old saying that “hot water rots glass.”  Be careful never to put glass into hot water, bottom first, as the sudden expansion may crack it.  Slip it in edgeways, and the finest and most delicate cut-glass will be safe. Wash silver next. Hot suds, and instant wiping on dry soft cloths, will retain the brightness of silver, which treated in this way requires much less polishing, and therefore lasts longer.  If any pieces require rubbing, use a little whiting made into a paste, and put on wet.  Let it dry, and then polish with a chamois-skin.  Once a month will be sufficient for rubbing silver, if it is properly washed. China comes next—­all plates having been carefully scraped, and all cups rinsed out.  To fill the pan with unscraped and unrinsed dishes, and pour half-warm water over the whole, is a method too often adopted; and the results are found in sticky dishes and lustreless silver.  Put all china, silver, and glass in their places as soon as washed.  Then take any tin or iron pans, wash, wipe with a dry towel, and put near the fire to dry thoroughly.  A knitting-needle or skewer may be kept to dig out corners unreachable by dishcloth or towel, and if perfectly dried they will remain free from rust.

The cooking-dishes, saucepans, &c., come next in order; and here the wire dish-cloth will be found useful, as it does not scratch, yet answers every purpose of a knife.  Every pot, kettle, and saucepan must be put into the pan of hot water.  If very greasy, it is well to allow them to stand partly full of water in which a few drops of ammonia have been put.  The outside must be washed as carefully as the inside.  Till this is done, there will always be complaint of the unpleasantness of handling cooking-utensils.  Properly done, they are as clean as the china or glass.

Plated knives save much work.  If steel ones are used, they must be polished after every meal.  In washing them, see that the handles are never allowed to touch the water.  Ivory discolors and cracks if wet.  Bristol-brick finely powdered is the best polisher, and, mixed with a little water, can be applied with a large cork.  A regular knife-board, or a small board on which you can nail three strips of wood in box form, will give you the best mode of keeping brick and cork in place.  After rubbing, wash clean, and wipe dry.

The dish-towels are the next consideration.  A set should be used but a week, and must be washed and rinsed each day if you would not have the flavor of dried-in dish-water left on your dishes.  Dry them, if possible, in the open air:  if not, have a rack, and stand them near the fire.  On washing-days, let those that have been used a week have a thorough boiling.  The close, sour smell that all housekeepers have noticed about dish-towels comes from want of boiling and drying in fresh air, and is unpardonable and unnecessary.

Keep hot water constantly in your kettles or water-pots, by always remembering to fill with cold when you take out hot.  Put away every article carefully in its place.