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At a recent meeting in Berlin of the Association for Promoting Industrial Arts in Prussia, H. Wichgraf reported the results of a trial that had been made with the silicate of soda (soluble glass) as a substitute for soap in washing clothes at the prison of Spandau. At this place 5,93G articles of clothing are washed every week. The cost of soaking these with soap amounted to about 5 94, but with the silicate only $1 76. The linen is first steeped for twenty-four hours in a mixture of one pound of the silicate of soda to ten gallons of water, then it is washed with common soap suds rinsed in clean water and dried. The steeping of linen clothes in an alkaline or soap solution prior to washing in the usual manner, affords time for the grease and dirt in them to unite with the alkali or soap, they therefore require but little rubbing and labor afterwards. Clothes treated in this manner involve less labor in washing than by the old method, without steeping. A great number of persons in our country pursue this system; still ii U not a universal practice

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