To clean a painted canvas wall does not require so much skill as patience.

A painted canvas wall is very easily cleaned. Many housekeepers have them washed with ivory soap and water, and obtain good results. Others add a little ammonia to the water, and still others use the powdered pumice.

The cost of painted walls are great, and it is a great saving to any proprietor, if the housekeeper can successfully clean a painted wall without calling the decorators.

Perhaps the most practical and most economical way to do the work and obtain the best results is to wash the wall with water, in which has been dissolved a cake of sapolio.

To proceed to clean the parlor walls: first, take out all the bric-a-brac and tapestry and furniture; then take up the carpet. Have the carpenter erect a scaffolding for the houseman to stand on. Have two pails of hot water, and in one let a cake of sapolio dissolve. Keep the other pail of water for rinsing. Have two large sponges, one for cleaning and the other for rinsing. Souse the cleaning-sponge in the pail in which the sapolio has been dissolved, then squeeze the water out of the sponge. Then begin on the ceiling or in one corner, cleaning only a small square at a time. After cleaning, rinse with the sponge from the clean pail, not making the sponge too dry. Do not wipe the wall with a cloth, but leave moist, after which have ready a pail of starch, and with an ordinary paint or white-wash-brush, starch the square that you have cleaned, before it is thoroughly dry. The starching-process is very necessary. It will leave a gloss on the paint, and also preserves it the next time it is washed; for, in this case, it will be the starch that will be washed off instead of the paint. To make the starch take ordinary laundry starch and dissolve one cupful in one pint of cold water. Into this pour boiling water until it is as thick as cream and let boil, stirring constantly.

The following is an excellent preparation for cleaning wall-paper, and perhaps it might serve as well to clean walls hung with burlap:

Mix well together with water and bake one hour in the oven. Then peel and work back into a dough, adding ½ ounce of ammonia and ½ ounce of gasoline.

This is not an expensive preparation and will clean papered or burlap walls very nicely.

Calcimined walls will have to be re-decorated.

A good way to clean hardwood floors in halls where the carpet does not entirely cover the floor, is to take a can of linseed oil and a small woolen cloth and dip one end of the cloth in the oil, being careful not to spill the oil on the carpet, or touch the edge of the carpet while cleaning; this will remove the dust and dirt, after which the floor may be polished with ordinary floor-wax put on with a flannel cloth and polished with a brick, over which has been sewed a piece of Brussels carpet.

How to Scrub a Floor.

What is prettier than a hardwood floor after it has been properly scrubbed? To scrub a floor and get satisfactory results is a science. To change the water frequently is one secret of success. "Elbow grease" is another. Mops are impossible, and this is another subject on which the housekeeper can wax eloquent. What is more disgusting than to see the baseboards of a room smeared, or the dirt shoved in the corners with an old dirty mop?

Before commencing to scrub, place every article of furniture on the table and then sweep. Beginning in the rear of the door so as not to track over the clean part until it is perfectly dry, scrub with a brush a small section at a time; first wipe up with a damp rag and then with a dry one. The New York Knitting Mills, of Albany, N. Y., furnish remnants of cloth that are indispensable for scrubbing. Enough of these remnants can be bought for $3 to last six months.

A little ammonia in the water will help to whiten the floors. The modern skewers from the kitchen are very useful in getting into the corners of the window sills and into the corners of the stair steps. A weak solution of oxalic acid and boiling water will remove the very worst kind of ink-stains from the floor.

Pads for kneeling on are made of burlap, and one is given to each scrubber. The unnatural position that the scrubber assumes makes the work laborious; the scrubber may change her position frequently by getting clean water.