthenware jar, and pour on them four gallons boiling water. Cover till lukewarm, then strain and add 8 ounces yeast. Let it work for three or four days, skim, strain through clean flannel, bottle and fasten down corks with string or wire. This beer can be used in two or three days, is better if kept for a week.
TO KEEP INSECTS OUT OF BIRD CAGES: tie up a little sulphur in a bag and suspend it in the cage.
TO IMPROVE POSTURE:
An erect carriage when walking or riding is not only much more graceful and becoming than a stooping gait, but tends to the healthy development of a full round chest, while stooping lessens the size of the cavity in which the lungs play. To all sensible ladies, expansion, of the chest is therefore of greater importance than contraction of the waist. It is a noticeable fact, that since the introduction of chest expanding shoulderettes, many ladies in Auckland walk much more gracefully than before.
TO PROMOTE CALM WHILE DINING: All exciting topics of conversation should be avoided, even at the family table. Warm discussions and heated tempers interfere sadly with the digestion and are in very bad taste. It should be made the study of every lady how to turn the tide of a dangerous topic into some other channel.
TO KEEP TABLE OIL CLOTHS IN GOOD CONDITION: Wash them once a month with skim milk, and rub once in three months with boiled linseed oil. Put on a very little, rub it in well with a rag, and polish with a piece of old silk. Oilcloths will last years if treated in this way. You can buy a shilling's worth of linseed oil at the painter's. You must leave the room for an hour or two to allow the oil to dry in.
TO CLEAN GLOVES: Put them on and button them; then put the hands in a dish containing about a cupful of clean, unsifted dry wheat flour. Rub the hands softly as if washing with soap, and continue for fifteen minutes. Shake off the flour and, with a clean brush, go over the gloves while they are still on the hands. If they are of dressed kid use a very soft brush, but if undressed kid is to be treated a slightly stiff brush is best. This process will remove the soil received from a printed programme or a coloured dress. If the stain be obstinate, take a piece from the inside of a baked loaf and rub the spot with it.
TO KEEP A HUSBAND AT HOME: It is folly in the extreme for young wives to try to tie the husband too closely to their apron strings. There is a way of doing this that is art itself — doing it cleverly and closely, SO that while the husband does not suspect it, he is bound hand and foot. There is something about man's nature that gives him a keen appreciation of the comfortable. No one knows better than himself when he is well pleased, and the way to tie him to his wife's apron strings is to have the apron of a very charming pattern, and the strings so silken, so fine and so numerous that he not aware how he is bound, although the interesting fact remains that his leisure hours are spent at home.
TO EASE RHEUMATISM PAIN: Most people will do well to reduce the diet by even one half. Live abstemiously and abjure stimulants or let the doctor prescribe them, because he will tell you that they must only be taken with food. Woollen clothing, a regulated diet, avoidance of everything likely to cause acidity, regular exercise, the cold bath before breakfast, open-air exercise — not violent— and an annual and complete holiday; these will do more good in quelling a rheumatic tendency than medicine or anything else.
TO BE A GOOD WIFE: The young wife should manifest an interest in her husband's plans and work. His success is yours. His failure is yours. Deny yourself to help him. A selfish, vain, frivolous, pleasure-seeking wife, who is anxious to dress well, go to amusements and appear more than she is, who goes into hysterics, is disappointed and cries at every little thing, who thinks she must be supported — God pity her husband! She may be affectionate and sweet, and understand French and sing like a bird, but she is a dead weight, a clog to her husband - less help than the kitten that plays at his feet. Ah, the men who are kept poor, yea, made poor, by wives whose highest idea of wifehood is to be petted! They were always babies, but when a baby becomes a wife she is a simpleton. Have your husband feel you are his partner, and be willing to live as he is able until you can afford something better.
TO PRESERVE POTATOES: Dipping them in boiling water is a valuable and useful discovery. Large quantities may be cured by putting them into a basket as large as the vessel containing the boiling water will admit, and then dipping them a minute or two at most. Then dry in an oven, and put up in sacks.
TO SCOUR A FLOOR: The room must not be wetted until all the dirt and dust have been removed and carried away. If boards are allowed to get very dirty they are very hard to clean. Soda makes boards yellow, soap makes them black. Neither should be used unless to remove grease spots. A little clean sand is of use when the floors have been neglected. Nothing stains or discolours boards sooner than dirty water. As soon as water is too dirty for the hand to be plainly seen in it, it is unfit for cleaning; change it. The boards should be first swilled with water, then scoured briskly with a hard brush the way of the grain. After the scouring, wash over again with water, and dry thoroughly with house cloth and flannel.
TO HELP A BABY CHOKED UP WITH A COLD: Peel and slice a large onion. Putting a thick layer of white sugar between each layer of onion, let it stand until the sugar has become absorbed in the juice of the onion. Feed babies this juice. Little ones will soon learn to love it, and take it willingly without the slightest idea that they are only taking a medicine for their cold. The juice of a roasted onion taken on a little sugar is also good.
TO USE EGGS FOR HEALING: Nothing is more soothing for burns and scalds than the white of an egg poured over the wound. It is more cooling than the sweet oil and cotton which was formerly supposed to be the surest application to allay the pain. The egg is also considered to be one of the best remedies for dysentery. Beaten up slightly, with or without sugar, and swallowed at a gulp, it tends by its emollient qualities to lessen the inflammation of stomach and intestines, and by forming a transient coating on these organs, to enable nature to resume her healthful sway over a diseased body.
TO KILL MOTHS OR FLYING INSECTS: Entice them to destruction by setting a bright tin pan, half filled with kerosene, in a dark corner of the room. Attracted by the bright pan, the moth will meet his death in the kerosene.
All of this essential advice for life is from 1880s copies of The Observer newspaper, Auckland, available online at PapersPast
TO HOLD ONE'S MOUTH PROPERLY: The proper mouth of the present season is worn in a constant but mild smile, the corners being drawn back horizontally, with the lips left closed. The expression is one of amiable quiet satisfaction with all the world, as though the mind is free from sorrow and the feet free from corns. Care should be taken not to broaden this into an active grin, except on mirthful occasions, nor should the lips be compressed. All should be in repose.
TO KISS A GIRL WELL: Throw the right arm languidly around the fair one's shoulder, tilt her chin up with the left hand until her nose is pointed at an angle of forty-five degrees, or rather until it has an aspect resembling the bowsprit of a clipper-built sloop, then stoop slowly and graze about her lips in a quiet, subdued sort of way and tickle her nose with your moustache until she cries "Ouch!"
TO MAKE GINGER BEER: Take four pounds sugar, a quarter-pound bruised ginger, quarter-pound cream of tartar and three or four lemons, sliced. Put all in an earthenware jar, and pour on them four gallons boiling water. Cover till lukewarm, then strain and add 8 ounces yeast. Let it work for three or four days, skim, strain through clean flannel, bottle and fasten down corks with string or wire. This beer can be used in two or three days, is better if kept for a week.
TO KEEP INSECTS OUT OF BIRD CAGES: tie up a little sulphur in a bag and suspend it in the cage.
TO IMPROVE POSTURE:
An erect carriage when walking or riding is not only much more graceful and becoming than a stooping gait, but tends to the healthy development of a full round chest, while stooping lessens the size of the cavity in which the lungs play. To all sensible ladies, expansion, of the chest is therefore of greater importance than contraction of the waist. It is a noticeable fact, that since the introduction of chest expanding shoulderettes, many ladies in Auckland walk much more gracefully than before.
TO PROMOTE CALM WHILE DINING: All exciting topics of conversation should be avoided, even at the family table. Warm discussions and heated tempers interfere sadly with the digestion and are in very bad taste. It should be made the study of every lady how to turn the tide of a dangerous topic into some other channel.
TO KEEP TABLE OIL CLOTHS IN GOOD CONDITION: Wash them once a month with skim milk, and rub once in three months with boiled linseed oil. Put on a very little, rub it in well with a rag, and polish with a piece of old silk. Oilcloths will last years if treated in this way. You can buy a shilling's worth of linseed oil at the painter's. You must leave the room for an hour or two to allow the oil to dry in.
TO CLEAN GLOVES: Put them on and button them; then put the hands in a dish containing about a cupful of clean, unsifted dry wheat flour. Rub the hands softly as if washing with soap, and continue for fifteen minutes. Shake off the flour and, with a clean brush, go over the gloves while they are still on the hands. If they are of dressed kid use a very soft brush, but if undressed kid is to be treated a slightly stiff brush is best. This process will remove the soil received from a printed programme or a coloured dress. If the stain be obstinate, take a piece from the inside of a baked loaf and rub the spot with it.
TO KEEP A HUSBAND AT HOME: It is folly in the extreme for young wives to try to tie the husband too closely to their apron strings. There is a way of doing this that is art itself — doing it cleverly and closely, SO that while the husband does not suspect it, he is bound hand and foot. There is something about man's nature that gives him a keen appreciation of the comfortable. No one knows better than himself when he is well pleased, and the way to tie him to his wife's apron strings is to have the apron of a very charming pattern, and the strings so silken, so fine and so numerous that he not aware how he is bound, although the interesting fact remains that his leisure hours are spent at home.
TO EASE RHEUMATISM PAIN: Most people will do well to reduce the diet by even one half. Live abstemiously and abjure stimulants or let the doctor prescribe them, because he will tell you that they must only be taken with food. Woollen clothing, a regulated diet, avoidance of everything likely to cause acidity, regular exercise, the cold bath before breakfast, open-air exercise — not violent— and an annual and complete holiday; these will do more good in quelling a rheumatic tendency than medicine or anything else.
TO BE A GOOD WIFE: The young wife should manifest an interest in her husband's plans and work. His success is yours. His failure is yours. Deny yourself to help him. A selfish, vain, frivolous, pleasure-seeking wife, who is anxious to dress well, go to amusements and appear more than she is, who goes into hysterics, is disappointed and cries at every little thing, who thinks she must be supported — God pity her husband! She may be affectionate and sweet, and understand French and sing like a bird, but she is a dead weight, a clog to her husband - less help than the kitten that plays at his feet. Ah, the men who are kept poor, yea, made poor, by wives whose highest idea of wifehood is to be petted! They were always babies, but when a baby becomes a wife she is a simpleton. Have your husband feel you are his partner, and be willing to live as he is able until you can afford something better.
TO PRESERVE POTATOES: Dipping them in boiling water is a valuable and useful discovery. Large quantities may be cured by putting them into a basket as large as the vessel containing the boiling water will admit, and then dipping them a minute or two at most. Then dry in an oven, and put up in sacks.
TO SCOUR A FLOOR: The room must not be wetted until all the dirt and dust have been removed and carried away. If boards are allowed to get very dirty they are very hard to clean. Soda makes boards yellow, soap makes them black. Neither should be used unless to remove grease spots. A little clean sand is of use when the floors have been neglected. Nothing stains or discolours boards sooner than dirty water. As soon as water is too dirty for the hand to be plainly seen in it, it is unfit for cleaning; change it. The boards should be first swilled with water, then scoured briskly with a hard brush the way of the grain. After the scouring, wash over again with water, and dry thoroughly with house cloth and flannel.
TO HELP A BABY CHOKED UP WITH A COLD: Peel and slice a large onion. Putting a thick layer of white sugar between each layer of onion, let it stand until the sugar has become absorbed in the juice of the onion. Feed babies this juice. Little ones will soon learn to love it, and take it willingly without the slightest idea that they are only taking a medicine for their cold. The juice of a roasted onion taken on a little sugar is also good.
TO USE EGGS FOR HEALING: Nothing is more soothing for burns and scalds than the white of an egg poured over the wound. It is more cooling than the sweet oil and cotton which was formerly supposed to be the surest application to allay the pain. The egg is also considered to be one of the best remedies for dysentery. Beaten up slightly, with or without sugar, and swallowed at a gulp, it tends by its emollient qualities to lessen the inflammation of stomach and intestines, and by forming a transient coating on these organs, to enable nature to resume her healthful sway over a diseased body.
TO KILL MOTHS OR FLYING INSECTS: Entice them to destruction by setting a bright tin pan, half filled with kerosene, in a dark corner of the room. Attracted by the bright pan, the moth will meet his death in the kerosene.
All of this essential advice for life is from 1880s copies of The Observer newspaper, Auckland, available online at PapersPast
WHAT WOMEN WORE
QUOTE"What is that?"
"Trousers." Violet laughed. "Don't look alarmed. I bought them a a jumble sale pretending they were for a charity case. Be our lookout now. Go down the path a few yards and tell me if anyone comes." "Why? Surely you're not going to wear them. Violet, you could be arrested!" |
WHEN I BEGAN researching Scarlet and Magenta, I had crinoline-wearing female characters in my head. Wrong. That was the look for earlier in the century. By the time the 1880s came along women were wearing a different silhouette, as shown in this much-loved 1884 painting at left by Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.
We're in the wrong country of course (France) and Seurat's women were no doubt more smartly dressed than the average colonial New Zealander, but it serves to show the narrow shape, tight sleeves and bustled skirt that were stylish then. Underneath, tight corsets were still constricting breathing and movement. In 1880 the editor of Auckland's Observer wrote an enraged piece about 'lacing': "This artificial constriction of the waist is a foul misusage of the human frame and the penalty is malformation and utter disorganization of the internal organs. It will inevitably lead to a series of terrible maladies, will superinduce premature old age, and perhaps end in an early death.” Meanwhile, there was at least some eye protection as early sunglasses were arriving, with round glass lenses. commonly called 'blue goggles'. 
These sunglasses, dating from between 1860-1900, are from the London Science Museum.
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