Enquire Within (15). Some hundredths more cream…

But first…
Dulltown, UK: Today’s carefully selected adjectives are: febrile, eidetic, metronymic, skeletal, lentous, and bumpy.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

No, it can’t be!… Is this really 1934?…
No, it’s not, but let’s pretend – we’ll again open up that fusty old junk shop book The Daily Express Enquire Within, and have a peep at where nice middle-class British people researched vital information before the days of the internet.
It is a drab looking volume, but it does have a nice emblem on the title page…

The book is packed full with useful information, and also across the top of each page it has a few words of wisdom or a brief, but pithy homily – I will include these with today’s selection of items.

Page 89. (Beauty is a good letter of introduction.)
“Morning’s Milk“, in the opinion of a learned physiologist, “commonly yields some hundredths more cream than the evening’s at the same temperature. That milked at noon furnishes the least; it would be therefore be of advantage, in making butter, &c., to employ the morning’s milk, and keep the evening’s for domestic use.”

Page 158. (Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.)
Terms and Counting Used in Bezique.- i.
A Declaration is the exhibition on the table of any cards or combination of cards, as follows: –
Bezique is the queen of spades and knave of diamonds, for which the holder scores 40 points. [A variation provides that when the trump is either spades or diamonds, Bezique may be queen of clubs and knave of hearts.]

Page 415. (Morning for work, evening for contemplation.)
Charcoal as a Purifier. – When meat, fish, &c., from intense heat or long keeping, are likely to become tainted, a simple mode of keeping them sound and healthful is to put a few pieces of charcoal, each about the size of an egg, into the pot or saucepan wherein the fish or flesh is to be boiled.

Page 417. (Riches are but the baggage of fortune.)
To Clean Mirrors, &c. – Gilt frames may be cleaned and brightened by rubbing with a cut lemon and then sponging with water to which a tablespoon of baking soda per pint has been added; or by sponging with a weak solution of salts of tartar, or with the white of an egg stirred up with a tablespoonful of baking soda. Rub off gently with a soft cloth, and polish with a chamois leather.

Page 196. (Thought is the most swift of all.)
Metagram, a riddle in which the change of the initial letter produces a series of words of different meanings; from meta, implying change, and gramma, a letter. Thus:-
I cover your head; change my head, and I set you to sleep, change it again and again, and with every change comes a new idea – Cap, Nap, Gap, Sap, Hap, Map, Lap, Pap, Rap, Tap. This kind of riddle is also known as word-capping.

Page 454. (He who once has won a name may lie abed till eight.)
The Dictaphone.
This is an electrically-driven machine constructed on the principle of the phonograph, by means of which correspondence &c., may be dictated and reproduced at will.
A speaking tube is attached to the machine, into the mouthpiece of which the person dictating speaks as into a telephone. His* speech is recorded on a revolving cylinder by a cutting needle, and the machine may be stopped and restarted as desired…

(* Hm, but not ‘her’ speech though, she’s busy outside typing and making cups of tea.)