Page:The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor (IA b21971961 0001).pdf/159

Rh a hair or fine wire sieve into another vessel, where it settles to the bottom in a solid mass of white-wash. There will be some water at the top, not imbibed by the lime; this should be skimmed off. It is then to be mixed with cold water, till it is of the consistence of thin paint, being stirred occasionally while it is using. In this state it is laid on with a whitening brush, by the man and his wife who have the care of the house.

The quantity used for white-washing the fifteen rooms at Auckland poorhouse, is half a bushel, which costs two-pence; the expence of the four white-washings being, in the whole, not quite. This trifling expenditure has produced a benefit to the poor in the workhouse, to those who visit it, and indeed to the parish in general, in the prevention of vermin, that is not easily to be calculated.—I have great pleasure in being able to say, that neither disease or vermin have a place in our poorhouse at present; but