Craps

“ The stumps of cigars and cigarettes are what form the snuff of the most fastidious men who indulge in the habit—the scraps of old paper are all utilised and every bit of rag is converted to good use—the garbage, consisting of outside leaves of cabbages, turnip tops and even rotten fruit serve as ingredients for soups sold in the inferior restaurants ”

“ In the case of articles very soft, like croquettes, it will be more convenient for one person to shape and roll them in the eggs, and another, with dry hands, to roll them in the bread-crumbs.
Pounded and sifted cracker-crumbs can be purchased by the pound, at bakeries and large groceries, for the same price as whole crackers. However, it will never be necessary to purchase cracker-crumbs, if all scraps of bread are saved and dried. It is deplorable for a cook to throw them away. ”

“ At a market, tottery old men and women were searching in the garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption, and drawing forth morsels, but partially decayed, which they devoured on the spot. ”

“ An odor of pickle, of rotting vegetables, of red herring, persists around us, impregnating our garments. It is intolerable. Then each of these creatures, heaped up on their chairs like bundles of dirty linen, plunges into the narration of some dirty action, some scandal, some crime. Coward that I am, I try to smile with them, to applaud with them; but I feel something insurmountable, something like frightful disgust. A nausea turns my stomach, forces its way to my throat, leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and presses my temples. ”

“ Only those who live in small houses or flats know the misery of having each meal heralded by a violent smell of cooking, which invades every room, and robs the average person of all appetite; the tenant of those uncomfortable dwelling-places known as “Maisonettes” knows only too well what it is to inhale the fragrance of the downstairs burned onion or frying bloater; while the occupants of the lower maisonette suffer from audible and pungent remarks upon the odours from their kitchen, remarks which frequently lead to friction. Now, paper-bag cookery does not smell. ”

“ You pull and pull until your spine begins to unravel at both ends, and your palms get so full of water blisters you feel as though you were carrying a bunch of hothouse grapes in each hand. And after going about nine miles you unwittingly anchor off the mouth of a popular garbage dump and everything you catch is second-hand. The sun beats down upon you with unabated fervor and the back of your neck colors up like a meerschaum pipe ”

“ Beyond every thing, watch that no causes producing foul air are allowed to exist for a moment. A vase of neglected flowers will poison the air of a whole room. In the area or cellar, a decaying head of cabbage, a basket of refuse vegetables, a forgotten barrel of pork or beef brine, a neglected garbage pail or box, are all premiums upon disease. Let air and sunlight search every corner of the house. ”

“ And oh, what prizes of the dump! Cracked plates, cups and saucers, tinware, bric-à-brac, footwear, clothing, nursing-bottles and nipples, bottles with the dregs of flavoring extracts, cod-liver oil, perfumes, emulsions, tonics, poisons, antiseptics, cordials, decayed fruit, and faded flowers! These were seized in triumph, taken home in glee, and no doubt used in faith. There is little philosophy in poverty, and questions of sanitation and prudence come in the stage beyond it. ”

“ Our stores consisted of crackers, coffee, dried-apples, essence of beef, and salt pork in abundance, a little loaf bread, and about half a pound of citric acid. Of these only the crackers and bread could be eaten without being cooked. There were four hundred and fifty wounded men—all bad cases, all exhausted from privation. How many of them would live to reach Washington on a diet of crackers and water? I went to the cook, a large, sensible colored woman, and stated the case as well as I could. ”

“ Wait till the tide is out, and have a look for yourself. I reckon further acquaintance won’t make you more friendly. It will rinse all taste of felo-de-se out of your mouth. Dead cats, rotten cabbage, decayed potatoes, cracked cloam (crockery) , old tobacco-pipes, kettles and pans full of holes, boots bursted, and soleless shoes, scatted (broken) bottles, anything, everything that goes to make filth is chucked in there, and rots away into black paste which is proper consolidated smeech (smell) . ”

“ The fire in the stove renders the atmosphere of the room stifling; odors of old grease, of rancid sauces, of continual fryings, circulate in the air. While we eat, a kettle in which the dogs' soup is boiling exhales a fetid vapor that attacks your throat and makes you cough. One almost vomits. More respect is shown for prisoners in their cells and dogs in their kennels.
We had bacon and cabbage, and stinking cheese; for drink, sour cider. Nothing else. Earthen plates, with cracked enamel, and which smell of burnt grease, and tin forks, complete this pretty service. ”

“ The people crowded about, sniffing the odour of dead flesh, hungry and brutal--carnivora seeking their prey.
At the grocer's the light was reflected from the gay labels on tins and packages and bottles, and the air was heavy with the confused odour of tea, coffee and spices.
Cabbages, piled in heaps against the door-posts of the greengrocer's, threw a rank smell of vegetables on the air; the fruit within, built in pyramids for display, filled the nostrils with the fragrant, wholesome scents of the orchard. ”

“ In vain did cooks and old women throw out cock’s-heads divested of their combs, and the gizzards of ducks and fowls—in vain on the Saturday night was every gutter in the place made the receptacle of all the dust of all the houses—in vain were a number of other untidy tricks practiced to defile the highways, and offend the olfactories of the passing stranger—before the Monday morning all was clear again—except in very rainy seasons, when I have known a dust-heap lie for a fortnight. ”

“ The splutter and bubble of the hot grease when water was poured on it from the kettle, to make gravy, had always been a sound he took special pleasure in, and sometimes he even had the good luck to see the live crabs meet their sickening yet fascinating death by scalding. ”

“ Nothing should be put into ashcans except ashes. Garbage is the waste from food, or any substances which are wet or subject to decomposition. Trash is papers, cans, bottles, egg shells, glass, hair, dust, broken objects of all sorts and kindred things. This class may have to be subdivided several times for the convenience of people who remove it, but the three main divisions in house waste are made not on account of requirement but for the sake of neatness and decency. ”

“ The destruction of rubbish with fire makes a very great smoke. In this particular a battle resembles the destruction of rubbish. There would be a close resemblance even if a battle evolved no smoke. Rubbish, by the way, is not good eating, but an essayist should not be a gourmet—in the country.
VII.
.... Sweet milk should be taken only in the middle of the night. If taken during the day it forms a curd in the stomach, and breeds a dire distress. In the middle of the night the stomach is supposed to be innocent of whisky, and it is the whisky that curdles the milk. ”

“ The filthy air reached the place in the damp coats of silent men and hung there till it was brewed to a nauseous warmth, and ugly serious faces squared themselves through it, and strong-smelling pipes contributed their element in a fierce dogged manner which appeared to say that it now had to stand for everything—for bread and meat and beer, for shoes and blankets and the poor things at the pawnbroker’s and the smokeless chimney at home. ”

“ Crack a bottle, to drink. Shakspeare uses CRUSH in the same slang sense.
Cracked up, penniless or ruined.
Cracking a crust, rubbing along in the world. Cracking a tidy crust, means doing very well. This is a very common expression among the lower orders.
Crackle, or CRACKLING, the scored rind on a roast leg or loin of pork; hence applied to the velvet bars on the gowns of the students at St. John’s College, Cambridge, long called “Hogs,” and the covered bridge which connects one of the courts with the grounds, Isthmus of Suez (SUES, Lat. SUS, a swine) . ”

“ CRAB LOUSE. A species of louse peculiar to the human body; the male is denominated a cock, the female a hen.
CRAB SHELLS. Shoes. IRISH.
CRABS. A losing throw to the main at hazard.
CRABBED. Sour, ill-tempered, difficult.
CRACK. A whore.
TO CRACK. To boast or brag; also to break. I cracked his napper; I broke his head.
THE CRACK, or ALL THE CRACK. The fashionable theme, the go. The Crack Lay, of late is used, in the cant language, to signify the art and mystery of house-breaking.
CRACKER. Crust, sea biscuit, or ammunition loaf; also the backside. Farting crackers; breeches. ”

“ To fill up the measure of disgust, everything—meat, soup, vegetables, fricassees—must be eaten with a pewter spoon, without knife or fork, and had we not brought napkins along with us, some fragment of which still remain, the sleeves of our coats must have served for that purpose. ”

“ Garbage, consisting chiefly of trimmings of meat and vegetables and the waste from the table, if stored in open buckets soon becomes offensive and is an ideal breeding place in warm weather for flies "that drink of cesspools, dine at privy vaults, eat sputum and are likely to be the most familiar guests at the dinner table, sampling every article of food upon which they walk, leaving in their tracks disease-producing germs which have adhered to their sticky feet where they have previously dined." ”

“ As the cook is the only one of the servants who speaks above a whisper, he was sent for, and he told us that pan-face wanted soap, starch, and charcoal. All the washing is done in cold water at some well, it appears, and they only want a little charcoal to put in the iron. ”

“ To summarize.—The essential steps in laundering are: the forcing of clear water through the fabric; loosening of the soil and stains by soap and appropriate chemicals, sterilization by boiling temperature, drying and sweetening in the air if possible. The less essential are bluing, starching, and in some cases ironing. ”

“ If food, raw or cooked, is kept in dirty places, peddled from dirty carts, prepared in dirty rooms and in dirty dishes, or exposed to foul air, disease germs and other offensive and dangerous substances may easily enter it. ”

“ Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose—a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! ”

“ No expense should be spared to make a room dry, that is to be used for keeping stores in, as the mischief done by damp is incalculable. Lump sugar crumbles into powder; moist sugar hardens into lumps; saltpetre and bay salt turn to water; preserves become mouldy or candied, cakes soft, and linen mildewed. Nor is the mischief done by damp confined to any one part of the house. In the butler's pantry the silver will become spotted; in the cellar the wine will lose its strength and flavour ”

“ The black-lead and brush, and broken saucer full of something pulpy, the powder that is always falling out of its packet or bit of newspaper, and the other odds and ends which crowd our house-maids' dirty buckets, and the scrubbing brushes and hearthstone which encumber our sinks, are only barbarisms trying to conceal the slovenliness they pretend to correct. ”

“ No article in dress tarnishes so readily as black crape trimmings, and few things injure it more than damp; therefore, to preserve its beauty on bonnets, a lady in nice mourning should in her evening walks, at all seasons of the year, take as her companion an old parasol to shade her crape.
Guard the Foot, and the Head will Seldom Harm. ”

“ Pour on damp slab and cream when cold. Use for cream patties, bon-bons, etc.
NOTICE ON SCRAP.
When making candy of scrap do not become discouraged on your first attempt as it is impossible for me to regulate the scrap you use and if you use too much glucose or not enough the result may be passable, but not up to stand ard. In working scrap it takes more brain's than in any other branch of the business. ”

“ They consist almost invariably of a flood of water containing but a small percentage of refuse food, urine, soap, filth of the laundry, grease—everything, in fact, except fecal matter and the coarser garbage and ashes—constituting the waste of the household. ”

“ All waste pipes, from that of the kitchen sink to that of the refrigerator, become foul with grease, lint, dust and other organic matters which are the result of bacterial action. They are sources of contamination to the air of the entire house and to the food supply, thereby endangering health. ”

“ Listen to me ye Roman lads, who are seated in the straw about the fire, and I will tell how we poison the porker, I will tell how we poison the porker. We go to the house of the poison-monger, where we buy three pennies’ worth of bane, and when we return to our people we say, we will poison the porker; we will try and poison the porker. ”

“ Even the knives and forks are found to ride rusty on the occasion. The bread is become sop; and they have not even the satisfaction of getting salt to their porridge, for that is dissolved into briny tears. ”