customary for families to have an immense stock
of linen, so as to wash only once in six months,
when they hold what they call "une lessive
monstre"—a monster washing. All the hedges
on the farm, all the grass on the estate, are
hung and spread with white for days together.
The comfort in the house during this washing
bout, and the consequences to the linen itself,
may be imagined without any great effort. In
one French novel, the heroine, pursued by a
wicked Lovelace, takes refuge, not in her
virtue nor under her parents' wing, but in the
dirty linen closet, where she locks herself in as
a new form of martyrdom. Sire was worse off
than Falstaff in the buckbasket; for he had air,
and afterwards water.

Soiled linen, kept in a confined place, is
insalubrious, and is also more liable to injury than
when clean and neatly folded away in drawers.
Linen, like all vegetable matter, is subject to
putrefaction; and when it is coated with
sugar, gum, grease, and with animal matters
already in a state of decomposition, putrid
fermentation easily sets in, especially if it be put
in a heap, in a close, warm, and damp spot.
Should there be pieces impregnated with oil
or fat, they may possibly set the house on fire.
It is well known that oils absorb oxygen in
the process of thickening or drying. Now,
this absorption is not progressive and uniform.
It often happens, through causes which are not
precisely known, that the absorption takes place
at first, and for a long while, insensibly; then,
all of a sudden, it is energetically developed,
with a considerable disengagement of heat.
This heat may become sufficient to make the
linen take fire spontaneously. Beginnings of
fire—which are promptly extinguished through
the careful watch that is constantly kept—often
break out in lamp-rooms of theatres. Heaps
of filthy rags, thrown into the corner of a
kitchen, have been known to burst into flame
of themselves.

Another injury to which dirty linen is exposed,
is from the ravages of mice and rats. These little
rodents (who have been sent by Providence to
devour numerous substances which, if left to
rot, would poison the air) do not always confine
themselves to their providential mission. Dirty
linen, seasoned to their taste, is a tempting
morsel, and often suffers accordingly. A good
housekeeper will therefore contrive to keep her
linen in that state as short a time as possible.
The sooner she washes it, the less trouble she
will have. The stains will be easier to remove;
the gums composing them will not have time to
dry, nor the oils to thicken. One cause of
unhealthiness to her family will be avoided; and
her stock of linen—a valuable portion of her
household capital—will be exposed to much
fewer chances of spoiling. The small quantity
of foul linen which she is obliged to keep,
instead of being thrown in a heap, will be hung
on a rope stretched in a dry and airy place.
Rats and mice will be set at defiance, by passing
each end of the rope through the necks of broken
bottles before fastening them to the wall.

Even in an economical point of view, the
washing question is interesting. The humblest
establishment is obliged to make it enter, in
some form or other, into its budget. Even if
the wife wash at home, there is at least the
expense of soap, soda, and fire. Every French
soldier used to cost fourpence per week for
washing; improved methods have now reduced
it to one penny, or a trifle less. Suppose that
each inhabitant of London spends no more, for
clean linen and woollens, than one pound per
annum, on an average, the washerwoman's bill
for the metropolis alone will amount, exactly to
three millions sterling annually. What it is
for the United Kingdom, must be a sum
approaching to the sublime.

To this very considerable payment for washing
should be added another, which is still more
important; namely, the deterioration of the tissues.
We are only too well aware how quickly washerwoman
wear our linen out. Every time it comes
from the wash, the diminution of its value is
greater than the cost of the operation. This
second outlay, coming on the top of the first,
falls particularly heavy on the labouring classes.
The workman, as long as he has employment,
generally manages to meet his current expenses
with tolerable ease. Among these, is that of
washing. Extraordinary expenses press harder
upon him. The renewal of a worn-out stock of
linen becomes a very serious business.

To discover less expensive modes of washing,
and modes less injurious to the linen, is therefore
a problem of equal economical and hygienic
importance. It is known that the operation
of washing, when ill performed, is unhealthy
even for those who perform it. The solution
of the problem will, as its immediate
consequence, allow the working classes to possess
more linen, and to wash it more frequently.
And—setting aside foolish and ignorant prejudices
—sanitary professors know how favourable
a frequent change of linen is to the health,
especially for those who toil and perspire. And
exactly as conducive as clean linen is to health,
by absorbing gradually what we transpire,
equally noxious is dirty linen, in consequence
of the putrid miasms disengaged from it.

Dirty linen is, in general, five per cent heavier
than clean. If you bring out one hundred pounds
of linen for use, it will weigh one hundred and
five when it goes to the wash. The additional
five pounds are due to moisture, and to greasy
or gummy substances. Mere stains have no
appreciable weight. The dirt in linen is
derived from dust and impurities of every
kind adhering to and fixed in the tissue, whether
by the viscous clamminess which is formed by
glutinous and albuminous substances—that is,
those similar in their nature to white of egg—
or by fatty matters. Moreover, linen is often
soiled by spots caused by colouring matters
which have dyed, as it were, the portion of the
linen which they have touched. The dye so
left is often irremovable by either water, soap,
or ash-lie. The washerwoman's art ought to
make all those stains to disappear.