Davenport Gazette
Davenport, Scott, Iowa
Jan 1, 1845

SOAP- A HINT TO HOUSEWIFERY.
In summer and autumn your soap grease is apt to accumulate beyond your
immediate wants; if put away it is apt to be devoured by maggots, and if
made into soap, you may not have pine or other appropriate vessels enough to
hold it. Having suffered loss from being placed in such circumstances, we
are much gratified with a piece of intelligence received, which relived us
from the disagreeable dilemma. By boiling your soft soap with salt, about a
quart of the latter to three gallons of the former, you can separate lie
[sic] and water enough to make the soap hard. After boiling half an hour,
turn it out into a tub to cool. Cut the cakes which swim on the top into
pieces, and having scraped off froth and other impurities, melt again,
(without the lie [sic] and water and water underneath of course.) and pour
it into a box to cool. By adding a proportion of rosin, well pulverized, at
the last boiling, you will have yellow soap like that made for market.

A WHISPER TO A WIFE
Study your husband's temper and character; and be it your pride and pleasure
to conform to his wishes. Check at once the first advances to contradiction,
even of the most trivial nature. Beware of the first dispute. Whatever might
have been concealed as a defect from the lover, must with greater diligence
from the husband. The most intimate and friendly familiarity cannot surely
be supposed to exclude decorum. Let your husband be dearer and of more
consequence to you than any other human being;and have no hesitation in
confessing those feelings to him.

The Gazette
Davenport, Scott, Iowa
August 13, 1845

BATHING
During this hot weather there is no evening amusement in our opinion so
charmingly delightful as Bathing. Bathing in any "mingling waters" of a
moonlight night when the thermometer aspires to 100 degrees,  is highly
agreeable- but bathing in the Mississippi! - there's an inspiration in it.
We could sit up to our chin any night in its transparent waters with the
moonbeams showering down upon our cranium, and write poetry with railroad
velocity- but we don't intend to do it. Although so pleasurable an
amusement, we regard bathing as an exercise peculiarly healthful. During
these days when men Falstaff-like "lard the lean earth" with their fat,
every man, woman and child, should purify the skin by frequent washing.
Regarding then  bathing as an amusement so pleasant in its enjoyment and so
healthy in its effects, we cannot but regret that our ladies are so
excessively more modest than those of eastern cities, and of civilized and
uncivilized countries generally, as to be prevented from indulging in the
sport. Bathing dresses are easily made, and we have no doubt sufficient
gentlemen could be obtained at any time ready and willing to form social
parties for the accommodation of the fair divers. Diving belles would then
be common.