The linen-woman has in her care all the beautiful and expensive linen in the hotel; if she is careless in counting it when sending it to the different departments, careless in counting it after it has been returned, there will be a deficit in the "stock-report" at the end of the month. The linen-room is a position of trust. The linen-woman should be as accurate in counting her employer's napkins and table-cloths as the cashier is in counting his employer's dollars.

The following set of rules and essential requirements are suggested for the management of the linen-woman:

1. She must be prompt to open the linen-room at 6:30 a.m.

2. Must not leave the linen-room without notifying the housekeeper.

3. Must sort the linen.

4. Must see that no damaged article of linen is sent out to the guest-rooms.

5. Must mend all the linen.

6. Must keep track of the linen.

7. Must keep the linen-room books.8. Must mark the new linen before sending it out.

The linen-room is the housekeeper's pride. What is more pleasing to a housekeeper than to look into a well-kept linen-room. This room is the housekeeper's "stock-exchange," the room where all her business transactions take place. It is also her home. She has her geraniums in the window and her desk in one corner. She has her sewing-machine, and telephone, and a bright rug or two on the spotless floor. The linen-room is the place where the housekeeper is found or her whereabouts made known.

The room should be thoroughly cleaned every Saturday, and swept and dusted every day. It requires skill and labor to keep a well regulated linen-room looking neat and pretty. Linen-shelves are scrubbed, not papered. All heavy articles, such as spreads, blankets, pillows, and table-felts should be kept on the top shelf. The water-glasses, ice-water pitchers, extra slop jars, washbowls and pitchers, should also be kept on the top shelves, and covered with a dust-cover. The other shelves should be scrubbed, and the sheets, slips, face-towels, and bath-towels used for the guest-rooms, put on a shelf by themselves. The helps' linen should be put on another shelf. The table-linen should be placed by itself, and so on—a place for everything and everything in its place.

How Linen is Mended.

The table-cloths should be mended first before they are sent to the laundry. The best way to mend table-linen is first to fill the holes with darning-cotton, just as you would if you were darning a stocking; then loosen the presser-foot of your sewing-machine and darn it down neatly with the machine. If the hole is very large—say as large as your hand—the better way is to cover the hole with darning-net before filling it in with the darning-cotton; then it may be finished on the machine.

When the table-cloths are too bad to mend, the large ones can be cut down into small ones and the small ones into tray-covers. Old napkins can be sewed together and used for cleaning-cloths. Table-linen is very expensive and the careful housekeeper will easily save her salary above that of a careless one by properly taking care of the linen.

How Coffee Bags Are Made.

The coffee-bags should be made from the stewards' dictation. No two stewards will have them made the same. Bath-towels, when damaged, may be made into wash-cloths, and used in the public baths. The cases for hot-water bags are made of white flannel.

A supply of soap, matches, toilet-paper, and sanitary powder, should be kept in the linen-room, where it is convenient for the maids.

The progressive housekeeper will not allow the stock of linen to grow too small. She will see that it is replenished each month.

The linen-room should be opened at 6:30 a.m. and closed at 10:00 p.m. If it is a commercial hotel, the linen should be portioned among the maids, in the morning. The linen issued in the morning should be charged to each girl on the slate. The maids should count the soiled linen on their floor, pin the count to the bundle, and bring it to the linen-room, where the linen-woman again should count it and give each maid credit on the slate. The linen-woman should deduct the clean linen issued in the morning from the soiled linen returned, and, if the linen-room owes the maid, she should be given her linen at once. After that, the maid should get only one piece of clean linen for one of soiled. If the maid brings in no soiled linen, she should not get any clean. In this way, the linen-woman will be able to keep track of the linen. She will be able to tell the manager where every piece of linen is at any time of the day.

The dining-room linen should be issued in the same way. The linen-woman should be able to tell by her books how many napkins are in the dining-room, how many are in the laundry, and the number that are on the shelf in the linen-room.

It may not be an innovation, but a blackboard in the linen-room will be of great assistance to the housekeeper in copying the changes that are sent up from time to time during the day. The board may be freshly ruled every day, with as many columns as there are maids, and the maid's name, or number, should be written above her column.

As the changes are sent up on a pad by the clerks, the linen-woman should copy them on the board, putting each maid's changes under her name. The maids should take the chalk and draw a straight line through their changes, indicating that the rooms have received proper attention. As there are few hotels that have not had some trouble about reporting changes, it would be a splendid idea for the clerk to insist on the housekeeper or the linen-woman signing for the changes. The fact that the clerk can produce his duplicate, showing the time to the very minute he sent the change, is not proof that the change was received in the linen-room. The bell-boy may be a new boy, and may have taken the change-slip to some other part of the house. But if the housekeeper, or the linen-woman, signs the pad on which the changes have been sent up, and the pad is returned to the office, the housekeeper or the linen-woman will have to furnish some other excuse for the room being out of order, than that she did not get the change.

The housekeeper should see that an accurate account is taken every month of all the linen, and correctly entered on the linen-room stock-book. This account should show the new linen purchased during the month. The following form is suggested for the stock-book for the linen-room:

Inventory of Linen-Room for month ending January 1, 1908.

Paradise, indeed, to the housekeeper, is the hotel that has its reserve-linen closet, where, in case of accident in the laundry, she may find linen to put the rooms in order. On the other hand, how very discouraging it is where there is only one set of linen for the beds and the maids must wait until the linen is back from the laundry before they can put the rooms in order. In such hotels, the housekeeper spends much of her time running to and from the laundry.

When a new linen-woman is installed in the linen-room, the housekeeper should write out all the details of the duties required of her, regardless of any previous experience she may claim to have had.