DOMESTIC PRODUCTS

War Saving Suggestions

HENRY WILLIAM HANEMANN

IT is necessary, in these days, to save everything. For by this means, and by this means only, will the war be won. While the armies at the front are exchanging shells of various sub-calibres—thus increasing efficiency by the keenness of competition—we at home must conserve and provide. It is with this in mind that the following ideas are offered. They have been conceived by the same type of mind that found sermons in stones and whatever it was in running brooks.

Putting One Over on the Waste-Basket

MY greatest impression when I visited China was how the natives make use of everything in their country. Thus, I was told, is the fabulous richness of China accounted for. Thus, the other day I was occupied in gazing at my waste-basket. As is its wont, it was filled with instructive booklets for the use of tooth-paste, automobile prospecti, real estate brochures and other printed material of like nature. "What an accumulation of material without benefit!" I thought. "How many stalwart men are required to cart it away! What a terrible waste—and how can I stop it?"

All of a sudden—these things come upon one like a flash of lightning—I remembered my mother, though somewhat inclined to stoutness, was extremely partial to song birds. Therewith I rushed to a bird store and bought her a baker's dozen of birds in assorted cages. She now uses all the waste paper in the house for the bottoms of old bird cages, being sur(Continued on page 8) rounded by a medley of melodious warbling and presented with an occasional bonne-bouche in the shape of an egg.

SELF-INTRODUCING HATS AND COSTUMES

Especially convenient, in this democratic period of the self-determina' tion of small peoples, for the use of lady visitors to military camps

WAR SAVING SUGGESTIONS

(Continued from page 6)

And as I write, the kitchen cat is sleeping peacefully in the waste basket. Through my small efforts, no less than seventeen waste paper men have been released for active service overseas.

Saving Steps a Saving Grace

DID it. ever occur to you how many times a day you. go up and down stairs? Even when you do not count using the elevator? What a wear and tear upon shoe leather, so greatly needed by our sailor and soldier boys! I am doing my best to provide as much leather for them as I can, by the simple expedient of skipping a step each time I go upstairs. I also skip a step going downstairs. Sometimes I skip two or three. Sometimes I skip a whole flight.

Even by omitting only alternate steps I figure that the strain on the sole of the shoe is lessened exactly one-half. Let us say the average flight of stairs contains twenty steps. By eliminating the alternate steps, we have, you may take my word for it, ten left. Or to put it more graphically:

Total number of steps.20

Number of steps made use of. 10

Saving. 10

With little or no trouble I am saving leather for the soldiers and making my shoes last twice as long as they ordinarily would.

Besides saving the shoes, the exercise is curing me of a complaint, chronic for

twenty years. I have now all the grace and agility of a two-year old. For me the subway has lost its terror, and the elevated, its menace. I am the master of my feet, I am the captain of my sole!

A Real Use for Laundry Studs

IT is the little things in life that count," says an old saw. If you are inclined to disagree, think for a moment of an aching tooth, a phonograph needle and a postage stamp.

I have always regarded with interest the innumerable little wooden studs that come in shirts when the shirts return from the laundry. My wife, of New England extraction, was for years in the habit of saving them, amassing, in so doing, a formidable number. Trying out a new meat chopper recently, it occurred to me to use the studs as a test of the excellence of the machine.

As was natural under the circumstance, the studs emerged as first-rate sawdust. At first, we used this sawdust on the floor of our guest room, in lieu of a much more expensive rug. Our male guests declared it was the finishing homelike touch. However, after reading one of Mr. Hoover's best sellers, the sawdust to me had a greater and a deeper significance. I sent it all to the Y. M. C. A., giving instructions that it was to be used in whatever way they

saw fit

You can imagine my gratification when, last week, I received word that my sawdust is doing duty in the trench canteens as breakfast food and that, owing to its delightful and. superior flavor, it is in great demand. "The men cannot get enough of it," writes the Y. M. C. A., "please send us more."