washball

Now I found a washball made of oil of olives mixed with beech ash and showed him the use of it.

The Virgin of the Sun Henry Rider Haggard 1890

The last recital I gave him of what he said for half an hour before was, 'What, the devil! where is the washball? call the chairmen! d-- n them, I warrant they are at the alehouse already! zounds! and confound them!'

Isaac Bickerstaff, physician and astrologer Richard Steele 1700

I find three huge half-furnished rooms, with bare brick floors, petroleum lamps, and horribly bad pictures on bright washball-blue and gamboge walls, and in the midst of it all, every evening, a dozen ladies and gentlemen seated in a circle, vociferating at each other the same news a year old; the younger ladies in bright yellows and greens, fanning themselves while my teeth chatter, and having sweet things whispered behind their fans by officers with hair brushed up like a hedgehog.

Hauntings Vernon Lee 1895