F. Colburn Adams - "Justice in the By Ways"

Thomas Hardy - "Life's Little Ironies and a Few Crusted Characters"

Geneve L.A. Shaffer - "The Log of the Empire State"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1577 78"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The American Woman\'s Home

C >> Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe >> The American Woman\'s Home




[Illustration: Fig. 9.]

The most healthful and comfortable mattress is made by a case, open
in the centre and fastened together with buttons, as in Fig. 9; to be
filled with oat straw, which is softer than wheat or rye. This can be
adjusted to the figure, and often renewed.

Fig. 10 represents the upper couch when covered, with the under couch
put beneath it. The coverlid should match the curtain of the screen;
and the pillows, by day, should have a case of the same.

[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
[Illustration: Fig. 11.]

Fig. 11 is an ottoman, made as a box, with a lid on hinges. A cushion
is fastened to this lid by strings at each corner, passing through
holes in the box lid and tied inside. The cushion to be cut square,
with side pieces; stuffed with hair, and stitched through like a
mattress. Side handles are made by cords fastened inside with knots.
The box must be two inches larger at the bottom than at the top, and
the lid and cushion the same size as the bottom, to give it a tasteful
shape. This ottoman is set on casters, and is a great convenience for
holding articles, while serving also as a seat.

The expense of the screen, where lumber averages $4 a hundred, and
carpenter labor $3 a day, would be about $30, and the two couches about
$6. The material for covering might be cheap and yet pretty. A woman
with these directions, and a son or husband who would use plane and
saw, could thus secure much additional room, and also what amounts to
two bureaus, two large trunks, one large wardrobe, and a wash-stand,
for less than $20--the mere cost of materials. The screen and couches
can be so arranged as to have one room serve first as a large and airy
sleeping-room; then, in the morning, it may be used as sitting-room
one side of the screen, and breakfast-room the other; and lastly,
through the day it can be made a large parlor on the front side, and
a sewing or retiring-room the other side. The needless spaces usually
devoted to kitchen, entries, halls, back-stairs, pantries, store-rooms,
and closets, by this method would be used in adding to the size of the
large room, so variously used by day and by night.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.]

Fig. 12 is an enlarged plan of the kitchen and stove-room. The chimney
and stove-room are contrived to ventilate the whole house, by a mode
exhibited in another chapter.

Between the two rooms glazed sliding-doors, passing each other, serve
to shut out heat and smells from the kitchen. The sides of the
stove-room must be lined with shelves; those on the side by the cellar
stairs, to be one foot wide, and eighteen inches apart; on the other
side, shelves may be narrower, eight inches wide and nine inches apart.
Boxes with lids, to receive stove utensils, must be placed near the
stove.

On these shelves, and in the closet and boxes, can be placed every
material used for cooking, all the table and cooking utensils, and all
the articles used in house work, and yet much spare room will be left.
The cook's galley in a steamship has every article and utensil used
in cooking for two hundred persons, in a space not larger than this
stove-room, and so arranged that with one or two steps the cook can
reach all he uses.

In contrast to this, in most large houses, the table furniture, the
cooking materials and utensils, the sink, and the eating-room, are at
such distances apart, that half the time and strength is employed in
walking back and forth to collect and return the articles used.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.]

Fig. 13 is an enlarged plan of the sink and cooking-form. Two windows
make a better circulation of air in warm weather, by having one open
at top and the other at the bottom, while the light is better adjusted
for working, in case of weak eyes.

The flour-barrel just fills the closet, which has a door for admission,
and a lid to raise when used. Beside it, is the form for cooking, with
a moulding-board laid on it; one side used for preparing vegetables
and meat, and the other for moulding bread. The sink has two pumps,
for well and for rain-water--one having a forcing power to throw water
into the reservoir in the garret, which supplies the water-closet
and bath-room. On the other side of the sink is the dish-drainer, with a
ledge on the edge next the sink, to hold the dishes, and grooves cut
to let the water drain into the sink. It has hinges, so that it can
either rest on the cook-form or be turned over and cover the sink.
Under the sink are shelf-boxes placed on two shelves run into grooves,
with other grooves above and below, so that one may move the shelves
and increase or diminish the spaces between. The shelf-boxes can be
used for scouring-materials, dish-towels, and dish-cloths; also to
hold bowls for bits of butter, fats, etc. Under these two shelves is
room for two pails, and a jar for soap-grease.

Under the cook-form are shelves and shelf-boxes for unbolted wheat,
corn-meal, rye, etc. Beneath these, for white and brown sugar, are
wooden can-pails, which are the best articles in which to keep these
constant necessities. Beside them is the tin molasses-can with a tight,
movable cover, and a cork in the spout. This is much better than a jug
for molasses, and also for vinegar and oil, being easier to clean and
to handle. Other articles and implements for cooking can be arranged
on or under the shelves at the side and front. A small cooking-tray,
holding pepper, salt, dredging-box, knife and spoon, should stand close
at hand by the stove, (Fig. 14.)

[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]

The articles used for setting tables are to be placed on the shelves
at the front and side of the sink. Two tumbler-trays, made of
pasteboard, covered with varnished fancy papers and divided by wires,
(as shown in Fig. 15,) save many steps in setting and clearing table.
Similar trays, (Fig. 16,) for knives and forks and spoons, serve the
same purpose.

[Illustration: Fig. 16.]

The sink should be three feet long and three inches deep, its width
matching the cook-form.

[Illustration: Fig. 18.]

Fig. 17 is the second or attic story. The main objection to attic rooms
is their warmth in summer, owing to the heated roof. This is prevented
by so enlarging the closets each side that their walls meet the ceiling
under the garret floor, thus excluding all the roof. In the
bed-chambers, corner dressing-tables, as Fig. 18, instead of projecting
bureaus, save much space for use, and give a handsome form and finish
to the room. In the bath-room must be the opening to the garret, and
a step-ladder to reach it. A reservoir in the garret, supplied by a
forcing-pump in the cellar or at the sink, must be well supported by
timbers, and the plumbing must be well done, or much annoyance will
ensue.

The large chambers are to be lighted by large windows or glazed
sliding-doors, opening upon the balcony. A roof can be put over the
balcony and its sides inclosed by windows, and the chamber extend into
it, and be thus much enlarged.

The water-closets must have the latest improvements for safe discharge,
and there will be no trouble. They cost no more than an out-door
building, and save from the most disagreeable house-labor.
A great improvement, called _earth-closets_, will probably take the
place of water-closets to some extent; though at present the water
is the more convenient. A description of the earth-closet will be given
in another chapter relating to tenement-houses for the poor in large
cities.

The method of ventilating all the chambers, and also the cellar, will
be described in another chapter.

[Illustration: Fig. 19.]

Fig. 19 represents a shoe-bag, that can be fastened to the side of a
closet or closet-door.

[Illustration: Fig. 20.]

Fig. 20 represents a piece-bag, and is a very great labor and
space-saving invention. It is made of calico, and fastened to the side
of a closet or a door, to hold all the bundles that are usually stowed
in trunks and drawers. India-rubber or elastic tape drawn into hems
to hold the contents of the bag is better than tape-strings. Each bag
should be labeled with the name of its contents, written with indelible
ink on white tape sewed on to the bag. Such systematic arrangement
saves much time and annoyance. Drawers or trunks to hold these articles
can not be kept so easily in good order, and moreover, occupy spaces
saved by this contrivance.

[Illustration: Fig. 21. Floor plan]

Fig. 21 is the basement. It has the floor and sides plastered, and is
lighted with glazed doors. A form is raised close by the cellar stairs,
for baskets, pails, and tubs. Here, also, the refrigerator can be
placed, or, what is better, an ice-closet can be made, as designated
in the illustration. The floor of the basement must be an inclined
plane toward a drain, and be plastered with water-lime. The wash-tubs
have plugs in the bottom to let off water, and cocks and pipes over
them bringing cold water from the reservoir in the garret and hot water
from the laundry stove. This saves much heavy labor of emptying tubs
and carrying water.

The laundry closet has a stove for heating irons, and also a kettle
on top for heating water. Slides or clothes-frames are made to draw
out to receive wet clothes, and then run into the closet to dry. This
saves health as well as time and money, and the clothes are as white
as when dried outdoors.

The wood-work of the house, for doors, windows, etc., should be oiled
chestnut, butternut, white-wood, and pine. This is cheaper, handsomer,
and more easy to keep clean than painted wood.

In Fig. 21 are planned two conservatories, and few understand their
value in the training of the young. They provide soil, in which
children, through the winter months, can be starting seeds and plants
for their gardens find raising valuable, tender plants. Every child
should cultivate flowers and fruits to sell and to give away, and thus
be taught to learn the value of money and to practice both economy and
benevolence.

According to the calculation of a house-carpenter, in a place where
the average price of lumber is $4 a hundred, and carpenter work $3 a
day, such a house can be built for $1600. For those practicing the
closest economy, two small families could occupy it, by dividing the
kitchen, and yet have room enough. Or one large room and the chamber
over it can be left till increase of family and means require
enlargement.

A strong horse and carryall, with a cow, garden, vineyard, and orchard,
on a few acres, would secure all the substantial comforts found in
great establishments, without the trouble of ill-qualified servants.

And if the parents and children were united in the daily labors of the
house, garden, and fruit culture; such thrift, health, and happiness
would be secured as is but rarely found among the rich.

Let us suppose a colony of cultivated and Christian people, having
abundant wealth, who now are living as the wealthy usually do,
emigrating to some of the beautiful Southern uplands, where are rocks,
hills, valleys, and mountains as picturesque as those of New England,
where the thermometer but rarely reaches 90 degrees in summer, and in
winter as rarely sinks below freezing-point, so that outdoor labor goes
on all the year, where the fertile soil is easily worked, where rich
tropical fruits and flowers abound, where cotton and silk can be raised
by children around their home, where the produce of vineyards and
orchards finds steady markets by railroads ready made; suppose such
a colony, with a central church and school-room, library, hall for
sports, and a common laundry, (taking the most trying part of domestic
labor from each house,)--suppose each family to train the children to
labor with the hands as a healthful and honorable duty; suppose all
this, which is perfectly practicable, would not the enjoyment of this
life be increased, and also abundant treasures be laid up in heaven,
by using the wealth thus economized in diffusing similar enjoyments
and culture among the poor, ignorant, and neglected ones in desolated
sections where many now are perishing for want of such Christian example
and influences?




III.

A HEALTHFUL HOME.


When "the wise woman buildeth her house," the first consideration will
be the health of the inmates. The first and most indispensable requisite
for health is pure air, both by day and night.

If the parents of a family should daily withhold from their children
a large portion of food needful to growth and health, and every night
should administer to each a small dose of poison, it would be called
murder of the most hideous character. But it is probable that more
than one half of this nation are doing that very thing. The murderous
operation is perpetrated daily and nightly, in our parlors, our
bed-rooms, our kitchens, our schoolrooms; and even our churches are
no asylum from the barbarity. Nor can we escape by our railroads, for
even there the same dreadful work is going on.

The only palliating circumstance is the ignorance of those who commit
these wholesale murders. As saith the Scripture, "The people do perish
for lack of knowledge." And it is this lack of knowledge which it is
woman's special business to supply, in first training her household
to intelligence as the indispensable road to virtue and happiness.

The above statements will be illustrated by some account of the manner
in which the body is supplied with healthful nutriment. There are two
modes of nourishing the body, one is by food and the other by air. In
the stomach the food is dissolved, and the nutritious portion is
absorbed by the blood, and then is earned by blood-vessels to the
lungs, where it receives oxygen from the air we breathe. This oxygen
is as necessary to the nourishment of the body as the food for the
stomach. In a full-grown man weighing one hundred and fifty-four pounds,
one hundred and eleven pounds consists of oxygen, obtained chiefly
from the air we breathe. Thus the lungs feed the body with oxygen, as
really as the stomach supplies the other food required.

The lungs occupy the upper portion of the body from the collar-bone
to the lower ribs, and between their two lobes is placed the heart.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.]
[Illustration: Fig. 23.]
[Illustration: Fig. 24.]
[Illustration: Fig. 25.]
[Illustration: Fig. 26.]

Fig. 22 shows the position of the lungs, though not the exact shape.
On the right hand is the exterior of one of the lobes, and on the left
hand are seen the branching tubes of the interior, through which the
air we breathe passes to the exceedingly minute air-cells of which the
lungs chiefly consist. Fig. 23 shows the outside of a cluster of these
air-cells, and Fig. 24 is the inside view. The lining membrane of each
air-cell is covered by a network of minute blood-vessels called
_capillaries_ which, magnified several hundred times, appear in the
microscope as at Fig. 25. Every air-cell has a blood-vessel that brings
blood from the heart, which meanders through its capillaries till it
reaches another blood-vessel that carries it back to the heart, as
seen in Fig. 26. In this passage of the blood through these capillaries,
the air in the air-cell imparts its oxygen to the blood, and receives
in exchange carbonic acid and watery vapor. These latter are expired
at every breath into the atmosphere.

By calculating the number of air cells in a small portion of the lungs,
under a microscope, it is ascertained that there are no less than
eighteen million of these wonderful little purifiers and feeders of
the body. By their ceaseless ministries, every grown person receives,
each day, thirty-three hogsheads of air into the lungs to nourish and
vitalize every part of the body, and also to carry off its impurities.

But the heart has a most important agency in this operation. Fig. 27
is a diagram of the heart, which is placed between the two lobes of
the lungs. The right side of the heart receives the dark and impure
blood, which is loaded with carbonic acid. It is brought from every
point of the body by branching veins that unite in the upper and the
lower _vena cava_, which discharge into the right side of the heart.
This impure blood passes to the capillaries of the air-cells in the
lungs, where it gives off carbonic acid, and, taking oxygen from the
air, then returns to the left side of the heart, from whence it is sent
out through the _aorta_ and its myriad branching arteries to every part
of the body. When the upper portion of the heart contracts, it forces
both the pure blood from the lungs, and the impure blood from the body,
through the valves marked V, V, into the lower part. When the lower
portion contracts, it closes the valves and forces the impure blood into
the lungs on one side, and also on the other side forces the purified
blood through the aorta and arteries to all parts of the body.

As before stated, the lungs consist chiefly of air-cells, the walls
of which are lined with minute blood-vessels; and we know that in every
man these air-cells number _eighteen millions_.

Now every beat of the heart sends two ounces of blood into the minute,
hair-like blood-vessels, called capillaries, that line these air-cells,
where the air in the air-cells gives its oxygen to the blood, and in
its place receives carbonic acid. This gas is then expired by the lungs
into the surrounding atmosphere.

Thus, by this powerful little organ, the heart, no less than
twenty-eight pounds of blood, in a common-sized man, is sent three
times every hour through the lungs, giving out carbonic acid and watery
vapor, and receiving the life-inspiring oxygen.

Whether all this blood shall convey the nourishing and invigorating
oxygen to every part of the body, or return unrelieved of carbonic
acid, depends entirely on the pureness of the atmosphere that is
breathed.

Every time we think or feel, this mental action dissolves some particles
of the brain and nerves, which pass into the blood to be thrown out
of the body through the lungs and skin. In like manner, whenever we
move any muscle, some of its particles decay and pass away. It is in
the capillaries, which are all over the body, that this change takes
place. The blood-vessels that convey the pure blood from the heart,
divide into myriads of little branches that terminate in capillary
vessels like those lining the air-cells of the lungs. The blood meanders
through these minute capillaries, depositing the oxygen taken from the
lungs and the food of the stomach, and receiving in return the decayed
matter, which is chiefly carbonic acid.

This carbonic acid is formed by the union of oxygen with _carbon_ or
_charcoal_, which forms a large portion of the body. Watery vapor is
also formed in the capillaries by the union of oxygen with the hydrogen
contained in the food and drink that nourish the body.

During this process in the capillaries, the bright red blood of the
arteries changes to the purple blood of the veins, which is carried
back to the heart, to be sent to the lungs as before described. A
portion of the oxygen received in the lungs unites with the dissolved
food sent from the stomach into the blood, and no food can nourish the
body till it has received a proper supply of oxygen in the lungs. At
every breath a half-pint of blood receives its needed oxygen in the
lungs, and at the same time gives out an equal amount of carbonic acid
and water.

Now, this carbonic acid, if received into the lungs, undiluted by
sufficient air, is a fatal poison, causing certain death. When it is
mixed with only a small portion of air, it is a slow poison, which
imperceptibly undermines the constitution.

We now can understand how it is that all who live in houses where the
breathing of inmates has deprived the air of oxygen, and loaded it
with carbonic acid, may truly be said to be poisoned and starved;
poisoned with carbonic acid, and starved for want of oxygen.

Whenever oxygen unites with carbon to form carbonic acid, or with
hydrogen to form water, heat is generated Thus it is that a land of
combustion is constantly going on in the capillaries all over the body.
It is this burning of the decaying portions of the body that causes
animal heat. It is a process similar to that which takes place when
lamps and candles are burning. The oil and tallows which are chiefly
carbon and hydrogen, unite with the oxygen of the air and form carbonic
acid and watery vapor, producing heat during the process. So in the
capillaries all over the body, the carbon and hydrogen supplied to the
blood by the stomach, unite with the oxygen gained in the lungs, and
cause the heat which is diffused all over the body.

The skin also performs an office, similar to that of the lungs. In the
skin of every adult there are no less than seven million minute
perspirating tubes, each one fourth of an inch long. If all these were
united in one length, they would extend twenty-eight miles. These
minute tubes are lined with capillary blood-vessels, which are
constantly sending out not only carbonic acid, but other gases and
particles of decayed matter. The skin and lungs together, in one day
and night, throw out three quarters of a pound of charcoal as carbonic
acid, beside other gases and water.

While the bodies of men and animals are filling the air with the
poisonous carbonic acid, and using up the life-giving oxygen, the trees
and plants are performing an exactly contrary process; for they are
absorbing carbonic acid and giving out oxygen. Thus, by a wonderful
arrangement of the beneficent Creator, a constant equilibrium is
preserved. What animals use is provided by vegetables, and what
vegetables require is furnished by animals; and all goes on, day and
night, without care or thought of man.

The human race in its infancy was placed in a mild and genial clime,
where each separate family dwelt in tents, and breathed, both day and
night, the pure air of heaven. And when they became scattered abroad
to colder climes, the open fire-place secured a full supply of pure
air. But civilization has increased economies and conveniences far
ahead of the knowledge needed by the common people for their healthful
use. Tight sleeping-rooms, and close, air-tight stoves, are now starving
and poisoning more than one half of this nation. It seems impossible
to make people know their danger. And the remedy for this is the light
of knowledge and intelligence which it is woman's special mission to
bestow, as she controls and regulates the ministries of a home.

The poisoning process is thus exhibited in Mrs. Stowe's "House and
Home Papers," and can not be recalled too often:

"No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring, is treated with such
utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as
this same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if we had a preacher who
understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most
orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister
gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes
the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church--the
church the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and
sleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.

"Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's ramble in the fields,
last evening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a
most Christian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair
bristling with crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't
say his prayers--that he don't want to be good. The simple difference
is, that the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain
all night fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate
women remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to get
up their strength in the morning. Query, Do they sleep with closed
windows and doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?

"The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain
respects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The great
central chimney, with its open fire-places in the different rooms,
created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air.
In these days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for
a stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only
to admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air
quite as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing up of
fire-places and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be
a saving of fuel; it saves, too, more than that; in thousands and
thousands of cases it has saved people from all further human wants,
and put an end forever to any needs short of the six feet of narrow
earth which are man's only inalienable property. In other words, since
the invention of air-tight stoves, thousands have died of slow poison.

"It is a terrible thing to reflect upon, that our northern winters
last from November to May, six long months, in which many families
confine themselves to one room, of which every window-crack has been
carefully calked to make it air-tight, where an air-tight stove keeps
the atmosphere at a temperature between eighty and ninety; and the
inmates, sitting there with all their winter clothes on, become
enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air, for which there
is no escape but the occasional opening of a door.