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Title: The Labour-saving House
Author: Peel, Dorothy Constance Bayliff
Language: English
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THE LABOUR-SAVING HOUSE
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
WAR RATION COOKERY (The Eat-less-meat Book)
LEARNING TO COOK
10/- A HEAD FOR HOUSE BOOKS
NOVELS
THE HAT SHOP
MRS. BARNET-ROBES
A MRS. JONES
[Illustration:
_PLATE I_
A FINE OLD RAEBURN MANTEL-PIECE AND FIRE-PLACE FITTED WITH A MODERN
"DOG" GRATE AND GAS FIRE AND ALSO WITH GAS "CANDLE" STANDARDS]
THE LABOUR-SAVING HOUSE
BY MRS. C. S. PEEL
[Illustration]
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXVIII
The greatest Labour-Saving apparatus which we possess is the Brain: it
has not been worn out by too much use.
_SECOND EDITION_
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE ANCHOR PRESS LTD. TIPTREE ESSEX
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Some portion of this book appeared in the form of articles in _The
Queen_ and _The Evening Standard_. My thanks are due to the Editors of
those papers for permission to republish them.
DOROTHY C. PEEL.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
i. Why do we need Labour-Saving Houses? 3
ii. Labour-Saving Houses and the Servant Problem 7
iii. The Labour-Saving House as it Might Be 29
iv. The Labour-Saving House as it Can Be 53
v. The Work of a Labour-Making House, and the
Work of a Labour-Saving House 73
vi. Other People's Experiences of Labour-Saving
Homes 87
vii. Other People's Experiences of Labour-Saving
Homes (_continued_) 119
viii. Coal, Coke, and Gas: How to Use Them to the
Best Advantage 141
ix. The Electric House. Cooking, Heating, Cleaning
and Lighting by Electricity 171
A Final Word 187
Index 189
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
NO.
1. Gas Heater _Frontispiece_
2. Gas Heater PAGE 8
3. Gas Heater " 9
4. Gas Heater " 15
5. Gas Heater " 18
6. Gas Cooker " 31
7. Gas Heating " 31
8. Gas Heating " 33
9. Gas Heating " 35
10. Gas Lighting " 44
11. Gas Lighting " 45
12. Gas Lighting " 47
13. Gas Cooker " 51
14. Gas Cooking " 62
15. Gas Heating (Water) " 64
16. Gas Cooker " 67
17. Gas Heating (Water) " 71
18. Gas Heating (Water) " 75
19. Gas Kitchen " 79
20. Gas Cooking " 81
21. Gas Kitchen " 85
22. Gas Kitchener " 93
23. Gas Kitchen " 95
24. Gas Destructor " 97
25. Gas Kitchen " 101
26. Gas-Reading (Meter) " 105
27. Gas Oven " 108
28. Gas Oven " 111
29. Gas Steamer " 117
30. Gas Utensils " 124
31. Gas Oven " 126
32. Electric Kitchen " 131
33. Electric Iron and Electric Heater " 134
34. Electric Kitchen " 142
35. Dining-room Hot-Plate and Dreadnought Machine " 143
36. Electric Cooker " 145
37. Electric Fire " 148
38. Electric Cooker " 157
39. Electric Cooker " 160
40. Electric Transformer Co. " 163
41. Electric Transformer Co., Delightful Inventions " 164
42. Electric Transformer Co., Breakfast Cooker " 176
42. Electric Transformer Co., Toaster and Hot-Plate " 176
43. Electric Cooker " 177
44. Gas Oven " 180
45. Electric Fireplace " 181
46. Electric Radiator " 188
In almost every English house at least a third of each day is wasted
in doing work which in no way adds to the comfort of its inmates.
CHAPTER I
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_Why Labour-Saving Houses are Needed_
THE LABOUR-SAVING HOUSE
CHAPTER I
WHY LABOUR-SAVING HOUSES ARE NEEDED
Why do we need Labour-Saving Houses?
Because:
1.--Life is too short and time too valuable to waste in doing work
which is unnecessary and which adds little or nothing to our
comfort.
2.--There is a scarcity of labour. Girls of the class from which
domestic servants were drawn formerly now dislike service. The
would-be employer finds it difficult to obtain servants and to
keep them when obtained.
3.--Unless great changes are made in our houses and households it
will become even more difficult to obtain servants, because so
many professions are now open to young women that they are in a
position to choose how they will earn a living.
4.--When servants are not obtainable, the mistress is driven to
turn to and do the work of her own house. That is why a demand for
labour-saving mechanism is making itself felt.
5.--Owing to modern inventions, it is now possible to achieve a house
in which a family may be housed and fed in comfort at half the
cost of labour which is absorbed in the labour-making house.
6.--It is pleasanter to spend money on the things one likes than to
squander it on unnecessary coals and kitchenmaids.
House-keeping. Home-making.
What do these words mean?
They mean so much that is vital to the individual and to the nation
that one could weep for the stupidity which permits any untrained and
ill-educated girl to become a nurse, a cook, a housemaid, a mother,
and the mistress of a home!
CHAPTER II
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_The Ignorant Employer--The Incompetent Servant--Wanted! a New Race
of Mistresses--Domestic Training for all Girls--Its Value to the
Nation--"Menial" Work--The Surplus of Governesses, Secretaries, and
Companions, and the Scarcity of Servants--Genteel Professions--What
the Servant Dislikes--How to Popularise Domestic Service._
CHAPTER II
THE SERVANT PROBLEM AND SOME SOLUTIONS OF IT
I
"Servants? We haven't a single-handed cook or a house-parlourmaid on
our books, madam."
This, in many cases, is the reply of the registry office to-day, and
as time goes on the shortage of domestic workers will become more and
more acute. Of highly-paid upper servants, with under-servants to
wait upon them, there is no lack, for the supply of persons wishing
to fill the few "plum" posts in any profession is always adequate;
but as there is a lack of under-servants, even the very rich find it
difficult to secure a satisfactory household; while the mistress who
needs a house-parlourmaid, a single-handed cook, a "general," or even
a single-handed house- or parlourmaid finds it almost impossible to
induce a suitable girl to accept her situation.
Why should this be?
"The war," says every one. "All the young women are busy conducting
tramcars, selling bacon, and punching railway tickets."
But why are all the young women anxious to be anything but domestic
servants?
As a matter of fact this dislike to service has not been brought about
by the war; it has been growing steadily for many years, and to a great
extent employers have only themselves to thank for a state of affairs
which they so bitterly deplore.
[Illustration:
_PLATE II_
THE DAVIS "ADAM" GAS FIRE IN AN ADAM STYLE MANTEL]
The Ignorant Employer.
What sane person would undertake the management of a business knowing
nothing of the conduct of it? Yet this is what young women of the
moneyed classes have done ever since it became the fashion to despise
domesticity, to imagine that housekeeping was a pursuit fit only for
women too stupid to do anything else. The girl marries: to her, cookery
and household work are deep, dark mysteries. How do you clean silver?
How long does it take to turn out a bedroom? Do you allow 2 lbs. or
12 lbs. of margarine per week for a household of six persons? What is
dripping? The cook says soup cannot be made without soup meat. Can't
it? And what is soup meat? Imagine the annoyance of working under the
control of such an employer!
Honest, competent servants become disheartened, the incompetent remain
incompetent, while the ignorance of the mistress makes the temptation
to be dishonest well-nigh irresistible. It is the ignorance of the
mistress also that has enabled the perquisite and commission system
(polite names for theft) to flourish, and which make it possible for
tradesmen to employ men at low wages on the tacit understanding that a
high wage may be gained by fleecing the customer.
[Illustration:
_PLATE III_
AN "ADAM" DESIGN GAS DOG GRATE PLACED IN A FINE OLD FIRE-PLACE IN A
LARGE HALL
Note also the attractive gas candle brackets. (Richmond)]
No Chance for the Incompetent Servant.
Again, had the servant-employers of this country a proper knowledge
of their duties, the incompetent servant would have little chance to
exist. She would have been taught her work, and if she would not do it,
have been dismissed.
But nine times out of ten the mistress does not know how to teach, and
is so dependent on her servants that she must keep anyone rather than
be left servantless.
The result of our genteel dislike of "menial" duties has not only
encouraged dishonesty and incompetence in our servants, it has actually
lessened the supply. The mistress who has never cleaned a room or
cooked a dinner cannot realise the difficulties of either task. Hence
it is that because domestic work generally has been done by paid
servants, we have made but little effort to plan and furnish our houses
in a labour-saving fashion. We have also failed to move with the times,
and to realise that no matter if we approve or disapprove, young girls
now demand more variety and more freedom in their lives than was
formerly the case.
Wanted! a New Race of Mistresses.
A race of competent, sympathetic mistresses might have made domestic
service one of the most sought-after of the professions open to the
average woman. They might have eliminated practically all the hard
and dirty work of the house, they might have organised regular hours
for exercise and recreation, and by their own example shown what war
is now teaching us--the incalculable value to the nation of the good
housekeeper. In their scorn of domestic duties Englishwomen have
forgotten that the sole duty of the housewife is not to know the price
of mutton: it is her duty, and that of those who work with her, to
bring up a race of decently behaved, clean, well-fed people, and to
make of her home a place of peace and goodwill, a centre from which
radiates a right influence.
Is this the work for the woman too stupid for aught else? or is it the
work of a true patriot?
It is often said that the English govern their Government, and there is
truth in the statement. The Press keeps its finger on the public pulse:
when that shows signs of excitement, the Press acts, and between them,
Public and Press set Parliament moving.
Domestic Training for all Girls.
Possibly, in time, the serious lack of domestic labour will excite the
Public and the Press to such a pitch that the Government will realise
that every girl, no matter of what class, should be taught how to cook
and to clean and to wash, tend and feed a young child, and not only be
taught how to do these things, but impressed with the idea that in so
doing she is as surely performing her duty to her country as are the
soldier, sailor, doctor, scientist, or merchant.
But the fact that you teach girls these things will not cause them to
become servants, you object.
I am by no means sure that you are right. When all girls have been
through a course of domestic training, and when they have been
impressed with the national importance of such work, they will regard
it from a point of view different from that which now obtains.
The girl who becomes the employer will know what she is asking of her
employée; she will realise that to labour indoors from 6.30 or 7 to 10
or 10.30 five days a week is not attractive to a young girl. The work
may not be continuous: there will be half-hours of rest and talk with
the other maids; but the fact remains that the servant is on duty and
liable to be called upon at any time during those hours.
The mistress, who has been a worker, will also realise how hard and
disagreeable are some of the tasks required of the servant in a
labour-making home.
On the other hand, the servant will know that she cannot take advantage
of the ignorance of her employer and that her employer is not demanding
of her work which she herself regards as derogatory. The maid, too,
will start knowing her work: she will not have to pick it up as best
she can, often from persons knowing little more than herself. The life
of many young servants is made almost unendurable because they have to
struggle along as best they may, scolded by mistress and upper-servant
alike for not knowing what they have had no opportunity to learn. A
child in a fairly well-to-do working home, whose mother has been a
servant, goes out to service with some knowledge of her work, but as
a rule the conditions in cottages and town workers' dwellings are so
utterly different from those in the homes of the well-to-do that the
young girl can scarcely be blamed when she breaks and spoils and makes
more dust and muddle than she clears away.
Domestic Training will improve the Physique of the Coming Generation.
A three or four months' course of intelligent domestic training
would do much, not only to solve the servant problem, but to improve
the physique of the coming generation, for it is sheer ignorance
of domesticity which accounts for a high percentage of the infant
mortality which is a disgrace to this country. And this ignorance of
the importance of cleanliness, sanitation, etc., is not confined to
the poorer classes. Fashions filter downwards, and when the educated
women of the upper classes show that they consider household work
beneath their attention, why should they think it strange when they
find the same opinion expressed by the working-girl?
Ignorance of the national value of "menial work" is one reason for
the unpopularity of domestic service.
This attitude is not confined to the uneducated--only to the
unthinking.
[Illustration:
PLATE IV
THIS ILLUSTRATION SHOWS HOW MODERN COAL GRATES IN BEDROOMS CAN BE
FITTED WITH GAS FIRES WITHOUT MAKING STRUCTURAL ALTERATIONS.
This type of gas fire can be fitted in almost any shape or size of coal
grates; its initial cost, as well as cost of fitting, is extremely low.
(Fletcher Russell)]
II
Menial Work.
The wide dislike of menial work which exists was brought before me
vividly a short time ago.
A secretary was advertised for, an educated, quick, methodical
worker--good typist and shorthandist. The lady who needed the secretary
almost required one to deal with the letters she received in reply to
her advertisement.[1]
A holiday nursery governess was advertised for: again with the same
result. Women with every qualification were anxious--desperately
anxious--to obtain the post. These educated women sent stamped
envelopes for a reply and offered to come long distances to secure an
interview.
A cook at £30 a year (single-handed) was advertised for over and over
again. Registry offices were haunted, friends worried, for tidings
of cooks. No cooks were forthcoming. Here was a situation where the
two maids had a roomy comfortable bedroom and their own bathroom, a
sitting-room with a gas fire and every labour-saving apparatus to make
the work easy.
These servants were offered not less than 10s. a week wages, as much
good food as they could eat, clean, sanitary quarters, with comfortable
beds and hot baths galore. Their washing was paid, an off-day, from
3.30 to 10, once a week, and the same on alternate Sundays, and two
weeks' holiday (on full pay) granted, in addition to as many other
outings as could be arranged.
Had suitable applicants appeared and demanded £30 or £34 a year, they
would have obtained those wages.
[Illustration:
PLATE V
A LONDON DINING-ROOM SHOWING DRAWING-ROOM BEYOND
This picture shows how a gas fire may be fixed in an antique grate
without disturbing the old fire-place. When alight the effect is of
red-hot coke.]
Too many Governesses, Secretaries, and Companions in Normal Times.
And yet there is a glut of women who wish to become governesses,
secretaries, companions, and shop-assistants, in spite of the fact that
such work is not well paid, that it is uncertain, and that those girls
who must take lodgings or "live in" are generally badly housed and
badly fed. Except in a few shops, girls living "in" live very roughly.
Nurses in the generality of nursing-homes do the same, and women
workers who earn under 30s. a week and live in a bed-sitting-room in
a lodging-house are in no better case, though the latter do have the
luxury of a room to themselves. In many houses, however, this luxury
could be granted to the servants.
The life of a servant in a good situation is healthy; she can
enjoy cleanliness, good food, and warmth, she can take her pick of
situations, and leave one which is undesirable, knowing full well that
she can obtain another for the asking. A girl earning good wages in
service can save, and she is not dogged by the terror of being suddenly
thrown out of employment and finding herself penniless and unable to
obtain another post.
So much for the advantages of domestic service as a profession. What
are its drawbacks?
Lack of freedom and the fact that the profession of a servant is not
considered genteel! The girl who adopts it does not rank as a "young
lady."
Service is not a Genteel Profession!
Is it not time that we ceased to cherish such vulgar ideas?
War, tragic and terrible, is bringing home to us the fact that we
should honour the women who can and will work, and despise those who
exist merely as parasites on the labour of their fellow-beings.
The educated woman who desires to earn her living has a great chance
before her. Let her do for the domestic worker what an earlier
generation of women did for the sick-nurse. As domestic workers,
educated women will be of incalculable value to the nation, and they
can secure for themselves well-paid, healthy work under reformed
conditions.
Domestic Training Colleges.
To bring about this change, first of all we need to establish domestic
training colleges, run on somewhat the same lines as the Norland
Nurses' Institute, where girls of good education may learn their work
and obtain certificates and character sheets. These institutions should
provide accommodation for members on holiday or when changing their
situations. They should also demand for their members a fixed scale of
wages, a reasonable standard of food and accommodation, and free time.
The workers should wear the uniform of the institution. Well-trained
girls could demand high wages, and employers could afford to give them
to conscientious, capable workers, who would neither break nor spoil
nor waste, and who would disdain to practise the small dishonesties by
which the servant often augments her wages.
But if the educated woman worker is ready to do her part in the scheme,
her prospective employer must realise that she, too, has a duty to
perform. It rests with her so to arrange the work of her household that
the positions she has to offer shall appear desirable to the class of
woman she desires to employ.
What the Servant Dislikes.
To sum up the situation, the scarcity of domestic servants is accounted
for by the dislike of girls who have to earn a living for a life which
entails long hours, little freedom, and which carries with it something
of social stigma.
The shop-girl, the clerk, the tea-room waitress are "_young ladies_."
They are known as Miss Jones or Miss Smith. The servant is a servant,
a "slavey," a "skivvy," a "Mary Jane." A young man of the superior
working class prefers to walk out with a young lady, and the servant
knows this and resents it. Even if a girl goes into a factory, she may
work harder than the servant and in many cases under less pleasant
conditions, but she is free in the evening, on Saturday afternoon,
and on Sunday, and she lives amongst her equals. She does not inhabit
"servants' bedrooms," and eat "kitchen butter," and drink "kitchen
tea." The tea that she does drink may be inferior, but at all events it
is as good as that consumed by other members of her world.
And all these things matter, though the average employer likes to
believe that they do not.
To Popularise Domestic Service.
So to make domestic service popular we must make it fashionable. It
should be as fashionable to be a domestic servant as to become a
hospital nurse.
Alter the conditions of domestic service until the profession of
domestic worker attracts the educated woman, and the problem is solved.
"Go into Service! Not I!"
That is what young girls say.
"I don't know what to do, I cannot get servants."
That is what the employer says.
What is she doing to make domestic service an attractive profession
to the young girl?
III
Study the psychology of the question, find out what it is young women
want of life. Be progressive. Do not say, "Because it was, it ever
shall be." Thank God, things do not stay as they were, or we might
still be working little children eighteen hours a day in factories,
starving and whipping lunatics, and burning witches.
Having realised that it is the human attitude which is of first
importance, then let us go on to see by what means we can lighten the
work of our households so that we may make service attractive.
We can solve the domestic problem--
1.--By becoming entirely, or partly, our own servants.
2.--By employing outside workers, who should be trained, uniformed,
and paid at a fixed rate per hour.
3.--By changing the conditions until domestic service becomes as
attractive to the worker as any other profession open to the woman
of average ability and education.
Other changes can be made: indeed, it is certain that sooner or later
they must be made unless we are to go servantless. When the necessary
alteration of mental attitude towards the subject is achieved, the next
thing to be done is to call to our aid all the labour-saving devices
which are available, for it is by making full use of them that we can
eliminate the hard and disagreeable work from houses and make the
profession of a domestic worker attractive to an educated woman.
In the industrial world it is now realised that to obtain the best
results the worker must be saved all unnecessary fatigue, and that the
mental atmosphere in which he works must be as free from strain and
anxiety as possible, for it is found that the labour of an over-tired
worker becomes practically worthless.
It is time we applied modern methods to the working of our households,
in which they are needed as much as in the office or the factory.
"They build these 'ouses," said Ann, "as though girls wasn't 'uman
beings....
"It's 'ouses like this wears girls out."
KIPPS.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This incident occurred in the early part of 1915.
CHAPTER III
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_The House that Jack builds without the help of Jane--A Hot and
Cold Water Service--What happens when you do away with Coal--How to
Save a Third of your Household Work--Light and Air--Kitchens and
Offices--Service-rooms--Furniture and Decoration--Bathrooms and
Washing-rooms--Some Labour-Saving Details._
CHAPTER III
THE LABOUR-SAVING HOUSE AS IT MIGHT BE
I
The other day I was re-reading that delightful story of a simple soul,
_Kipps_, and was struck anew by the truth of the difficulties which
beset Artie and Ann when they went house-hunting.
"'They build these 'ouses,' said Ann, 'as though girls wasn't 'uman
beings.... There's kitchen stairs to go up, Artie.... Some poor girl's
got to go up and down, up and down, and be tired out, jest because they
haven't the sense to leave enough space to give their steps a proper
rise; and no water upstairs anywhere--every drop got to be carried!
It's 'ouses like this wear girls out.
"'It's 'aving 'ouses built by men, I believe, makes all the work and
trouble....'
"The Kipps, you see, thought they were looking for a reasonably simple
little contemporary house, but indeed they were looking either for
dreamland or 1975 A.D., or thereabouts, and it hadn't come."
The House that Jack Built.
I am inclined to agree with Ann in thinking that having houses built
by men makes at least a great part of all the work and trouble, for
my own experiences--somewhat limited, I admit--of architects point to
the fact that they are concerned to provide you with a house which
looks charming and which may be stoutly built, but that such details
as the make of the bath, the size of the service lift, the position
of the kitchen range, and the arrangements for cupboards, housemaid's
pantries, and so forth, concern them not at all.
When rebuilding a house for ourselves it was left to me to suggest a
service lift, and I was only by a happy chance in time to prevent it
being of such an absurd size that no good-sized joint on a dish to
correspond, or a coal scuttle, could have been put into it!
I also had to point out that to arrange for all the hot-water pipes to
pass through the larder seemed scarcely advisable, and that a box-room
in which all the boxes were to be stacked one upon the other was not
quite as labour-saving as one fitted with strong, cheap slatted shelves
on which the boxes could stand in tiers and be removed one at a time as
required with ease and dispatch.
Men, as a general rule, do not have to keep house, neither do they have
to do housework, thus it is not surprising that such details as these
escape their notice.
[Illustration:
_PLATE VI_
THE "BROWNIE" IS THE IDEAL COOKER.
For use where space is limited, or where the requirements of the family
are small. The oven is fitted with one grid and one browning shelf.]
[Illustration:
_PLATE VIa_
THE "WALDICK" COOKER
Combines a cooker, gas fire, and water boiler. All parts of the stove
are under separate control. Where hot water is available by other means
the "Waldick" can be supplied without the side boiler. The gas fire in
the oven door is always supplied with this cooker, as shown above. This
stove is specially designed for use in flats, and other places where
there is limited space. (Wilson)]
Women Architects.
For that reason every architect, if he be a man, should number a
clever, resourceful, and experienced woman amongst his staff. Or why
should not the architect be a woman?
Before discoursing of the labour-saving house as it might be, it is
well to state that I am well aware that one man's meat is another
man's poison, also that, owing to the fact that gas and electricity
are not always available in the country, the labour-saving house must,
more often than not, be in a town or a suburb. Still, much may be done
with the country house, even the small country house, and after all we
move quickly nowadays, and soon it may be possible to obtain gas and
electric current everywhere.
[Illustration:
_PLATE VII_
A DINING-ROOM WITH A GAS FIRE AND GAS "CANDLE" BRACKETS]
A Hot and Cold Water Service.
Another point which strikes me when coming to consider my labour-saving
house is this. Why do not the Water Companies supply us with a Hot
Water Service on much the same terms as they now supply us with a Cold
Water Service?
Let us try and realise what this would mean to the householder. His
home would be fitted with radiators and warmed by hot water. He would
turn the radiators on and off as he needed them. He would turn a tap
and hot water would be at his command at any hour, day and night, for
baths, washing-up, and cooking. He would turn another tap and cold
water would gush forth.
Imagine the economy of such an arrangement! Instead of millions of
stoves heating water, there would be a few large furnaces doing the
work. Imagine, too, the difference in the atmosphere when you eliminate
coal from all dwelling-houses. The house is heated and provided with
hot and cold water on every floor, in every room if you like, with no
more trouble to yourself than turning a tap and paying the bill. When
you do not have to cook water in addition to food you need far less
fuel, and for this purpose electricity or gas are at your disposal. If
you feel lonely when sitting in a room warmed by a radiator, you may
have a small wood fire, and this, I admit, labour-saving faddist that I
am, I should desire in one or two sitting-rooms.
When by turning a tap or a switch, water, gas, and electricity become
our servants, we shall have done much to solve the Servant Problem.
[Illustration:
_PLATE VIII_
A WELL-KNOWN LONDON DRAWING-ROOM SHOWING A GAS-HEATED "LOG FIRE"]
II
But in the ideal labour-saving house (ideal, mark you, from a
labour-saving point of view), there are no fires, no chimneys, no
grates, no coal-devouring, dirt-making range, always requiring coal and
yet more coal and returning you evil for good in the shape of soot and
dirt.
Have you ever watched a sweep at work? Have you ever cleaned the flues
of a coal range?
In our dream-house we have no such horrors. We save the cost of
chimneys, sweeps, grates, fenders, fireirons, coal-boxes. We need not
provide coal cellars, in which a cold, cross, sleepy girl must grovel
in the early morn before the house can be warmed and the breakfast
cooked.
Make a mental picture of all the heavy coal-boxes which are dragged up
steep stairs in this country of ours.
Ann was right when she said, "It's 'ouses like this wears girls out."
[Illustration:
_PLATE IX_
A GAS FIRE IN THE ENTRANCE HALL OF A SMALL TOWN HOUSE]
Save a Third of the Work in the House.
Eliminate coal and you save quite a third of the work in your home.
Think this out and you will see that it is so. Coal must be delivered.
In a town it is shot through a hole into the basement cellar or
cellars. This causes a cloud of black dirt, and the front of your house
suffers. Then coal must be shovelled up into scuttles; often it is
necessary to break up the large lumps. The scuttles are then carried
about the house, coals up, ashes down; grates are cleaned and the room
is powdered with dust in the process. Grates, fenders, fireirons,
and coal-boxes must be cleaned, and fashion ordains that they are
generally made, wholly or partly, of polished metal. The weather is
cold and a servant is rung for and more coal is demanded. One day the
wind blows and the fire will not light. It takes some fifteen minutes
of bellows-blowing and two bundles of wood to set it going, and then
the wind blows harder and it smokes! Alas for the poor housemaid! The
kitchen fire won't draw and the water is not hot. The sweep must be
sent for, and all the while the air is being fouled from the smoke from
our own chimneys, and when we open our windows the coal we burn returns
to us in the shape of smuts and grime.
Oh, the washing bill, the cleaner's bill! The bill for labour which
might be saved!
So in our ideal home we do away with all this pother, and wash and
warm ourselves by means of hot water which comes from the main and the
supply of which we regulate by turning taps. We light our house and
cook our food by means of electricity or gas, which we also regulate by
turning switches or taps. Thus we obtain heat and artificial light.
When Labour was cheap and plentiful, the Labour-Making House caused
but little inconvenience except to those who had to do the work, and
their point of view was seldom considered.
Now that Labour is scarce and dear, the matter assumes a different
complexion.
III
But our house must be well supplied with natural light, for without
light and air we cannot live.
Away, then, with basements. There must be ample space between the rows
of houses so that every room may be light, that the sun may penetrate
into it, and therefore the windows must be large.
Kitchens and Offices.
These, too, must be light and airy. The kitchen should not be used as
a sitting-room; it is the place in which food is prepared, and should
be a place which can be kept exquisitely clean. It should have tiled
walls and ceiling, a cemented floor on a slight slant with a gutter, so
that it may be washed down with a hose. The larder and pantry should be
arranged in a like fashion. The larder must be cool, well ventilated,
and the food stored in it protected from dust and dirt. In our ideal
home, both cook and mistress know something of the work of dust and
flies as disease carriers.
In this kitchen the cooker is placed in a good light and is mounted
at a convenient height. Only the cook knows the fatigue occasioned
by stooping to lift heavy weights out of low-set ovens, the worry of
cooking in a bad light.
The sink, too, shall be set at a reasonable height. There shall not be
a scullery--why should there be a scullery? It is merely one more place
to clean.
Then we will not condemn any girl or woman to stand for hours washing
up. The electrically worked washing-up machine does such work well and
quickly, and our pots and pans when electricity or even gas is used do
not become black and sooty on the outside.
In the ideal kitchen we will have as few utensils as possible, and
these shall have their proper keeping places.
A Service-room.
In addition to kitchen and larder we will have a "service-room,"
fitted with cupboards for linen, blankets, pillows, etc., for boxes,
for china and glass. Here flowers may be done, clothes brushed, and
half a hundred domestic jobs performed. Here there may be a hot-airing
cupboard, a place in which to wash and iron.
Tiled walls and ceiling, varnished wood, linoleum-covered floor, tables
covered with American cloth nailed tight or faced with zinc are quickly
and easily cleaned.
In addition there must be a maids' sitting-room, light, bright,
sparsely but comfortably furnished, with linoleum-covered floor and
small, light rugs which may be shaken easily.
And in a convenient place, so that it may be fed from kitchen and
pantry, there must be the service lift.
Here we have such domestic premises as are suitable in a house where
three or more servants will be employed.
The large household will need a housekeeper's room, a sitting-room
for the housemaids, a dining-hall, but in this book such households
cannot be considered. On the other hand, the one or two-servant house
or flat may be differently planned. Here pantry, sitting-room, and
service-room might be combined, and this suggestion is dealt with in
another chapter; while in the no-servant home, or that in which some of
the work is done by the visiting domestic worker, a sitting-room is not
needed, and kitchen and pantry may be combined. A small service-room,
however, I would not omit in a house where there are spare bedding,
china, linen, boxes, and so forth to be stowed away; and a house in
which there is no place to do odd jobs cannot be an ideal home.
[Illustration:
_PLATE X_
A CHARMING TWO-LIGHT GAS CANDLE BRACKET IN WROUGHT IRON (EVERED)]
Furniture and Decoration.
The furnishing and decoration of a house must be left to individual
taste: one person revels in colouring which would make another ill,
but when we consider the matter from a labour-saving point of view,
we should forbid painted woodwork. Natural wood should be used and
mouldings forbidden. Who does not know the lines of dirt which form
on the mouldings in which the builder delights? The wainscots, the
window-frames, the doors, all are trimmed with mouldings. Fitted
carpets, or, indeed, any heavy carpets, should be taboo. Parquet
floors are delightful, but in most places linoleum must be the floor
covering because it keeps out draughts, is easily kept clean, and is
comparatively cheap.
Furniture which cannot be moved without difficulty or swept under
is objectionable: double beds are tiring for one person to make,
and washhandstands can be omitted if there are a suitable number of
washing-rooms. These are preferable, I think, to fitted washstands
in the bedrooms. In the average house three washing-rooms would be
required, one for husband and wife, one for the children, and one
for the servants. When spare rooms are required each bedroom and
dressing-room should have its washing-room.
You may say that so many bathrooms absorb much space and cost so much
more.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XI_
A MODERN INDIRECT GAS LIGHTING "BOWL" PENDANT. (EVERED)]
A Clever Idea for a Bedroom and Dressing-room Bath.
This idea has been carried out in a small country house known to me.
Here the spare bedroom and dressing-room are 16 feet wide. Where the
dividing wall would come a fitted washstand has been arranged in either
room, back to back. The washstands jut out 1 foot 8 inches into either
room, and are 3 feet long, leaving, if you draw a straight line to
either side wall, and allowing for a partition wall, a space 3 feet 8
inches wide and 10 feet long. This space is enclosed on either side by
sliding doors, fitted with bolts, and inside it a porcelain enamel bath
is fitted. There is a ventilating window at the outer wall, and that
piece of wall is tiled as is the floor.
A large-sized bath measures some 30 inches across the widest end, and
is 6 feet long. A small bath measures some 28 inches by 5 feet, so if
the rooms were small and a small bath chosen a lesser space would be
necessary for the bathroom, and part of the length might be used for
wardrobe cupboards.
In this house the water and the radiators are heated by a coke furnace,
the house is lighted by acetylene gas, and the cooking is done by coal,
and the cooker is so arranged that it heats servants' hall as well as
kitchen.
In a labour-saving house all rooms should be under rather than over
furnished, and free of heavy, stuffy draperies. There should be a gas
ring or electric heater in each room or on each floor, so that in the
case of illness food can be prepared. Hot water there will always be,
day and night.
What are the domestic tasks which women most dislike?
Getting coals out of the coal cellar.
Cleaning grates and flues.
Carrying heavy trays, cans, and coal-boxes up and down stairs.
Cleaning doorsteps.
Doing washstand work.
Then why continue to perform them?
[Illustration:
_PLATE XII_
A THREE-LIGHT GAS FITTING, WITH INVERTED BURNERS AND SHADES SUCH AS
ENSURE A PLEASING LIGHT
The switch systems, now readily adaptable to gas lighting, enable
the burners to be lighted and extinguished by the mere pressing of a
button. (Evered)]
IV
Of polished metal there should be a minimum, and glass rather than
silver should be chosen for table use. Stainless steel knives take the
place of those which need cleaning. The meals should be simplified as
much as possible. Earthenware casseroles in which the food is cooked
and served save washing up. Rotary brushes by which boot and other
cleaning may be carried out are worked by electricity. Linoleum with
rubber treads is substituted for stair carpets whenever possible, in
order to save carpet beating and the cost of stair-rods. The use of a
suction cleaner, Bissel carpet sweeper, long-handled scrubbing brushes
and mops, telephone bells, an electric "not at home" indicator on the
front door, a polished dining-table, glass tops to sideboard, side, and
dressing-tables will all reduce the labour bill. It is also important
that each person in the house should refrain from making unnecessary
work for the others, for to tidy up after an untidy person absorbs far
more time than is often realised.
But, alas! such a home as I have described is not within the reach of
many people. Like the Kipps, we are looking for Dreamland or 1975, and
it has not come. Still, there are people who build houses and there are
more people who rebuild houses, and large numbers who do up houses,
and if one cannot do all one would like, it is generally possible to
achieve some of one's ambitions.
It is not the work but the spirit in which it is done that degrades.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XIII_
COMPOSITE GAS COOKER (3 INDEPENDENT OVENS AND HOT PLATE). SUITABLE FOR
A LARGE HOUSEHOLD WHERE THE AMOUNT OF COOKING VARIES VERY MUCH]
CHAPTER IV
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_The Basement House--Good Neighbourhoods and Dying
Neighbourhoods--A Typical Labour-Making House--A Labour-Making
House Converted--Another Suggestion for a Labour-Saving
House--Fitting and Furnishing._
CHAPTER IV
THE LABOUR-SAVING HOUSE AS IT CAN BE
I
It was an Irishman who advised, "If ye can't be aisy, be as aisy as ye
can," and his advice was good.
Thus, if you cannot have an ideal house, have a home which is as nearly
ideal as possible, so let us consider the house as we generally find
it, and see what can be done to improve it.
Most houses built prior to the last ten years seem to have been planned
with the express desire of providing an unnecessary amount of hard
work for the unfortunate persons who inhabit them. Fifty years ago
labour was cheap and plentiful, and ideas as to hygiene stranger even
than many which still obtain. Now, however, we do know that fresh air
and light are as necessary to our well-being as sound food. This fact
is shown in an interesting fashion in Mrs. Pember Reeves' admirable
book, "Round About a Pound a Week," in which she speaks eloquently of
the way in which "basement families" deteriorate in health, although
the children may have more food than those who live in higher, airier
quarters.
Basement Houses.
Ignorance of the value of light and air, cheap labour and dear land
were no doubt the causes of basement houses, and to this day, although
labour is dear and the cost of feeding and keeping each servant has
increased, it is no uncommon thing for a housekeeper to remark, "I have
to keep an extra servant because of the basement," and perhaps another
maid is employed because of the coals and stairs.
Where the income is ample, the extra labour bill is of little
importance (speaking from the employer's point of view), but
householders of moderate and small means are rapidly discovering that
labour-making houses are not for them; that it is an economy to pay, if
needs be, a rather higher rent and to live in a healthy, light, airy
house, so planned that all unnecessary toil is abolished, and with it
the cost of much cleaning material, chimney-sweeping, whitewashing, etc.
In many cases, landlords have found it impossible to let their gloomy,
inconvenient dwellings to tenants of the desired kind, and what was
a "good neighbourhood" has sunk by degrees until the houses are
inhabited by members of that unfortunate class who are forced to take
any rooms they can obtain, and only too often pay a high price for bad
accommodation. I am not in a position to advise on the management of
house property, but I cannot but think that in many cases it would pay
the owners to modernise the houses they have to let rather than let
them deteriorate.
As I write, I have in my mind's eye a certain neighbourhood in London,
once fashionable, now inhabited by "nice" people, whose means make it
impossible for them to pay high rents. But this neighbourhood is slowly
but surely deteriorating, and rents are sinking, simply because the
houses are of a kind that necessitate at least three servants being
employed, in addition to a nurse if there are young children. With less
than three servants these houses could not be kept clean or warm.
A Typical Labour-Making House.
The accommodation in most of these streets and squares consists of:
_Basement_ (deep and rather dark).--Kitchen, pantry, servants' hall at
back (generally very dark), lavatory, coal and wine cellars; front area
(dustbin stands here), backyard; steep and dark stairs to ground floor.
_Ground Floor._--Dining-room, smoking-room, and third small dark room,
lavatory, narrow hall, and steep stairs leading to small half-landing.
_First Floor._--Double drawing-room. Above, seven bedrooms, one
lavatory, and one bathroom.
All coal for the house must be carried up one, two, or three, and
possibly four, flights of steep stairs.
There is a large kitchen range, with flues to clean twice a week, as
in order to keep up the hot-water supply much coal is burned, and the
flues become very dirty.
The chimney must also be swept every two months. Other chimneys must
be swept twice a year; if much used, three times a year. All food and
table utensils must be carried up and downstairs three times a day, and
when lunch and dinner are in progress a servant must run up and down
with clean and dirty dishes, etc.
Washstands are used in each bedroom, and hot water taken to these rooms
three or four times a day. There is but one bathroom and upstairs
lavatory; therefore there is a good deal of stair work when doing the
rooms. If there is a nursery, the nursery meals have to be carried up
and down.
Each time the hall-door bell rings, a maid must run upstairs to answer
it, and visitors and tea in the drawing-room necessitate more journeys
up and down, and the carrying of a heavy tray.
Now, with a house of this description there are certainly two ways of
converting it into a labour-saving dwelling.
A Labour-Making House Converted.
If the basement is deep and incurably dark, by far the best plan is to
dispense with it altogether so far as living-rooms are concerned, using
it merely for cellars and box-room.
"But," says the householder, "there will now be no back door. The
tradesmen will all have to come to the front door." They will. But
tradesmen call chiefly in the morning, and the few who come in the
afternoon might be instructed to go to the area door, to which the
dustman would also go, while the coals (if any are used) would be
delivered through the pavement coal-shoot as before.
Arranging thus, the house proper begins on the ground floor. The
large front room is the dining-room as before, and the double doors
between it and the erstwhile smoking-room should be plastered up on
the smoking-room side, for under the new arrangement the smoking-room
becomes the kitchen, and the small third room the pantry. The kitchen
will not be large, but neither a gas nor an electric cooker takes up
much space.
Now comes the question whether the hot-water system shall be worked by
a coke or a gas circulator. The latter gives even less trouble than
the former, but it may prove too costly in use. A coke furnace needs
to be stoked about three times a day, and is very easy to light. The
furnace might be placed in the kitchen or in the basement, and in it
can be burned practically all the rubbish, thus doing away with that
otherwise nasty necessity the dustbin, which in many parts of London
the authorities refuse to empty more than once a week.
Kitchen and pantry must be fitted with sinks, and there should be a
little gas fire, work-table, and armchair in the pantry for the use of
the house-parlourmaid.
Make your head save your hands.
This has been said millions of times, but there is still need to go
on saying it.
II
Two servants can easily do the work of a house such as this will
become, and the kitchen premises are only suitable for two servants.
Extra help, however, can always be employed in times of stress. In
order that two women may keep the house in thorough order, gas fires
should be used in all rooms other than perhaps the drawing-room and
the nursery, though now that gas fires have been brought to such a
state of perfection I can see no reason why there should not be gas in
the nurseries. The double drawing-room must be made into drawing-room
and smoking-room, thus leaving seven bedrooms as before, or it may
suit the family to keep the double drawing-room, and make an upstairs
smoking-room.
Personally I should use the first floor front room as drawing-room,
and open the doors into the smoking-room when more space was needed,
thus leaving best bed and dressing-room, two nurseries, one servants'
room, and one spare room, and a small room to be used as linen and
dress room. (Boxes could be stored in the empty basement.) Add to the
house a second bathroom and lavatory, telephone bells; use the bathroom
basins rather than the bedroom washstands (and when a bathroom can be
set apart for Monsieur and Madame, and another for nursery and maids,
this is scarcely a hardship), and you now have a house which, provided
it is not crammed with furniture, stuffy carpets, and draperies, can be
perfectly kept by two good servants, always supposing that the nurse
does not demand too much waiting on.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XIV_
A SENSIBLY-ARRANGED BOILING AND GRILLING TABLE
The burners vary from a small simmering burner to a powerful concentric
burner with two taps. This make of table can be furnished in over a
dozen different sizes. (John Wright)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XIVa_
A large heating surface is provided, so that large or heavy utensils
such as fish kettles etc., are in no danger of being upset on account
of being top heavy, as is the case when they are balanced on an
ordinary gas ring.
In the centre of the Hot Plate is a circular plate which may be removed
when it is desired to allow the flames of the gas ring to come into
direct contact with the cooking vessel. A lifter is provided for this
purpose. (C. H. Kempton)]
Nurse and Nursery.
If this important person has a bathroom conveniently situated, gas
fires, a gas ring for heating kettles, irons, etc., and a cupboard
containing her own stock of crockery, she should give very little
trouble to the house-parlourmaid. If advisable, a charwoman one day a
week could turn out the nurseries, tidy the front area and backyard,
clean the stairs and bathrooms.
Arranging the house thus, the following work is saved: Cleaning of
kitchen range and flues, carrying of coal all over house, running up
and downstairs to answer front door, especially in morning, when the
cook is busy, carrying of trays from basement, cleaning and filling
coal scuttles, cleaning grates and fireirons, much carrying of hot
water and bedroom work, entire cleaning of basement.
If a coke furnace is used, coke is light to carry and clean to handle,
and should a buttery hatch be arranged between dining-room and kitchen,
one maid (if well trained) can wait on six or eight persons quite
satisfactorily. Then when a little dinner is given, a charwoman, at
one shilling and her supper, to help wash up, is the only outside help
which is necessary.
Now I cannot but think that a house such as I have described would let
at £120 a year, where now many of them are let at £90, and as time
goes on will fetch less and attract a less desirable style of tenant.
Considering the saving in upkeep of a basement, labour, food and keep
of one maid, and the shrinkage of general expense which occurs when
two maids are kept rather than three, it would pay the tenant well to
expend the extra £30 a year. Even were the saving of expense no object,
the additional comfort of a labour-saving house is worth the extra rent.
With the cost of heating by gas rather than coal I will deal later, but
it must always be borne in mind that with coal range and coal fires
in, say, three or four rooms in such a house the labour is made far
greater, and also the rooms become far dirtier.
In my own dining-room, where there is a gas fire, the dirt and dust is
most noticeably less than in the drawing-room, where we burn coal.
I said at the beginning of this chapter that there were at least two
methods of turning labour-making into labour-saving houses. Let us now
suppose that we have to deal with another basement house, but that in
this case the basement is neither deep nor dark.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XV_
A WELL FITTED BATHROOM WITH A GAS-HEATED TOWEL RAIL AND FIXED WASHSTAND]
A Second Suggestion for a Labour-Saving House.
The front room is quite light and cheerful, with a good view of the
street. The back room is rather dark, and has a narrow area facing into
a strip of garden. The house contains but five bedrooms, so that the
basement cannot well be spared. Here I would use the front room (made
very light and gay with paper and paint) as a combination servants'
sitting-room, pantry, and store-room. The kitchen should be tiled if
feasible--if not, papered with a white-tiled paper--and floored with
black-and-white linoleum in order to make it as light as possible.
The back area must be enlarged so as to give more light and air, and
some steps should lead into the garden, where the maids can sit in hot
weather. At present the basement consists of a front room and kitchen,
coal cellars under the pavement, a lavatory, and a little piece at the
end of the passage leading to the back area, which can be arranged for
a knife- and boot-cleaning place. But there is no larder. This must
be built. A door is cut to lead out of the kitchen into a tiny lobby,
out of this lobby one door opens into the white-tiled, well-ventilated
larder, and the other into the area.
The basement is now as light and airy as any basement can be. There
is no scullery, but that apartment is unnecessary in most houses and
certainly unnecessary in a small house where two, or at most three,
servants are employed, and which contains a pleasant room in which they
can sit and have their meals. The kitchen should be fitted with a gas
or electric cooker and a gas or coke hot-water furnace. The front room
is warmed by a gas stove, and in order to make up for the extra work
entailed by the basement, a service lift is installed, with double
hatches opening from kitchen and pantry, and from dining-room and
smoking-room, which are directly over the kitchen and pantry.
This house is completed by a ground floor cloakroom and two bathrooms,
gas fires everywhere but in the drawing-room, telephone bells, and
in each room a tiny gas ring, so that in case of illness or other
emergency hot water or hot food can be obtained without troubling the
maids. With all these labour-saving arrangements two servants are able
to do the work with ease, and to do it in such a way as is required
by English gentlepeople, who entertain more than do their compeers in
continental countries.
When planning and furnishing a house, say to yourself over and over
again, "Some one will have to keep this clean."
[Illustration:
_PLATE XVI_
THE ILLUSTRATION SHOWS A "POTTERTON" COOKER TAKEN TO PIECES FOR THE
REGULAR CLEANING GIVEN BY ALL CAREFUL COOKS.
The fitments of all modern gas cookers are readily removable, and
easily cleaned.]
III
But in addition to structural labour-saving arrangements, these
rearranged houses are furnished in a labour-saving manner.
Except in the drawing-room, there is as little furniture as possible,
for crowded rooms are difficult to clean and take a long time to keep
in order.
Wherever it is seemly, the floors are fitted with linoleum, for
no other floor covering is so cleanly or so easy to keep in good
condition. When there are rugs, they are sufficiently light to be
easily shaken. Fitted carpets are taboo. Had money been no object the
floors of the sitting-rooms would have been of polished wood, but in
these two cases the surrounds were of linoleum and the carpets square,
tightly strained and not of too thick a pile. These can be quickly
swept with a Bissel sweeper and cleaned from time to time with a
suction cleaner, while of course long-handled mops are used for the
linoleum.
In kitchen and pantry the supply of pots and pans, china, etc., is
limited to what is necessary, and but little silver is used. Most of
the food is cooked and served in casseroles, and so the washing up is
lessened. The knives are of stainless steel and merely need washing.
In the two cases quoted the people who inhabited the houses were of
the class who are accustomed to luxury, and a considerable amount of
door opening, telephone answering, and informal entertaining had to be
allowed for.
Without labour-saving arrangements, four servants, or three with a
charwoman twice a week, would have been needed to do the work really
well in the larger house, while three would have been required in the
smaller house.
But supposing that the family was small and a simpler style of living
needed, and that little or no entertaining took place, the mistress of
the house and one good servant could have done the work of either house
without undue strain and allowing each an ample amount of free time.
Those people who talk as if doing the work of the house was a
pleasant occupation for one's spare hours speak without understanding
of their words. The keeping of her house must be the profession of
the servantless woman, but by adopting labour-saving methods she may
yet have time and energy for other interests.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XVII_
JOHN WRIGHT'S B.T.U. CIRCULATOR IS INTENDED TO HEAT WATER WHICH
CIRCULATES THROUGH PIPES INTO HOT WATER STORAGE TANKS, AND IS
PARTICULARLY SUITABLE FOR CONNECTING UP TO HOT WATER APPARATUS ALREADY
IN THE HOUSE.
The No. 3020 is suitable where the Storage tank or cylinder does not
contain more than 20 gallons, and the No. 2040 will suit a tank or
cylinder of 40 gallons capacity.]
CHAPTER V
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_A List of Daily Duties in a Labour-Making House--A House-Hunting
Experience--Managing with one Servant in a Labour-Saving House._
CHAPTER V
THE WORK OF A LABOUR-MAKING HOUSE, AND THE WORK OF A LABOUR-SAVING
HOUSE
I
Those women who have never been obliged to undertake any domestic
duties have little idea of the amount of work which has to be done in
the average house.
The following is a list of duties, and we must add to it the answering
of bells, tidying up after untidy people, any personal services
required (in many cases this is considerable), door opening, telephone
answering, letter posting, note and message taking, "running out" for
things which have been forgotten, whistling for cabs, waiting in the
hall to see visitors out, etc., window cleaning, washing, mending,
listing house linen for the laundry, extra work at special cleaning
times, sweeps' visits, etc.
Household Duties.
Light kitchen fire; one or two days a week clean flues and thoroughly
clean range.
Get in coal.
Clean doorstep and brasses.
Make tea, cut bread and butter, and take trays and hot water to
bedrooms. Draw curtains, put washstands and possibly baths ready. Brush
clothes, clean and take up boots.
Sweep stairs, do hall and sitting-rooms, grates and coals.
Get breakfast and set and serve it for servants and dining-room.
Clear and wash up. Knife cleaning. Area or backyards to brush out.
Kitchen and back premises to clean.
Housework and turning out of rooms. Polishing bright metal, silver
cleaning and pantry work of all kinds.
Cooking, washing up and cleaning after cooking. Keep a supply of coal
ready.
Laying, serving, and washing up lunch and servants' dinner.
Tidying the washstands after lunch.
Tea. Shutting up rooms, bedroom work, hot water, etc. Wash up tea.
Dinner. Cooking, washing up and tidying. Pantry work. Servants' supper.
Bedroom work, hot bottles. Bed.
These duties entail rising at any hour between six and seven, bed at
any time between nine and eleven, at the best a fourteen and a half
hours' day, during which hours in an easy situation the maid will
have two and a half hours for meals (though parlourmaids and general
servants cannot always enjoy uninterrupted meals), and about one and a
half hours for reading, working, etc., leaving a ten-hour working day.
From this deduct half a day a week and half of each alternate Sunday.
I contend that quite a third of this labour might be eliminated, and
what remained greatly lightened by the adoption of labour-saving
methods.
The following experiences are interesting as depicting the
extraordinary difference in the amount of work which is exacted in a
labour-making and a labour-saving home.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XVIII_
THE "ACMEFONT" BUILDERS' SET
A combination of circulating Boiler, 20-40 gallons storage Cylinder,
the circulating pipes between Boiler and Cylinder, and stand for the
whole. This is a very suitable apparatus for fitting into houses where
there is little available space.]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XVIIIa_
A "GILLED" CIRCULATOR
Can halve your work and double your comfort. It can provide a
continuous supply of hot water in the kitchen, scullery, bathroom, and
bedrooms at all times of the day and night. It needs no attention and
is thoroughly reliable. It can be hired from most Gas Companies for a
quarterly rental.]
Labour Making.--A House-Hunting Experience.
"It has fallen to my lot of late to inspect quite a large number of
furnished houses and flats, and although my peregrinations have been
limited to dwellings in what are known as 'good situations,' at fairly
high rents, I have found such dirt and disorder as surely should only
be excused by dire poverty.
"As a general rule the sitting-rooms were more or less clean, but
in few cases did bathrooms and lavatories, kitchen and servants'
premises fulfil the pleasant anticipations induced by the sight of the
drawing-room.
"Stained and blackened walls, dirty-looking baths, fusty sinks, make
one long for 'seven maids with seven mops,' and even with their help I,
like the carpenter, am doubtful of the success of their labours.
"Three, at all events, of the flats which I visited were so furnished
that it was impossible to keep them clean, while several others might
have been properly kept, given the services of a housemaid determined
to clean in spite of every obstacle.
"Very naturally, however, there are few such treasures to be met
with, and I cannot but feel that it would be sad to waste them upon
mistresses with so little idea of domestic sanitation as must have been
the ladies who inhabited these flats.
"Only one of the flats and two of the houses on the long lists
submitted to me did I find really well arranged and well kept. This
state of affairs may be explained to some small extent by the fact
that people who take a pride in their houses or who have just had them
done up do not let them.
"Still, although a house may be shabby it still may be clean and
arranged in such a way as to enable the servants to perform their
duties with good results and no unnecessary trouble. Now, let me
describe to you one flat which I regard as an example of everything
which a dwelling in a dirty town should not be.
"It was an apartment consisting of three sitting-rooms, four bedrooms,
bath, pantry, and kitchen. The long passage-hall of good width was
very dark, partly because its four large windows had been so treated
that hardly any light penetrated through them, and partly because
the walls were papered dark green. As I progressed down this dismal
tunnel I caught my foot in some obstruction and fell against a large
piece of furniture. The servant then turned on the electric light and
I discovered that the floor was covered with felt and by no less than
twelve rugs, in a large hole in one of which I had caught my foot. By
this time I had quite decided that nothing would induce me to take such
a flat; but, like Barry Pain's Eliza, my love of looking over other
people's houses is so great that I continued my tour of inspection.
"The dining-room was crammed with large and handsome pieces of
furniture, so large and so many that nothing less clever than a
pantomime contortionist could have waited at table when the diners had
taken their places.
"The walls were dark red and dirty; the curtains of thick padded and
lined tapestry were stiff and sticky with grime.
"In the drawing-room there was more really beautiful furniture and some
exquisite Persian rugs on a dirty felt carpet. The curtains were of
brocade, and there was a quantity of valuable china, much of it, sad to
say, badly cracked.
"It was a room in which only an experienced housemaid should have
been trusted, and much time should have been allowed to clean it
satisfactorily. But a cook and a young house-parlourmaid were
responsible for all the work of the flat. In the bedrooms dresses and
coats hung on pegs on the doors, and cardboard boxes were piled on the
tops of wardrobes and under the beds. The bath was minus most of its
paint, the double bedroom for the servants was furnished with a strange
collection of lumber, and the kitchen was frankly dirty, one corner of
it being taken up by a lovely old walnut wood tallboys in a shocking
state of ill-usage.
"Now, although this was certainly the worst of the flats and houses at
which I looked, it was no uncommon thing to find dresses hanging out in
the dust, boxes piled under beds, ill-kept baths and sinks, and floors
so covered that it must take hours of work every week to keep them more
or less clean.
"Indeed the result of my house-hunting led me to think that the average
woman decorates, furnishes, and arranges her house in order to make it
as difficult as it can be made to keep it clean."
[Illustration:
_PLATE XIX_
AN ALL GAS KITCHEN IN A FLAT
An all-gas kitchen in a modern flat fitted up by the Davis Gas Stove
Co., Ltd. The illustration shows a gas cooker, with hot plate: a gas
fire, with refuse destructor above. To the left of the fire-place is a
circulator with storage tank over it, the pipes of which are carried
through the linen airing cupboard, which is here shown open.]
How we manage with One Servant in our Labour-Saving House.
"I have always been interested in your labour-saving ideas. I married,
and we were comfortably off. We have a tiny London house and I arranged
to have gas fires, cooker, and circulator, service lift, and also a
rubbish destructor, as I hate nasty-smelling dustbins.
"We can only have one bathroom, but there is hot and cold water, a sink
and slop sink on the top floor.
"Gas fires are much improved and ours are really attractive to look
at and well ventilated; but of course I would rather have coal to sit
by, and we did have two coal fires at first; but now, since the war,
I have all gas, because we are far worse off and living is so dear,
and instead of two maids I now have only a general servant. We used to
entertain in a mild sort of way a very great deal, but most of that
naturally has come to an end.
"My husband is delicate, and I don't like him to have cold meals at
night, so when 'General Jane' is out (and I let her go out as often as
possible), we have dinner laid, and soup, a hot dish such as braised
cutlets, chicken en casserole, stewed steak (often it's silverside
really), with vegetables in it, and a dish of potatoes put ready on a
heater on a side table I keep for the purpose. There is a cold sweet,
so we do very well. I clear everything away and put dishes, etc., into
the lift, which takes about six or seven minutes.
"Our bedrooms are linoleum floored and very empty. My own researches
into domesticity prove to me that a crowded room is a bane to the
housemaid. Our ex-parlourmaid, an admirable worker, told me that our
rooms 'took half the time to clean than most.'"
What the house-parlourmaid said:
"Your rooms take half the time to clean of most, ma'am, and then look
clean, which is more than some do."
[Illustration:
_PLATE XX & XXa_
SUGG'S "COMPACT" GAS KITCHENER
is fitted with one large and one small oven, a great boon where the
amount of cooking varies. Underneath the small oven is seen a closet
for warming plates. The Hot Plate shown separately is fitted with six
boiling burners and a grill burner.]
II
"I have an idea about gas cookers: they should be made longer and not
so high, then they could be mounted at a convenient height. But I
suppose they are planned to take up as little space as possible. It's
all the stooping that makes domestic work so tiring.
"Jane does not go out until six o'clock on weekdays, and 3.30 every
Sunday. We always go out to tea on Sundays, and the supper is left
ready. We keep the house clean and have nice cooking and things well
served and are very comfortable. I have people to lunch now and then
and intimate friends to dinner, and by means of my hot plate and
careful choosing of food, our Jane is dressed for lunch and able to
wait at table, and I doubt if it occurred to anyone that there was not
a cook in the kitchen. Not that it would have mattered if it had!"
It is not considered derogatory for an educated, refined woman to
become a hospital nurse.
Is the nursing of the sick more important to the Nation than the
proper feeding, housing, and bringing up of the rising generation?
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXI_
A KITCHEN IN A SMALL NON-BASEMENT HOUSE
The gas appliances here consist of a gas cooker and plate rack; a gas
fire on which is fixed a boiler serving the storage tank above, and
the circulating system to every tap in the house; copper suitable for
home-washing, etc. The wash copper is fitted with a pipe which carries
the steam into the kitchener flue, and is also fitted with a tap which
serves to draw off dirty water.
This combination of gas appliances is a veritable boon in servantless
or one-servant houses or flats.]
CHAPTER VI
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_The Management and Work of a Five Bedroom, Three Sitting-room
London House--A Labour-Saving Country House--A Labour-Saving
Flat--One Visiting Maid instead of Two Servants--A Suburban
House--A Cookless Household--A Labour-Saving Household in a
Provincial Town._
CHAPTER VI
OTHER PEOPLE'S EXPERIENCES OF LABOUR-SAVING HOMES
I
A Five Bedroom and Three Sitting-room London House.
"I have been much interested in your labour-saving articles. I send you
a description of our new house. We have adopted many of your ideas.
"The family consists of myself and husband and two just-grown-up
daughters.
"It so happened that some months ago we lost a little money, and we
also came to the conclusion that we had been for some time spending
more than we should have spent. Our house was rather expensive for our
means; we kept five servants, entertained considerably in a simple
manner, and lived easily. Finally, we decided to sell the house and
take one which was smaller and possible to run with a lessened staff,
and, at the same time, if the servant difficulty became more acute,
such a house as would attract domestics by reason of its labour-saving
arrangements. A house was found, light, airy, quiet, in the required
position, of suitable size, but absolutely lacking in modern
improvements. As it stood it consisted of:
"_Basement._--Large front kitchen, back room (dark), lavatory, good
wide shallow front area, easy stairs up to first floor, a washhouse
built out from back room, two cellars, small wine cellar, no larder.
"_Ground Floor._--Dining and back dining-room (double doors), fairly
wide hall, and passage out to garden at back, and lavatory (very
old-fashioned).
"_First Floor._--Front and back drawing-rooms--total length, 28 feet;
width of front room, 18 feet; back room, 12 feet.
"_Second Floor._--Two bedrooms.
"_Third Floor._--Two bedrooms, large cupboard on top landing.
"Neither electric light, bathroom, nor hot water. A satisfactory lease
could be had, and owner would put in new drainage and put house in
outside repair. Rent only £100 a year if tenant would spend a certain
sum on the house.
"For convenience I will call ourselves Mr. and Mrs. A. After much
consideration Mr. and Mrs. A. came to the conclusion that they would
take the house and spend £350 in structural alterations.
"After this had been decided, and the work begun, the war broke out,
and Mr. A.'s income fell (at all events temporarily) to about £1,100 a
year. He was, however, still in a position to spend £350 owing to the
sale of the first house, for which a good premium had been obtained,
and, being a person of some wisdom, he realised that the £350 would
certainly swell into £500, though of that sum a part would be spent on
decoration and moving expenses.
"The arrangement of the house was to be as follows:
"_Basement._--_Front Room_ (already fitted with white-glazed sink
and tiled back) to be used for pantry, servants' hall, workroom. Gas
stove, linoleum on floor, green paint (varnished), light floral paper.
Room was very light when furnished, and pleasant. It was supplied with
a large linen cupboard and fitment cupboard for work materials and
dress stands, pantry things, spare glass and china, chintzes, pillows,
blankets, etc. This was fitted right across the end of the room.
"_Back Room: Kitchen._--Here a hot-water furnace to burn coke and
rubbish and to heat water for pantry and kitchen, three lavatory
basins, two bathrooms, and one large radiator in hall was installed;
gas cooker, white-glazed sink, white-tiled paper, green varnished
paint; service lift from kitchen to back dining-room, cleverly arranged
to open either from pantry or kitchen, and to serve dining-room
or back dining-room (to be used as smoking-room). A door was cut
into the washhouse, which was connected by a lobby with a door with
perforated zinc panels, opening into back area to ventilate kitchen and
prevent the hot air from reaching the larder; large window in larder,
white-tiled walls. Back area enlarged to give more light and air to
kitchen. All basement paint green varnished, white-tiled paper, stairs
recased, telephone bells to all floors.
"_Ground Floor._--_Dining-room._ Panelled walls, mahogany finished
doors and lift hatch. By means of lift servant need not leave the room
while waiting. Gas fire and ring with heater for hot plates, etc., over
it; linoleum parquet surround, square carpet.
"_Smoking-Room._--Ditto in all respects save for furniture and gas
ring. Telephone here, can be heard in basement; lift also opens into
this room. If dinner-party for more than eight is given, the double
doors can be opened and dinner served from this opening of the lift.
"_Hall._--Linoleum and rugs; passage into garden continued and widened,
making extension large enough for a cloakroom, hot water, w.c., basin,
etc. Over the hall extension, small new bedroom, just large enough for
folding bed, dressing-table, fitted washstand, tiny hanging cupboard.
Large window and glass doors, muffled, to give light to stairs.
"_Double Drawing-room._--The only coal fire and fitted carpet in the
whole of the house; pile carpet up to next half-landing, after that
fitted linoleum with rubber treads to edges of stairs.
"_Second Half-Landing._--Bathroom. Tiled dado, lavatory, and wash
basins, glass shelves.
"_Second Floor: Bedrooms._--Green linoleum, rugs, small beds, gas fire
and gas ring for kettles.
"_Third Floor: Half-Landing._--Bathroom. Tiled dado, lavatory, hand
basin, and hot cupboard for airing and for housemaid's brushes.
"_Third Floor._--Girl's room in front, gas fire and ring. Room for two
maids at back. Linoleum everywhere, small beds.
"All paint on stairs, hall, gentlemen's cloakroom black. Electric light
everywhere.
"The house now consisted of a double drawing-room, dining-room,
smoking-room, five bedrooms, kitchen, pantry, servants' hall and
workroom combined, gentlemen's cloakroom and two bathrooms.
"The income did not permit of more than two servants being employed,
namely, single-handed cook and house-parlourmaid; wages £26 each. In
addition they arranged two days a week for a charwoman. One week, on
Wednesday, she turned out the drawing-room, which contained valuable
glass, furniture, and china (not at all a labour-saving room!); the
other week turned out the dining-room and tidied the drawing-room. In
the afternoon she washed and ironed blouses, handkerchiefs, etc., which
had already been put to soak, and in some cases washed, by one of the
girls. On Friday she turned out the hall and cloakroom, and scrubbed
out the basement, and did the cook's work, that being the cook's day
out. The dinner, of a suitable order, was left ready by the cook. The
regular work of the house was arranged thus:
"_Cook._--Clean doorstep, do hall and dining-room and cloakroom, all
kitchen work and sweeping and dusting of servants' hall, clean boots.
"_House-parlourmaid._--Do smoking-room and drawing-room and first
flight of stairs before breakfast at 8.45. Bedrooms, etc. Dressed for
lunch at 1.30; usual parlourmaid's duties. Each Wednesday fortnight,
as she has nothing to do in the drawing-room, turns out smoking-room
before breakfast. Special work: Monday, silver; Tuesday, one bedroom;
Wednesday, silver; Thursday, one bedroom; Friday, silver; Saturday,
stairs and bathrooms.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXII_
SUGG'S HOOD AND PLATE RACK FOR GAS KITCHENERS
is strongly made of wrought iron with nozzle for flue and with grid
shelf, having cast-iron brackets for fixing securely to the top of
kitchener, japanned white inside and black outside, or any colour to
order.]
"It was arranged the family would use the bathrooms and that no bedroom
or washstand work would be needed. Each person stripped and turned back
her bed and left it to air and ready to be made. One daughter helped
to make beds and did a certain amount of washing of oddments, using
the nearest bathroom and keeping a folding table for ironing in her
bedroom, where there was a gas ring for the irons.
"The three ladies undertook all mending, and arranging of flowers. Each
member of the family promised to leave lavatory basins washed and wiped
out after use and to avoid by untidiness and carelessness giving any
extra trouble.
"Arranging the work in this way the trials of a two-maid household
were banished, for there was ample time for pantry work and the
house-parlourmaid to be dressed in time for lunch, while days out made
no difference to the household.
"With a little careful management of the menu and the help of the
lift the one maid could wait on eight people at lunch or dinner if
necessary, and there was no necessity for the harassing 'Oh, we mustn't
ask people to tea on Wednesday or to lunch on Friday' atmosphere.
Needless to say, without a lift, telephone bells, and fitted 'washing
rooms,' linoleum-covered floors, uncrowded rooms, gas cooker, and
hot-water furnace, which does not require flue cleaning and needs but
little attention, it would be impossible to keep a London house of the
size spick and span, and run in the way in which people accustomed to a
larger establishment expect. The furnace consumes about two scuttlefuls
of coke a day, and needs paper, wood, and a little coal to start it.
Half an hour suffices to heat the bath water. After breakfast rubbish
of all kinds is burned, and but little heat is needed for the remainder
of the day, unless baths at night are required. A kettle is kept on the
furnace, or when any dish is to be simmered slowly it can stand on the
furnace, and the gas stove burned only when quite necessary. In hot
weather the furnace is let out after lunch."
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXIII_
AN ALL GAS KITCHEN IN A BASEMENT HOUSE
This sketch shows the gas cooker with hot plate over. A small bungalow
cooker for use when one or two persons only are to be served, and a
coke boiler which heats the hot water required in the house (including
2 baths and 2 radiators) and is surmounted by a useful flat plate upon
which a stock-pot or casserole can be kept simmering for hours without
use of extra fuel. The coke boiler in this instance serves to heat the
kitchen without further firing. On the left of the boiler is shown the
service lift.]
A Labour-Saving Country House.
"I have just read your article, and should like to tell you of a
house my husband and I have just built. We have occupied it for
eight months, and therefore have tested the various labour-saving
contrivances. It was built and designed under my direction, in order
to save all unnecessary labour. The house is warmed by central heating
and electric radiators, and there is a radiator and complete gas range
in the kitchen. We have a double earthenware sink, with two sets of
taps, in the kitchen, and no scullery. The furniture is oak, and only
needs dusting, and there is no brasswork anywhere. The fireplaces are
entirely of white tiles, and we have no use for fireirons. The steps
to the front and side doors are of marble, and the stair-rods are of
oak. Each principal bedroom (three in number) has its own bathroom,
completely fitted, adjoining, so that we have no washstands in the
house. The servants' bedrooms have each a lavatory basin with hot and
cold water, and a radiator. Drinking water is laid on to each bedroom.
Hot water, which is really hot, is from a furnace in the cellar, and
the central heating is worked in the same way. These furnaces work
quite smoothly, and give no trouble. We have a well-heated linen room,
which keeps linen and blankets well aired, and a light and easily
handled vacuum cleaner.
"We have had no fire anywhere all the winter, and the temperature of
the house, hall, stairs, passages, etc., has been very steadily at 60°
Fahrenheit, day and night. During a frosty spell we keep the furnace
going a little more strongly. All the principal rooms have powerful
electric wires to enable one to boil kettles, cook, iron, etc.
"So far I have kept three servants, but I find they are so opposed
to all my labour-saving devices--refusing even to touch the vacuum
cleaner!--that I am parting with them, and am engaging two ladies
instead; and although the house is large enough to require six servants
if differently fitted, they and I confidently expect to run it easily
and comfortably, with plenty of time to spare for recreation."
"Consider, on the other hand, ... if these women did the work of
their homes, and saved the money which they waste on ... incompetent
servants, the chief cause of their worry and troubles ... they could
travel ... and come back to England ... with the thing which more
than anything else we stand in need of ... ideas."
"Life without Servants."
By a Survivor.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXIV_
GAS REFUSE DESTRUCTION
The Davis Domestic "Burn-All" with cover and lid of feeding aperture
removed, inspection door open, ash tray drawn out and parts described.
The Davis Domestic "Burn-All" can also be supplied in a larger size
(of double capacity) for use where the model illustrated would not be
adequate for the service required. Particulars on application to The
Davis Gas Stove Co. 60, Oxford Street, W.]
II
A Labour-Saving Flat.
"I live by myself and have until lately kept two servants. In
consequence, most of my income has been spent on housekeeping. I prefer
many other things to food, soap, dusters, and servants, so now I have
altered my arrangements.
"My flat consists of two sitting-rooms, kitchen, and three bedrooms.
The block ought, of course, to have been supplied with a constant
service of hot water for heating and cleaning, but we are behind the
times in England in these matters. So now I have gas fires in all the
rooms and a gas circulator and a gas cooker. Electric light everywhere.
I have made the third room into a box-room, dress-room, etc., and
have table, dress-stand, and machine, and a work-woman sews there one
day a week and keeps me mended and tidy, and also makes covers and
lampshades, and so on. Sometimes she comes two or even three days if I
need her, and except for tailor-mades, hats, and a good dress now and
again, she makes all I wear. I find this a great economy.
"All my floors are covered with linoleum. I have weeded out unnecessary
furniture, only keeping really good pieces. I have muslin screens made
to fit the windows, so dirt does not come in, and having no coal fires,
the rooms keep extraordinarily clean. I have a fitted bathroom and no
washstand work. My breakfast I have in bed as early as I please, and
it consists of tea, a boiled egg, and jam or fruit and toast. It is
all put ready on a covered tray and I have an electric arrangement
for boiling water and making toast by my bedside. I turn on the gas
circulator and my gas fire and go back to bed and have breakfast and
read my papers and letters.
"By the time I want to get up my room is warm and the bath water hot.
I generally breakfast at seven, as I like to read a good deal before
getting up. My daily servant comes at eight and stays till after
lunch. She is able to clean and cook and leave my simple dinner ready,
sometimes in a hay box and sometimes put ready for me to heat. I am
seldom in to tea, and if I am it is a simple matter to prepare that
meal.
"I have no objection to answering my door, but if I wish to be 'Not
at home' the hall indicator proclaims that fact. The porter takes in
parcels if I ask him to do so, and cleans boots, carries luggage, and
gets cabs, or in these days doesn't get them! I do various little jobs
of polishing, cleaning, etc., because I like a very clean house. In
the drawing-room I have an electric fire cleverly made to flicker like
real flames. It is nice to sit with because it has the movement that
one misses. Sometimes I have a friend to stay, and if I have friends
to dine I engage a waitress and keep my out-worker all day. I often
have friends to lunch, but more often entertain at my club. I am more
comfortable than when I had two maids and my expenses are far less. I
think my two young ladies must have been very hospitable, for my bills
were decidedly high. Also they seemed to live on soap and dusters, and
to consume incredible quantities of electric light and gas. Of course,
if I had fires and coals and a kitchen range and crowded rooms, and
wanted elaborate meals, I could not manage as I do; but as things are,
I am both clean and comfortable."
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXV_
AN ALL GAS KITCHEN IN A LARGE HOUSE
Three gas boilers are shewn, one or all of which can be in use as
occasion demands. These supply the storage tanks and a continuous
service of hot water to four bathrooms, wash-basins in lavatories and
sinks. The hot closet is served by coils from hot water service so that
dishes can be kept hot. There is a supplementary method of heating
this closet by means of gas burners, which can be used when the large
gas boilers are not required. Hot water for a bathroom is provided by
a geyser when only one or two of the family are at home. A condensing
stove heats the kitchen in winter.
This house is warmed throughout by hot water pipes heated by a coke
boiler which is used during the winter months only and gas fires are
fitted in each room for occasional use. The makers represented are:
Boilers: One John Wright Boiler: One Davis Boiler: One Potterton Boiler
Cooker: John Wright & Co.
Hot Cupboard fitted up by the Gas Company to special measurements
Condensing Stove: Richmond Gas Stove & Meter Co., Ltd.
Refuse Destructor: Davis Gas Stove Co., Ltd.]
A Three Sitting-room, Hall, and Six Bedroom Suburban House.
"I call this house suburban because it is within 'daily bread' distance
of London and therefore the neighbourhood is much built over. This
enables us to have electric light and a telephone, and the London
stores deliver three times a week. I was told that servants were simply
appalling, so bad and so hard to find. So I thought we had better
be as independent of them as possible. We had taken a small house
and were rearranging it, so I decided to have a coke furnace for hot
water and radiators and little electric fires in the drawing-room and
smoking-rooms, for cold weather and for the cheering effect a fire
gives. The gardener undertakes the furnace and stokes at seven, at
midday, and when he leaves at night. The house is beautifully warm, and
we have no trouble with radiators or hot water. I have no scullery,
but cook by electricity, and have a sink in the kitchen, where there
is an alcove with a table and armchairs for the maids, and they have
their own little piece of garden to sit in. There is a pantry, and the
house-parlourmaid can sit there if she wishes. There is a buttery hatch
into the dining-room, and the cook has only to hand the dishes through
it. I keep an oil stove in readiness should the electric cooker go
wrong, but so far it has not. The cook's work is greatly lessened when
cooking by electricity. We have three bathrooms and no washhandstand
bedroom work. The house has polished wood floors, and rugs and
linoleum. It is simply but well furnished, and I have glass over the
mahogany toilet tables, sideboard, and side tables. Very little metal
work, and the doors and woodwork are unpainted. This saves much labour.
We have a polished dinner-table and save the cost of buying and washing
tablecloths, side and toilet cloths. Unfortunately, I had knives of
the old-fashioned kind, but use a knife machine, and long-handled
mops, Bissel sweeper, etc. In normal times we entertained a good deal,
and then had a woman to help wash up; but now, of course, there is
practically no entertaining.
"I hate linoleum. I like nice, bright coal fires. I abhor sparsely
furnished rooms. I think your ideas are detestable!!"
I knew you would say that. Most people are antagonistic to the ideas
of other people until they have had time to become used to them and
regard them as their own.
Still, the title of this book is not "The House of My Dreams," or "A
Castle in Spain," but
"The Labour-Saving House."
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXVI_
METER READING
In order to check expenditure on gas and to detect wastage, leakage, or
faulty registration, the gas-meter ought to be read regularly, say once
a week, and a record kept of the amount of gas consumed.
Meter reading is quite simple, and it should be no more difficult for
an educated woman to learn to read her own gas-meter than a reasonably
intelligent child to learn to tell the time by the clock.
The only thing to remember is that as meat is measured in "pounds"
and calico in "yards," so gas is measured in "thousands" (of cubic
feet). If, therefore, you have burned ten "thousands," and gas in your
district is, say, half-a-crown a thousand, your bill will be ten half
crowns. If gas is 3/- a thousand, then your bill will be ten times 3/-,
and so on.
A copy of instructions mounted on a card can always be had from the
local gas manager, and hung up in a convenient place near the gas meter
until it is mastered by constant use.
The meter consists of five dials. Of these the top one should be
neglected; then the figures indicated by the four lower ones should be
written down from left to right, and 00 added to the end. If the hand
is between two figures the lowest should always be written down, with
the exception that when it is between 9 and 0, 9 must be recorded. That
is all there is to do: and by this simple procedure it is possible
to find out exactly how much gas has been used during the week,
and whether it is more or less than the amount consumed during the
preceding week. If it happens to be more, then the careful housewife
will set about considering the circumstances and seeing in what points
she has failed to practice the economies suggested to her.]
III
"My labour-saving ideas were put to the test, for the gardener was
called up, and the cook was ill, and I could not get anyone else for
nearly a fortnight. My husband fed the furnace night and morning,
and he and I gardened (he was in London five days a week from nine
till seven). The house-parlourmaid (a capital girl), and myself,
cleaned and cooked, and by careful planning we kept the house nice,
and fed well--that is, as well as one does feed nowadays. I was able
to go on with my war work, and my maid went out often, as I do not
approve of shutting up young girls for days together. We covered up
the drawing-room and the unused bedrooms and bathroom. When you have
no coals to bother with, housework becomes a very different matter. I
put your idea of cooking mornings into practice, and found that if I
cooked three mornings a week I need do very little on the intermediate
days. Then cooking by electricity is so easy. There is no stooping to
lift things out of ovens, and the cooker can be put where you want it
as regards the light, and the pots and pans don't get dirty outside.
I used earthenware, and cooked and served in one pot, and so saved
washing up. Alice, the maid, and I quite enjoyed ourselves, and we made
no trouble of stoking the furnace at midday.
"One thing struck me: how tiresome to servants it must be when they
see people using just as many knives and spoons and forks and plates
as they can--for I must own I began to feel rather mean about the
washing up. I think meals had become too long, and the service far
too elaborate, and the result not worth all the time and trouble it
entailed. It makes me sad to think of all the girls and women there are
who are tired to death doing work which they could be saved. I often
think of the working-class women toiling along, and having to bear and
rear babies all the time!"
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXVII_
MAKING GOOD USE OF THE OVEN ON BAKING DAYS
Note the two pies one behind the other, not side by side.]
A Labour-Saving House in a Provincial Town.
"My experiences may interest you. The family consists of myself,
husband, a girl of six, and a boy of three. I kept a nurse, cook,
house-parlourmaid, and a 'tweeny.' The wage bill was high, the
housekeeping bills, including replacements, coal and light, food and
cleaning materials, excessive, and we found it hard to get even a
fairly good cook.
"Suddenly I decided to try the following plan. The house was modern
and rather well planned. Dining and drawing-room, small square hall,
kitchen and pantry on ground floor, a little garden back and front,
and a mosaic doorstep, only one step. First floor, four bedrooms and
a bathroom and dressing-room. Above, two rooms and box-room. Gas is
dear here, and electric current moderate in price, so I had electric
fires and cooker put in. There already was hot water on ground floor. I
managed to plan a service lift from outside the kitchen to first floor.
"I then looked over my possessions, and put away unnecessary things
and simplified the style of living somewhat. Then I engaged a trained
lady nurse, capable of teaching the children for a year or two. The
nurse agreed to dust her nurseries, and I gave up to her a nursery,
night nursery, and the dressing-room opening into the night nursery.
The floors of all bedrooms, bathrooms, landing, top stairs, kitchen and
offices were all covered with linoleum. The nurse agreed to dust and
tidy the nurseries and take the dishes, etc., out of the lift, and to
replace them. I arranged a pantry cupboard for her and she had electric
fires and heater for food, irons, etc. The bathroom with hot and
cold water was next door. My husband and I had the other two rooms,
and he had a bath and hand-basin fitted in the one he used for his
dressing-room. We thought it cheaper to have a gas circulator rather
than an electrical heater for the hot water, and we had a radiator
fitted in the hall and on the first landing. These keep the house so
warm that we need wonderfully little in the way of extra firing. Nurse
has everything she needs to hand, and says she prefers it to having to
ask the maids to fetch and carry for her. She has friends near, and we
can often let her go out when the babes are put to bed, as I can sit in
the drawing-room and hear at once if they call.
"I then dismissed my cook and 'tweeny,' as I did not like them very
much, and asked the house-parlourmaid if she would like to stay at an
increased wage if I undertook the greater part of the cooking and had
a charwoman two days a week. Our hall floor is mosaic, and there is a
little shed for the perambulator, so it does not come into the house.
We are all called by alarum clocks, and we make our early tea on the
electric heater in our room, so that the maid has no hot water or tea
to bring or calling to do. When dressed, she goes straight downstairs
and lights the gas to heat the water, does hall, dining-room and
smoking-room.
Many people live in a continual state of worry because they feel
obliged to have a little more of everything than they can afford: not
because they want it, but because other people think they ought to
want it.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXVIII_
LARGE JOINT SUSPENDED, AS IN ROASTING BEFORE AN OPEN FIRE, WITH PIE ON
TOP SHELF]
IV
"This is rather a clean town, and with no fires the rooms do not get
dirty, and are quickly swept and dusted, and of course there are no
coal boxes to fill or carry, and no grates to do. We find the doorstep
only needs doing three times a week, except in very dirty weather, and
there is no polished metal on the door. We have a simple breakfast
of porridge (cooked the day before), toast, done on our own electric
toaster on the table, fresh and crisp and hot. We make our own tea
and coffee, and boil eggs if needed, and very often have a cold dish,
but about three times a week the maid cooks bacon, or fish, or eggs.
My husband goes off to work after breakfast, and is seldom home till
six. The maid cleans boots, and we have the new washable knives. I
clear breakfast things and wash them up, tidy the flowers and see to
plants, etc., and set to work at my cooking. I follow the plan you
once suggested, and have three cooking mornings. It is wonderful with
practice what you get through, washing up as you go and never getting
into a muddle. On the other days the cooking seldom takes me more than
an hour. Two mornings a week I housekeep, doing accounts, shopping,
etc., and on one I clean silver. We breakfast at eight and lunch at
1.30, so I get a long morning. The maid has all morning for housework,
and nurse helps her make the beds. We wait on ourselves at lunch, and
nurse and the children come down. After lunch the maid clears and
washes up and tidies the kitchen. Nurse gets and washes up the nursery
tea, and if I am in and alone I have it with her. I don't expect any
washing or mending done by the general servant, as I consider she
should have two hours' free time in the afternoon. Our dinner is very
simple--three things, such as soup or fish, meat or bird, sweet,
savoury or cheese. The charwoman cleans kitchen, back doorstep, pantry,
passage, and hall; washes out rubbers and odds and ends, and washes up
and tidies after dinner. My maid has her family near, so she goes out
two evenings a week from half-past five to a quarter to ten, and the
charwoman stays here till 8.30 on those days. It suits her to come to
me at eleven o'clock, and I pay her 3s. instead of 2s. 6d. as she stays
late, and of course she gets her supper. I have fitted her out with
dress and aprons. She won't wear a cap.
"Indeed, we manage most comfortably, and the saving is great. I cook
well, and make the best of all we have, and the economy in gas and
light and cleaning things and breakages is considerable. Our nice
maid, Ethel, is quite one of the family, and says that getting out on
Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, 'there is always something to look
forward to.' In winter I consider she should go out by daylight, so I
often send her off early on the charwoman's day. If I went away from
home I should engage a temporary cook, and if we wanted to have a
party I should have a cook by the day, and a waitress. I work at a war
depot every day, and often have my tea there. But even after the war
I doubt if I shall alter my ways, provided I remain in good health,
for I cannot see why it should be _infra dig._ to work in one's own
house when it is absolutely 'the thing' to be a general servant or
kitchenmaid in a hospital or canteen."
Man and the ape shared a common ancestor.
Is it a reversion to type which causes us to scramble about on all
fours when we scrub and clean?
Our developed intelligence should deter us from adopting monkey-like
attitudes and time-wasting methods.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXIX_
A STEAMER WHICH CAN BE USED TO COOK A WHOLE DINNER OVER ONE GAS RING
This is made of block tin and boils with very little gas. Several forms
of steamer, with from three to six compartments, can now be bought. The
multiple steamer costs much less than three to six single saucepans,
and burns much less gas.]
CHAPTER VII
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_Labour and Time-Saving Housekeeping--Ordering in Advance--Cooking
Mornings--Labour-Saving Utensils--The Late-Dinner Bogey--Simplified
Requirements._
CHAPTER VII
OTHER PEOPLE'S EXPERIENCES OF LABOUR-SAVING HOMES (_Continued_)
I
For many a year I have thought that the average good domesticated
woman wasted far too much of her own time and that of her servants in
housekeeping, while, on the other hand, many women give too little time
and attention to their households.
Clever organisation will do much to lighten the work of a household.
Take, for example, the ordering of meals and the cooking thereof. The
average mistress orders the meals each day with no regard except for
the needs of that special day, and the average cook cooks in just
the same short-sighted manner. Now, I hold that in a well-regulated
establishment, with an intelligent cook, it should not be necessary
to order the meals more than three times a week, unless special
entertaining has to be considered. The mistress knows the number of
her household, and can calculate with sufficient nicety what can be
done with the available material, while the cook should be able to
make the most of the various odds and ends which can be utilised for
breakfast dishes, savouries, servants' supper, and so forth.
Where an inexperienced or otherwise unsatisfactory cook reigns, then a
brief daily inspection of larder and back premises in general may be
necessary; but still all the main part of the planning and ordering can
be done twice or three times a week.
In this book I do not wish to deal specially with war conditions,
so let us take, for example, a well-to-do country household of four
persons (husband, wife, two children) and five servants, cook,
between-maid, housemaid, parlourmaid, and nurse. In such a case the
maids are, as a rule, experienced, and the cook a woman who receives
anything between £26 and £35 a year.
There is generally a guest staying in the house, and a couple of people
to lunch on Sunday, various friends to tea, and probably two or three
more friends to lunch during the week. The mistress of this house
elects to have housekeeping mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,
though, of course, it is understood that she will visit the back
premises on any other mornings if it is advisable to do so.
On Monday the contents of the larder are as follows: Piece of cold
roast ribs of beef, remains of two boiled chickens, half a ham, half a
cold fruit tart, some lemon sponge, some potted meat, and part of a tin
of sardines.
Now, meat should always be ordered in advance so that the butcher may
have it properly hung. If the larder is not very good the butcher will
keep the meat until the day on which it is needed, otherwise a joint
should always be hanging in the larder, and in this case a forequarter
of lamb has been in the house since Saturday.
Madame plans her menu, and writes it in her order book as follows:--
ORDER DAY.--MONDAY.--LUNCH FOR FIVE, 1.30 P.M.--(The two children
are present.) Cold Beef. Salad. Mashed Potato. Minced Chicken with
Pearl Barley stewed in stock. Milk Pudding. Cold Fruit Tart. Lemon
Sponge in glasses. Cheese, Biscuits and Butter. Servants' hall same as
dining-room, except for chicken.
DINNER FOR THREE, 8 P.M.--Cream of Cucumber Soup (made from chicken
stock). Soufflé of Dried Haddock. Lamb Cutlets. Potatoes. Cabbage
Purée. Apple Meringue. Sardine Savoury.
TUESDAY.--BREAKFAST, 9 A.M.--Cold Ham. Scones. Fruit. Boiled Eggs.
LUNCHEON, 1.30 P.M. (two extra).--Tomatoes au gratin. Mousse of Salmon.
Roast Partridges. Sauce. Crumbs. Fried Potatoes. Salad. Apple Gâteau.
Cheese Biscuits. Fruit. Coffee.
SERVANTS' DINNER.--Roast Shoulder of Lamb. Potatoes. Vegetable. Pudding.
DINNER FOR THREE, 7.45 P.M.--Clear Soup. Fillets of Sole, and Macaroni
au gratin. Tournedos of Beef. Potatoes. Vegetable Marrow. Ginger Cream.
Curried Croûtons.
ORDER DAY.--WEDNESDAY.--BREAKFAST.--Cold Ham. Cold Game. Salmon
Coquilles.
LUNCHEON FOR FOUR, 1.30 P.M.--Scotch Broth (scrag end of Neck of Lamb).
Roast Beef. Yorkshire Pudding. Brown Potatoes. Stewed Spanish Onion.
Bread-and-Butter Pudding. Ginger Cream. Servants' dinner same, except
for soup.
DINNER FOR TWO, 7.45 P.M.--Carrot Purée. Timbale of Lamb (remains of
cold lamb). Vegetables. Fricassée of Eggs. Apple Tart.
THURSDAY.--BREAKFAST.--Ham. Toast. Potted Game (remains of partridges).
Boiled Eggs.
LUNCHEON, 1.30 P.M. (one extra).--Riz à la Turque. Cold Beef. Salad.
Potatoes. Fruit Compote. Junket. Cheese, etc.
DINNER FOR TWO, 7.45 P.M.--Curry Soup. Fillets of fresh Haddock. Roast
Grouse. Crumbs. Salad. Fried Potatoes. Nut Sauce. Pineapple Jelly (some
of pine used in Fruit Compote). Anchovy Straws.
ORDER DAY.--FRIDAY.--BREAKFAST.--Egg Kedgeree. Bacon.
LUNCHEON, 1.30 P.M.--Fish Pie. Knuckle of Veal stewed with rice.
Parsley Sauce. Boiled Damson Pudding. Servants' hall same.
DINNER FOR FOUR, 8 P.M. (two guests Friday to Monday).--Celery Soup.
Fillets of Whiting. Chutney Sauce. Soufflé of Veal. Curry Sauce. Roast
Partridges. Sauce. Crumbs. Salad. Potatoes. Compote of Pears. Devilled
Liver Croutons.
SATURDAY.--BREAKFAST.--Game Toast. Bacon. Poached Eggs. Cold Tongue.
Scones. Fruit.
LUNCHEON.--Hominy Cutlets. Beef Steak Pie. Cold Game. Salad.
Vegetables. Portuguese Apples. Milk Pudding. Cheese.--Servants'
dinner.--Beef Steak Pie. Baked Apple Pudding.
DINNER FOR FOUR, 8 P.M.--Clear Beetroot Soup. Mock Whitebait. Tartar
Sauce. Chicken Cutlets. Braised Tongue and Sweet Corn. Spinach. Mousse
of Blackberries. Cheese croquettes.
SUNDAY.--BREAKFAST.--Grape Nuts and Cream. Cold Tongue. Haddock. Egg
Dish.
LUNCHEON FOR EIGHT, 1.30 P.M.--Mousse of Chicken and Tomato Salad.
Braised Beef (hot). Cold Tongue. Salad. Vegetables. Damson Tart. Pearl
Barley Cream. Cheese Biscuits. Fruit. Cake.
SUPPER.--Soup. Stuffed Eggs in aspic. Cold Braised Beef. Salad.
Potatoes. Trifle. Stewed Fruit. Savoury Tartlets.
MONDAY.--BREAKFAST FOR FOUR, 8.30 A.M.--Porridge. Creamed Eggs. Bacon.
Cold Tongue. Fruit.
It is not necessary, of course, for the mistress to write directions
as to the stock to be used for this or that soup, etc. These details I
have added for the use of the inexperienced reader.
When a dish is queried it means that the cook must use her own
discretion as to whether there is enough chicken, or whatever it may
be, or if she must substitute some other _plat_.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXX_
SQUARE AND SHALLOW KETTLE, WHICH EXPOSES A LARGE SURFACE TO THE GAS,
BOILS QUICKLY AND SAVES MONEY]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXa_
A SINGLE STEAMER--TWO DISHES COOKING--ONLY ONE GAS RING BURNING]
The object of ordering in this fashion is that it saves the time of
both mistress and cook, the tradesmen's orders can be given in advance,
and the cook can arrange her work to the best advantage. The butcher
should have his orders weekly, if possible, and the fish order will
probably be sent by post or rail, the keeper of the poultry yard can be
warned of what will be needed from his department also, and so muddle
and fluster is discouraged throughout the establishment. In a town
household I have practised this method with success also, and recommend
it to any busy woman, while I have never yet known a cook who did not
appreciate it when once she had given it a trial.
In towns, because the shops are so near, cooks are far too liable to
leave everything to the last minute, and the mistresses' telephone
bell and the unfortunate tradesmen's boys and horses suffer greatly in
consequence, or the time of the kitchen underling is wasted in "just
running out" to get something which should have been ordered the day
before.
In houses where the cook is inexperienced, and food is bought in far
smaller quantities, the daily visit to the kitchen becomes necessary
partly because the mistress must see that the premises are kept clean
each day, and partly because the cook may not realise how to make the
best of the "pieces."
Half the secret of catering well on a small allowance lies in
knowing how to use pieces, and of taking advantage from day to day of
fluctuations in price, which latter cannot be done in the same way when
standing orders must be given.
Even in tiny households, however, the mistress may do much to lighten
the labour of the cook, and to save expense both of coal and material
by planning her bills of fare with care, and showing her cook how she
may prepare in one morning various items which will come in during
the next two days, when perhaps there will be less time to spare
for culinary efforts owing to the necessity for turning out a room,
cleaning the kitchen, or washing.
The example given is that of a good-sized country house; but in town
it is possible to shop personally and take advantage of the state of
the market. Even so, three housekeeping and two shopping days should
suffice. Perishable odds and ends can be bought when going out on other
business.
These methodical methods answer well in several small households known
to me, where the mistresses are women busy over social work, or who
have professions.
One clever manager sends me the following letter:--
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXI_
AN OVEN WITH HOT PLATE AND GRILL
(The Dowsing Radiant Heat Co.)]
Cooking in Advance.--An Interesting Letter.
"In these days, when so many women are managing with a smaller domestic
staff than usual, and often doing much of the actual work themselves,
they might try the experiment with advantage of 'cooking mornings,' a
plan already mentioned several times by you. It is a method which makes
for efficiency and better results with less work.
"In the first place, to give up the whole of Friday morning and a
couple of hours on Tuesday to the preparation of food alone, means that
one has not to leave the housework or sewing on other days to mix one
odd dish or so, thereby effecting a certain saving of time; secondly,
much less fuel is used than would have been required to heat the stove
for the same number of dishes prepared separately; thirdly, the labour
of washing up and cleaning culinary utensils is much reduced. A really
good manager can always plan the meals well for several days ahead, so
if provisions and stores are ordered in beforehand, that again is far
better than constant daily marketing for small supplies.
"My personal plan, which answers very well, is to sketch out menus
roughly, order meat, etc., on Thursday, and prepare _so far as I can_
on Friday, something after this fashion.
"The range, being well heated, will cook both in the oven and on the
top as fast as I can get things ready, and I can usually make two sorts
of soup (two meals' supply in each), a milk soup for immediate use, and
a vegetable, lentil, or haricot purée which will keep a day or two;
then any remains of meat, game, or ham are minced and used to stuff
tomatoes, onions, or potatoes, and put aside for breakfast or lunch
dishes; fish is flaked and made into rissoles or a pie; beef steak or
shin of beef, cutlets or rabbit or a pigeon can be prepared and cooked
_en casserole_ ready for reheating when required; a cold dish for
Sunday supper, which will come in also for breakfast or lunch, such as
a small meat mould, or a beef galantine is prepared; next, a batch of
scones, which keep well in a tin, and some rock cakes or a plain ginger
loaf or sultana cake (for present use), and either a good chocolate or
cherry cake or some little fancy 'petits fours,' which will be ready in
case of emergency, and, if not required earlier, will be just as good
towards the end of the week.
"Sweets are the next thing, and usually four or five are arranged for.
A good batch of pastry may be made, say a fruit tart, one or two fancy
ones, such as Bakewell, treacle, or custard, some little jam puffs or
lemon cheesecakes or 'maids-of-honour,' which keep splendidly; in this
case a meat pie (steak and kidney, rabbit, or veal and ham) would be
made instead of the cold meat dish. On alternate weeks, or if pastry
is not wished for, the sweets take some such form as a Swiss roll, a
batch of castle puddings, French pancakes (all of which will keep in
the invaluable air-tight tin), with a rice meringue or rice, cream and
fruit for Saturday, and a boiled suet pudding of some sort (ginger,
treacle, or lemon), or a steamed sponge pudding for Friday's dinner.
"Now work this out and see what a well-supplied larder you can rejoice
over, and how little cooking you have to do the next three days. Then
when Tuesday comes, utilise any remains of Sunday's joint, make another
simple sweet or two, some cheese straws, or savoury eggs; develop more
soup out of the stock which will by now have accumulated, and with a
fresh batch of scones, and perhaps some stewed fruit, you may count
on two more days clear for the many other tasks which fall to a good
housekeeper's lot, and also for the most necessary free time for rest
and recreation. Moreover, still another advantage of this 'look-ahead'
plan is the ease of mind which the knowledge of your well-filled
shelves will give you in the case of an unexpected visitor, or any
other of those unlooked-for emergencies which will arise even in the
best-regulated and most business-like households."
Because everyone else does it scarcely seems a reason why you must do
it.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXII_
AN ELECTRIC KITCHEN IN A CITY INSTITUTION. (Messrs. Crompton & Co.)]
II
The Late-Dinner Bogey.
"For a long time it was the late-dinner bogey which caused us to keep
more servants than we needed, and to live expensively and rather
uncomfortably.
"At last my husband's dislike of cooks became so passionate (and not
without reason), that I determined to change my household arrangements,
arguing that we could scarcely have worse food than we were having
already. My husband, I must explain, is one of those men who cannot
eat a heavy lunch and work after it, so he needs a hot and substantial
dinner. How was this to be arranged with only one servant who went out
twice a week, and a wife who only wished to cook in the morning?
"Well, we managed thus. We bought a neat electrical heater for the
dining-room, and put the hot dishes ready on it and all the cold things
on the sideboard. Then when dinner was announced, the maid waited, and
as she never had to leave the room, she managed well, even when we had
friends to dinner.
"After all, in restaurants food is not cooked just for you, it is
prepared and finished or kept hot in hot cupboards or on hot plates.
Managing as we now do our hot food is always hot, and the saving in
wages, upkeep and food considerable. On Sunday night we have supper
with hot soup, and on the other nights I choose such a menu as soup,
stewed oxtail with carrot and turnip, potato cake, cold sweet or
cheese, celery, etc. Coffee (if we need it) we make in an apparatus in
the dining-room.
"Of course, we had to have a labour-saving house, otherwise I could not
have done the work with one servant and a nurse."
The writer of this letter uses an electric heater, but in a "gas house"
the "Utility" gas ring with hot plate would take its place.
An illustrated booklet and price list of this excellent contrivance may
be obtained from the Gas, Light and Coke Company, Horseferry Road, S.W.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXIII_
THE ELECTRIC IRON (NEVER BECOMES DIRTY)
(The Brompton and Kensington Accessories)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXIIIa_
AN ELECTRIC HEATER FOR THE SIDE TABLE
(The Dowsing Radiant Heat Co.)]
A Letter from a Professional Woman who does her own Housework.
"In reply to your letter, I will describe my domestic methods. You can
testify, can you not, that my little flat is well-kept and that the
meals are nicely served?
"As you know, the flat consists of sitting-room, bedroom, bathroom,
tiny kitchen, linen cupboard and box cupboard, and a cupboard in which
I keep all cleaning utensils.
"In the bathroom is a fitted basin, so I have not even a washstand in
my bedroom. The kitchen sink and bathroom are served by one gas geyser,
and I have gas fires and a gas cooker. I should like a coal fire in the
drawing-room, but it would make too much work. There is electric light.
"There is an 'in' and 'out' indicator in the hall, and a little box
under it for my cards and notes.
"My floors throughout the flat are covered with a soft, streaked, green
linoleum (not the plain, as that shows every mark). My dining-room
table (just large enough for four) is round, and folds flat against
the wall in the hall when not in use. I have rugs which I can go over
with my Bissel sweeper, or with my Good Housewife suction cleaner. I
use the latter for the chairs, sofa, mattresses, and curtains. The
linoleum I dust and polish with long-handled mops, and as I object to
crawling about on hands and knees, I have a special long-handled mop
and pail with wringer attached for washing floors and a long-handled
scrubber for the kitchen and hall. But when you do your own housework,
and have no coal, it is wonderful how clean things keep. My knives are
stainless steel and need no polishing. I have glass rather than silver,
and fireproof china ware in which I cook and serve the food. I have no
polished metal, and I use newspapers for most purposes for which other
people use cloths. I never dry plates and cups, but just put them in a
rack to dry.
"My rooms are rather empty, but what is in them is really good.
"My day is arranged thus. Foreign-fashion breakfast, put ready over
night on a tray (covered), with coffee and milk ready mixed. This I
heat. I light the geyser, and while the water heats have my breakfast
in bed. In cold weather I can switch on my bedroom fire from my bed,
and as my gas-ring has a long tube, heat my coffee without getting out
of bed if I please.
"After breakfast I get up and put on an overall instead of my dress.
With no fires and no washstand work and my long-handled cleaners the
work is quickly done. I prepare what I need for lunch and dinner; food
is so simple a matter when you live alone: my lunch, for example,
is generally milk pudding, cheese and fruit, and my dinner of two
courses, meat or fish and sweet or cheese, and often I buy cooked food
if I am very busy.
"I work from eleven until three or four. Then I go out and generally
have tea with friends or at my club.
"I come in, dine, tidy up, put breakfast ready, and often work for an
hour or two, or read, and go to bed.
"I give up Friday to special turning out and cleaning, mending, etc.
"My entertaining consists of tea or dinner (not more than four). Then I
have a waitress who clears away and washes up. For such dinners I have
soup, fish au gratin, stewed pigeons with savoury rice, or chicken en
casserole, potato croquettes, cold sweet, cheese, coffee, dessert. The
kind of dinner which can all be put ready for the waitress down to the
last detail.
"I should detest to exist in a squalid muddle, but really it is not
necessary to do so. Living as I do I can save money. If I kept a
servant I should spend all I earn and be no more comfortable."
About Washing Up.
"I wonder if ladies who do their own work realise that it is possible
to wash up and still keep one's hands nice by using rubber gloves and
different sized mops. When I began to do my own work for a family of
husband and four children I had great trouble with my nails splitting.
Now my hands are as nice as ever they were. I have three mops of
different sizes, one with a brush on the back for hard rubbing. I wear
a rubber glove on my left hand (they cost 1s. 3d. a pair, and I have
had one pair for months) and use the water practically boiling, as one
can tilt up plates, etc., out of the water with the mop, and plates
slipped into a rack will then require no drying. My saucepan brush has
a long handle and the wire bristles are put in on the slant. I can wash
up after any meal without wetting one finger. I have an old skewer
stuck in the woodwork beside the sink, and on to it I slip the glove
to dry between washings up. I have found it a great saving of time and
trouble, too, to have long-handled sweeping brushes, and I have ordered
a long-handled hard scrubbing brush, mop, and wringer, so that I can
do the scullery and kitchen, etc., without getting down on my knees or
putting my hands in water."
"The higher a woman's education, the better housewife she ought to
be. When Molière was so hard on learned women, he was not making fun
of erudition, but of the affectation of erudition, which relegated
into a corner all homely virtues."
"First Aid to the Servantless,"
By Mrs. J. G. FRASER.
CHAPTER VIII
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_Counting the Cost--The Cost of Service as well as of
Material--Coke Furnaces--Radiators--How to Light and Stoke a Coke
Furnace--Rubbish Burning--Some Figures--Two Examples of Houses
in which Coke Furnaces are used--A Maisonette in which a Gas
Circulator is used--Taking Advice--Gas for Water Heating and for
Lighting--Gas Fires--The Gas Cooker and how to use it--The Cost of
Gas Cooking--Cooking Utensils--Cleaning--Rubbish Destructors--Slot
Meters--Reading the Meter._
CHAPTER VIII
COAL, COKE, AND GAS: HOW TO USE THEM TO THE BEST ADVANTAGE
I
Of all labour-saving forces at present available, I think we must
regard electricity and gas as the most important.
Often, however, it is not for us to choose which we will employ. We
must needs use gas if electric current is not available, and we must
count the cost of both before deciding whether or no we may employ
either.
Counting the Cost.
Counting the cost is not so simple a matter as it seems, for it does
not suffice to ascertain the price of gas per 1000 feet, and of
electricity per unit, and of coal and coke per ton, and of wood per 100
bundles, because you have also to ascertain what you can save in labour
and in other items before you can arrive at any just conclusion.
Let us suppose that you decide to build a house and warm it by hot
water, to light it and to cook by gas or electricity. In that case you
could save the cost of grates, chimneys, the kitchen range, fenders,
fireirons, coal boxes, chimney sweeping, a considerable amount of
cleaning, and the labour of the people who would be needed to handle
the coal and do the cleaning.
So you must consider the matter carefully, not forgetting that it is
further complicated by the fact that you may find it difficult to
obtain servants, and that it might pay you to use gas or electricity
even though coal was cheaper, because of the scarcity and high cost
of labour. You have also to consider that the cost of coal, gas, and
electricity depend to some extent on the people who use them. One cook,
for example, will burn nearly double the coal burned by another and
obtain no better result. It is the same with gas and electric current.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXIV_
ELECTRICAL KITCHEN OF A SMALL FLAT. ALL LIFTING AND STOOPING IS AVOIDED.
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
The Coke Furnace.
Now, taking into account the fact that no water company has yet been
sufficiently enterprising to provide a supply of hot water, I think the
cheapest and most labour-saving method of warming houses and providing
hot water is by means of a coke furnace or possibly two furnaces. These
should heat all the radiators and supply all hot water. My personal
experience of a coke furnace is that it needs but little attention, and
that coke is light, clean, and easy to handle as compared with coal.
These furnaces do, however, need some coal to light them. The procedure
is as follows:--
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXV_
A DINING-ROOM HOT PLATE. (Messrs. Townshends, Ltd.)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXVa_
THE "DREADNOUGHT" WASHING-UP MACHINE
Which may be worked by hand or by electricity. It is made in various
sizes and obviates the necessity of putting the hands into greasy water
or of wiping the plates, cups, etc. Silver may be washed in addition to
china in the machine]
How to Light a Coke Furnace.
First thing in the morning, rake out the furnace and keep the clinker
(burnt coke). Put in paper, some sticks, and a shovelful of coal.
Light. When burning up add some fresh coke. When well alight, and the
water hot, add more coke mixed with clinkers. If the water is quite
cold it takes some fifty minutes to get it really hot, though a warm
bath would be ready in thirty minutes. If, however, the furnace is
banked at night, the water would still be warm at 6.30 in the morning.
In my own house, we need three hot baths before the 8.30 breakfast, and
the furnace must be lighted by 6.30 to 6.40 to obtain them. If the cook
comes down late she uses more coal to get the furnace burning quickly.
After breakfast the cook feeds the furnace with a little more coke, the
rubbish and some more coke on top. Rubbish should not be put in unless
the fire is fairly hot. The furnace heats a large radiator, water
for two bathrooms, two sinks, and three hand-basins. In winter, the
furnace is banked up after lunch, and not made up again until before
dinner, and the supply of hot water is constant, and there can be hot
baths at night if needed; but if all the hot water is run off at night
and the furnace is not made up again it naturally takes longer to heat
the water in the morning. In summer the furnace is let out after the
rubbish is burned; and with a small household the water for washing up
is heated on the gas.
One cook who came down late used far too much coal to light the furnace
(which is bad for it, as it fouls the flue with soot), threw away all
clinkers, and would not burn rubbish, and therefore consumed quite
one-third more coke than the present cook, and obtained no better
result.
Still, all things considered, I know no better or more economical
method of heating the rooms and providing hot water in a household of
any size than the coke furnace. This I should not say were gas and
electricity cheaper, because, of course, a water heater which is set
going by turning a tap or switch is obviously more labour-saving than a
furnace.
In almost all households gas or electric heaters are practical,
because if used carefully they are not too expensive, and in small
houses or flats where the mistress is her own maid, or depends upon
help from a visiting worker, I should certainly recommend the abolition
of either coke or coal from the labour-saving point of view alone.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXVI_
AN ELECTRIC COOKER SUITABLE FOR ORDINARY USE
Oven, grill and toaster plate, warmer and hot plate. (Messrs. Crompton
& Co.)]
Some Figures.
I find that in the two years we have used the furnace we have consumed
120 sacks of coke, but part of it was mixed with the coal burned in the
drawing-room. I must also admit that during part of this time the fuel
was carelessly used. In addition to the coke burned in the furnace,
coal was needed for lighting it. We used nine tons of coal in two
years, for the drawing-room fire (a large old-fashioned, extravagant
grate) and for the furnace. These were partly war years, and coal
cost on an average 35s. a ton, and the coke 1s. 2d. a sack; roughly
£11 10s. for furnace and drawing-room fire per year. In addition, the
gas bills for two years have been, for cooker and five fires (one
of the latter lighted in dining-room for about three hours a day,
another burned a good deal in Christmas holidays, fire in servants'
hall used in the afternoon in cold weather, and two bedroom fires only
for an hour or two in the evening when _very_ cold, except during a
three-weeks' illness, and one or two days when people had colds), about
£40. Gas is at the war price (in London) 3s. per 1,000 feet, and (for
"war reasons") inferior in quality to what it was before the war, and
the figure includes meter and stove rent (two stoves, kitchen, and
servants' hall).
When considering these sums it must be remembered that this is a small
London house, and that the furnace in the kitchen heats that and keeps
the smoking-room above from ever being very cold. The large radiator
in the hall, heated from the furnace, makes an enormous difference to
the warmth of the house; also the drawing-room fire was not lighted in
the morning except in really cold weather. To the coal, coke, and gas
bills must be added 14s. worth of wood during the two years. Old boxes
were chopped up, so that if all the wood had been bought it might have
amounted to 18s. or £1, say £32 10 0 for a year's fuel.
Had we used a coal range and coal fires and had no radiator, I
calculate that the cost of coal would amount to at least £35, and that
we should have used more wood, and certainly we could not have run the
house without more help.
=When counting the cost of heating, lighting, and cooking, allow for
expert's figures. The average servant, and for that matter, the average
mistress, is not an expert, and until she is, will not be able to
obtain the best value for the money spent as does the expert.=
In another household known to me, the furnace is larger and more coke
is used, and it is made up at about seven o'clock, at midday, and again
at night. This furnace heats water for two bathrooms, three sinks, four
hand-basins, and radiators all over the house. The house is always
beautifully warm, and only a small fire "for company" is needed in the
drawing-room. In this house there is a coal range for cooking, but in
hot weather an oil stove is used. The quantities of fuel used are for
two years: 13 tons coal, 18 tons coke, 8 tons anthracite, 234 gallons
of oil.
In a maisonette of three floors, gas is used for cooking and for water
heating and nursery ironing ring, and coal for dining-room fire,
drawing-room in late afternoon and evening, and nursery when necessary.
(Child goes to a kindergarten.) The cost for coal and gas for the year
1915 was £28 10s. In flats where the bathroom is near the furnace less
fuel is needed.
In all of the three cases mentioned the labour bill would have had
to be increased had coal been in use everywhere. Furthermore, a gas
expert tells me that with more careful use the bills could be reduced;
but as one is seldom able to secure the services of experts, allowance
must be made for careless usage of fuel when counting the cost.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXVII_
A GOOD TYPE OF ELECTRIC FIRE
(Messrs. Crompton and Co.)]
The Use of Gas.
Let us deal now with the question of gas, and suppose that the hot
water is provided by a gas circulator, that it is, for various reasons,
not feasible to put in radiators, and that a gas cooker and gas fires
are used.
There are various kinds of circulators, rubbish destructors, cookers
and fires, and so great has been the improvement in their mechanism
and appearance that I really do not think any objection on the score
of health or appearance can be made now to the use of gas. One
disadvantage is, possibly, that some of the best and most modern fires
and cookers cannot be hired. Still, one does not hire one's fireplaces
and coal ranges, so why do we always expect to obtain gas fires and
cookers on hire?
Some fires I have lately seen were really attractive, and would not
spoil the effect of any room.
Readers of this book who wish to see what can be done for them by means
of gas should visit the showrooms of the various gas companies, and
especially those of Messrs. Davis, 60, Oxford Street, W.
Good Advice.
Before deciding on any special fires, stoves, etc., the customer should
ask the gas company to inspect the premises and to give advice as to
the best method of dealing with that particular house or flat, because
the choice of apparatus must depend on the situation of the boiler, the
length of pipes needed, the height of the house, the position of the
bathroom, and the kind of grates available.
In some houses it would be out of the question to heat water by gas, in
others it would be possible and even economical.
But I regret to have to say that the gas companies do not always seem
to have employees capable of giving the best advice. In London, the Gas
Light and Coke Company have a clever staff, amongst whom are several
ladies known as the Women's Advisory Staff. These ladies are extremely
helpful, and when they have talked the matter over with the prospective
customer, will call in experts who deal with the questions of cost, of
fitting, etc. Two heads are better than one, and therefore I always
advise the would-be gas-user to pick the brains of one of these ladies
(who are trained cooks as well as gas experts), as well as those of the
male staff.
When the cookers and fires have been installed a lady will then call,
free of charge, and demonstrate the use of the various apparatus, and
it can also be arranged that the fires, cooker, etc., are inspected and
kept in order for a nominal sum per annum.
Gas for Water Heating.
Regarding the use of gas for water heating, it would be useless for
me to go into details, for only an expert who has seen the house can
know how best to deal with the matter, and whether to advise the use
of geysers, califonts, hydrotherms, etc.; or whether gas circulators
should be ruled out and a coke furnace substituted. Excluding the cost
of installation, and under suitable circumstances, it is estimated that
a large hot bath costs rather less than twopence, and one less full
and not quite so hot, rather more than one penny. The cost must vary a
little, as in summer time the temperature of the water before heating
is higher than in winter, also the size of baths varies.
When using gas for heating, the baths and fitted basins should not be
unnecessarily large, and note that a square-bottomed bath will need
more water to fill it than that which is curved. Do not forget that
every pint of hot water costs something to make it hot.
Many improvements have been made in geysers of late, and they are now
as fool-proof as any apparatus can be. But when one has to deal with
a girl who will turn on the gas in the oven and forget that she has
not lighted it, shut the door, and then, when the house reeks of gas,
arm herself with a lighted taper and start looking for the escape, it
is difficult to estimate against what depth of human folly the gas
apparatus must be made immune.
Geysers are now contrived so that the one apparatus will serve several
taps, and circulators are fitted with concentric burners, so that when
the water is hot the ring is put out and only the small inner burner
used.
Thermostats are fixed to reduce automatically the consumption of gas
directly the water reaches a certain temperature.
A cut-out system is also applied to existing cylinders and tanks of
unnecessarily large size.
When using a gas circulator the gas should be turned out when hot water
is not required--a detail which many people forget.
For example, one servant heats the water for baths, washing up and
cleaning, then the gas is put out after lunch, and is not lighted again
until hot water is wanted at night. Another keeps the gas burning the
whole day.
Gas for Lighting.
When electricity is available, I should not choose gas as an
illuminant, but when it must be employed it is now so arranged and
shaded that the effect is perfect and the blacking of walls and ceiling
reduced to a minimum. It may surprise some of my readers to know that
gas can now be fitted so that it is switched on and off from a wall
switch in the same fashion as electricity. Incandescent burners make
for economy, and now _bijou_ burners are to be had suitable for small
rooms, offices, etc., which consume less than the large burners.
Allowing for gas at 3s. per 1000 feet, one large incandescent burner
costs one penny every eight hours, a medium burner one penny for every
twelve hours, and a _bijou_ one penny for every eighteen hours.
Gas Fires.
When choosing a gas fire see that there is a duplex burner, so that two
or three jets can be turned out, leaving the centre jets burning. When
the room is warm the smaller fire will suffice to keep it so. The best
modern fires are noiseless and ventilated beautifully, and, as I have
already said, they are really pleasing in appearance.
Nevertheless, I do not advise a gas fire, however good, as an economy
in a room which is used for hours at a time. The cost of an average
fire is said to be 1¼d. per hour, counting gas at 3s. per 1000 feet,
and it does not pay to burn 1¼d. worth of gas per hour for fourteen
or fifteen hours at a stretch. From the point of view of money-saving
it would be cheaper to burn coal.
On the other hand, supposing a gas fire is lighted in a sitting-room
in the morning, it can be turned out if the family are out in the
afternoon, and not relighted until shortly before they return, for
the advantage of gas and electric fires is that they are red-hot
practically at once, whereas a coal fire takes time to burn up and
become hot, and each time it is lighted it eats wood as well as coal.
Still, say what one will, a coal or wood fire is pleasanter to sit
with, and for that reason, unless I were quite servantless, I would
have one "live" fire in the house. Expert advice must be obtained when
putting in gas fires in order to be sure that the kind most suitable
is obtained, and the ventilation must be carefully attended to.
People often say, "Oh, I couldn't sit in a room with a gas fire,"
having no experience of a well-made, well-ventilated, and properly
fitted fire.
There are old-fashioned, badly fitted gas fires which deserve every
evil thing which can be said of them; but again there are many others:
there is even a fire which can be set alight by turning a switch at
your bedside, so that you do not set foot out of that warm refuge until
the temperature of the room has become pleasant to your lightly clad
form.
Gas Cookers.
When choosing a gas cooker there are many points to consider, and I own
that to my mind the ideal cooker has not yet been put upon the market.
It is, however, bound to come, and gas cookers, unlike ranges, are
easily changed.
The cooker should have a solid hot plate,[2] and not an open top, but
if this make cannot be obtained, a sheet of iron covering two-thirds of
the top of the cooker can be laid on it. One gas burner will heat this,
and several pans will simmer on it at the cost of one burner.
The ordinary cooker is generally fitted with one simmering burner and
about three boiling burners, which is wrong, for to one dish which
needs boiling for more than a few minutes, at all events, many need
to simmer.[3] The great fault of English cooks is that they cook
everything too fast, and the average gas stove does not discourage this
naughty practice.
Still, this difficulty can be overcome by using the makeshift hot-plate
as already described.
In addition to the boiling burners there should be a griller, which is
used for browning and toasting, as well as grilling.
The size of the cooker must depend upon the amount of cooking needed,
but it is no economy to have a very small one, because when the oven
is in use it should be employed for almost everything. The average
cook bakes a milk pudding in the oven and cooks vegetables and hashed
mutton and stewed fruit each on a boiling tap, and probably uses the
griller as well, and wonders why the gas bills are so high.
Which will you spend, brains or money?
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXVIII_
AN ELECTRIC COOKER
(The Jackson Electric Stove Co.)]
II
When planning out the bills of fare the cook must use more brains and
less gas.
For instance, let us say that she wants to serve hashed mutton (and
Heaven help that it may not be that grey and slimy mass endured in too
many an English home!), potatoes, Brussels-sprouts, milk pudding, and
stewed fruit.
Let her heat the oven and cook the mutton in a casserole. The potatoes
and sprouts can cook in the oven just as well as over a boiling tap,
the milk pudding is baked, and the fruit baked in a covered casserole.
Managing thus, all the dishes are cooked in the oven.
Then there will come a day when the oven need not be used at all, and
the meal be cooked on the top of the stove. After all, cooking is
carried out by heat, and it matters little in most cases if the heat
surrounds the pan as in the oven, or is kept directly under it as by a
tap.
Every oven should be supplied with a solid browning shelf, not a thing
with holes in it. This can be placed where needed, and by its use the
part of the oven above it can be kept 100 degrees cooler than that
which is below.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXXIX_
AN ELECTRIC COOKER (OVENS, HOT-PLATE, GRILL, PLATE HEATER) FOR A LARGE
HOUSEHOLD
(Messrs. Crompton & Co.)]
The Cost of Cooking by Gas.
A moderate-sized oven, such as would be needed in a household of not
over eight persons, burns about 30 feet of gas per hour when full on.
Of that, 10 feet will be required to heat the oven, allowing twenty
minutes for that operation. Then the gas should be turned down so that
it burns at the rate of 15 feet per hour. Ten minutes later it is
turned down again and consumes 10 feet. Thus if you use the oven for
one and a half hours it should consume 22½ feet of gas.
In the oven you should find two open grid shelves, a solid shelf, and
a drip tin. The drip tin must be kept at the bottom of the stove below
the gas flames. The dripping falls into this and does not become brown
as it would do if the tin was placed over the flames. The drip tin
must be kept in its place, as otherwise too much air would enter from
beneath the oven and stop the cooking.
If, instead of hanging the meat from a hook in the oven, it is baked on
a tin, use a double baking tin.
When roasting or baking meat, use the upper grid shelf for pastry,
and place milk pudding or some other food needing slow cooking above
the solid shelf, and then make the very best use of your oven while it
is hot. See "Cooking Mornings," p. 127.
The temperature of the oven to begin with, for most cakes, should be
280 degrees, for meat 300 degrees, for pastry and bread 340 degrees. An
oven thermometer can be procured, and is a great help to inexperienced
cooks. Quartern loaves take some three-quarters of an hour to bake, and
use about 25 feet of gas.
Large boiling burners, full on, eat about 24 feet of gas per hour. In
using boiling burners there is often great waste, as people will turn
them full on and have the flames flaring up the sides of the pan, which
is a waste of heat and causes a smell of gas. The flame should be kept
right underneath the pan or kettle.
The simmering taps consume about 8 feet of gas per hour, and a clever
person will, by using a three or four-tier pan, cook several dishes at
the cost of about 16 feet of gas per hour, allowing for heating over a
boiling tap at first and then simmering for the remainder of the time.
The griller uses as much gas as the oven per hour; but then, of
course, grilling is a quick operation. When using the grill, make it
red-hot and see that the grill pan is under, and getting hot at the
same time. The grill is used for toasting, and if you turn over the
toasted side of bread on to a cold surface, it makes it tough.
When the grill is hot, turn the gas down and watch the toast very
carefully, as it cooks very quickly. Always keep a large pan or kettle
of water over the griller, as it helps to throw down the heat. Do
not boil the kettle on a boiling tap and use the griller for toast,
but cook over the griller as well as under it; and this applies when
grilling chops, steak, bacon, sausages, etc., for the saucepans can
heat over the griller as well as over a tap.
On a modern stove, the grill is arranged so that half of it may be
lighted at a time for grilling small things. When grilling meat or
fish, cook with full heat for two minutes in order to seal the pores
and conserve the good of the food, then reduce the heat, turn, increase
the heat, and decrease again.
Thin steak needs about 12 minutes' cooking; thicker, 12 to 20 minutes;
chops, 10 to 12 minutes; cutlets, 6 minutes; and bacon 1 or 2 minutes.
Pancakes can be cooked by means of the griller first over the grill and
then by placing the pan under it, and omelettes can be made in the
same way without turning them.
If the oven is not in use, milk puddings, macaroni cheese, etc., may be
cooked on a boiling tap and browned under the griller.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XL_
AN ELECTRIC KITCHEN IN A PRIVATE HOUSE
Above each switch is a red lamp, which reminds the cook that the
current is on.
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
Utensils for Gas Cookers.
It is most important when cooking by gas to choose the right kind of
utensils. They should be thin and wide, rather than deep. A deep kettle
takes longer to boil and therefore costs more to boil than a shallow
one.
Block tin, enamel ware and earthenware casseroles and fireproof china
should be used; the two latter whenever possible, because by cooking
and serving in one dish you save labour in washing up and generally
have the food served hotter. Also food cooked in earthenware tastes
better than that cooked in metal pans.
Both cooker and utensils must be kept clean, for dirt, especially soot,
is a non-conductor of heat. They must also be dry. I have seen cooks
rinse out a pan and put it on the gas wet, forgetting that heat is then
wasted in drying the moisture on the outside of the pan.
In the same way they will boil one quart of water when they only need
a pint, and waste gas in that way.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLI_
THE "BABY FIRE" IN AN ALTERED POSITION IS NOW USED TO BOIL A KETTLE AND
HEAT AN IRON.
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLIa_
THE "BABY FIRE"
A delightful invention for heating small rooms
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
To Clean a Gas Stove.
A gas cooker is easily cleaned, and should be well washed with hot
water and a little soda, loose parts and oven too. Grease should be
rubbed off with newspaper as quickly as possible. The black part of the
stove is cleaned with enameline and the bright steel with very fine
emery-paper and oil, and then polished with a soft rag, or if plated
with a leather only.
The best kind of stove is mounted as high as possible so that it may
be cleaned underneath. Also it should be set high to avoid fatigue in
bending and lifting when using the oven, but not so high that the cook
cannot use the hot plate comfortably.
Be sure that no taps are clogged with grease, and remember that when a
gas stove smells it is because it is dirty or because the gas is turned
on too full and is not being properly consumed, or gas is escaping.
Well-managed gas cookers do not smell.
Now and then something may go wrong outside the cook's control, and
then the Gas Company must send some one to put it right.
But when cookers are intelligently used they seldom need attention,
and if it should become necessary to change them, they are moved
without much trouble or any structural work or dirt-making.
The Destruction of Rubbish.
In a household where coal and coke are not used, and in places where
the unsanitary habit of collecting refuse but once a week prevails, the
careful housewife will ask, what am I to do with the rubbish? I could
burn some of it in a coal range, and most of it in a coke furnace, but
if I employ gas only, what is to become of it?
The only thing then is to add a gas refuse destructor to your
apparatus. In one household known to me (a London flat) there is a gas
cooker, water circulator, stove for warming the kitchen when the cooker
is not in use, and the neatest little rubbish destructor--all fitted
into a surprisingly small space.
Warming the Kitchen.
The mere word "kitchen" suggests warmth, but the mistress who uses gas
must not forget that when the cooker is not in use (which may often
be from 1.30 to 6 or 6.30 in the evening, except for the boiling of a
kettle), and if the circulator is also turned out, the kitchen would
probably be too cold for the maids to sit in. When there is a servants'
hall this does not matter; but if the kitchen is also the sitting-room,
a small gas fire should be supplied.
Slot Meters.
In order to cater for people of small income whom it suits to pay for
the gas they consume in small sums, and also in some cases to check
the consumption of gas, slot meters have been introduced. No charge
is made for the meter, for the piping of the house or for the stove,
but in order to cover this more is charged for the gas. It may still
be sold at a nominal 3s. per 1000 feet (the price of gas varies in
various localities), but the person using a penny-slot meter obtains
less gas for a penny than he would do did he not require a meter. The
same applies to the "shilling-in-the-slot" meter. Small users, however,
often find it convenient to use slot meters, which entails no first
cost for installation and no quarterly rentals, and certainly when the
housekeeping allowance is small it is better to pay so much a day or
a week instead of having to face a quarterly bill; also the constant
production of pennies or shillings does bring home to the person using
the gas that it is not just gas but hard cash which is being used. In
some residential hotels and chambers each room is fitted with a slot
fire and the bathrooms with slot geysers, so that the guest knows the
exact cost of fire and bath, and pays it there and then.
Finally, all gas users should learn to read the meter, a simple task
which the lady demonstrator will teach or which can be learned from a
card of instructions. Then the meter should be watched. If an increased
expenditure of gas is noticed the matter should be inquired into, as
there may be an escape, or some one may be forgetting to turn out the
fire or lights when they are not needed.
But it is so expensive to fit up a "Labour-Saving House," you object.
That depends on many circumstances, the length of your lease, for
example. Allow for the interest on the capital you spend, and
possibly a sinking fund to repay it, and then count what you save in
cleaning, in wages, in fuel, etc. Often you will find that you get
back the money you have spent in a few years.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] See note on p. 155.
[3] When discussing this matter with a great gas expert I find that his
opinion is contrary to mine.
"I strongly disagree. The system is wasteful and unsatisfactory," were
his words.
With regard to simmering taps, he also holds a contrary opinion.
"I again disagree. You can easily turn down a boiling burner to
simmering point, but you can't turn up a simmering burner to boiling
point," he objected.
True, but to me that is the advantage of the simmering burner, for it
seems to me that nothing short of a burner which refuses to give out
more than a certain degree of heat will deter the English cook from
cooking too quickly and by too fierce a heat.
--D. C. P.
CHAPTER IX
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_Electricity as the Poor Man's Light--Basement Rate and Checking
of Waste--When Putting in Electric Light--To Avoid Waste of
Current--Makes of Lamps--Electric Fires--The Electric House--In
the Kitchen--The Cost of Current--Labour-Saving and Comfort-Giving
Appliances._
CHAPTER IX
THE ELECTRIC HOUSE. HEATING, COOKING, CLEANING, AND LIGHTING BY
ELECTRICITY
"The Poor Man's Light."
Some five-and-twenty years ago, when sixpence a unit was considered a
very low charge for electricity, Colonel Crompton, R.E., C.B., claimed
that before many years electricity would be "the poor man's light"; and
if the various supply companies had been developed on the broad lines
he advocated, there is no doubt that his prophecy would by now have
come true in every town of medium size and in many villages in the area
of supply, and we now might have been using electric current to light
and warm our houses, to cook by, and to work various labour-saving
machines.
As it is, there are very few places where this term can be applied.
Still, in nearly every town the charge for current has been
considerably reduced, and with the great strides which have been made
in the efficiency of various lamps, it can with certainty be said
that electricity is the light for those of small means. As the charge
for electricity is reduced, so will it be used on a larger scale for
heating and cooking; but at present the percentage of people using it
for cooking is so small when compared with those using it for lighting
that I propose to deal first with this latter application of it.
When considering the question of illumination of a house, oil, gas,
and electricity are the three possible alternatives; and when analysed
further, bearing in mind always the question of cost of labour and the
difficulty of obtaining it, and the cost of cleaning and decorating, it
will be found that the most suitable and economical is electricity.
Basement Rate and Checking of Waste.
In many districts special rates are offered where heating or cooking
apparatus, or motors for pumping, etc., are used during the daytime,
also for basement lights. So when arranging for a supply enquiry should
be made as to terms. In the case of basement lights in small houses
the saving is nearly all swallowed up in the extra meter rent, but in
houses having large basements where it is necessary to use the lights
for many hours a day the advisability of going on the special rate is
a point well worth inquiring into closely. In spite of the extra hours
necessarily burnt by basement lights, there is no doubt that great
waste often occurs in the domestic offices--lights are switched on at
dusk in passages, kitchen, pantry, and servants' hall, and even when
all the servants are having supper in one room every light will be
found alight in all the others. It is difficult to guard against this,
but if a small notice is fixed to the wall above the switches asking
that the light shall be turned off when not in use, it sometimes has
the desired effect. These notices can be bought ready printed.
Another source of waste which was never realised until the special
constable came into being is in the servants' bedrooms. I am told by a
member of that body that one of the things which has struck him more
than anything since he took up his lonely patrol is the number of
lights which are kept burning all night in the top rooms.
This can be obviated by a master switch controlling the top floor,
which can be in charge of one of the head servants. It is not advisable
to have this in one of the lower bedrooms, as is sometimes done, as it
necessitates the mistress waking up early in winter when lights are
needed before breakfast, and, further, might lead to confusion in the
case of a fire or illness in the night.
It is impossible to lay down any definite rules for the lighting of
the various rooms, as tastes differ so much as to the amount of light
required; but whatever the individual taste may be, the naked lights
should be so placed that they cannot be seen. This can be accomplished
by well-shaded wall or portable lamps or indirect lighting. This latter
form has much to commend it, as it is economical and gives an even
distribution of light all over the room.
When Putting in Electric Light.
It is as well to err on the side of extravagance in the number of wall
plugs. When the floor-boards are up it is not a very costly matter to
have them put in, and then when the furniture of a room is altered from
the position originally assigned to it, as is so often done with a new
house, it will not be found that the writing-table or sofa is on the
opposite side of the room to the plug to which the lamp required to
light it is attached.
The placing of the lights and the careful use of them would do much to
lessen the bill for current--a fact proved to me when we let our house
one winter to a family of the same size, who used the same number of
rooms as we had used. The bill for light was sent in to us, and thus
we discovered that it was just double what ours had been for the same
quarter the year before.
I put this down to the fact that basement and passage lights must have
been burned when not needed, and that instead of using one or two table
lamps when reading and writing in the evening all the wall lights were
lighted.
To Avoid Waste of Current.
The staircase lights should be on two-way switches, so that they can
be controlled from each floor--that is to say, from the hall you can
switch on the hall and first-floor lights. From the first floor you
can switch off the hall and light the second floor, and so on up the
house, the reverse process taking place in descending. If the lights
are installed in this way it is not necessary to keep all the staircase
lights burning, as is done in so many houses; the extra cost of
installing is trifling.
In bedrooms where there are two or three lights in addition to a
table-lamp at the side of the bed it is advisable and convenient to
have at least one of the lights in a two-way switch.
As regards the candle-power of the various lamps, so much depends on
the size and decoration of the room and the individual tastes of the
occupiers as regards the standard of illumination that it is impossible
to give any useful guide on this subject. Naturally the lowest
available candle-power lamps will be fitted in passages, bathrooms,
bedroom table-lamps, etc., but the smallest wire-drawn filament lamps
will in many cases be found to be more than is necessary. Owing to the
construction of these lamps, they have so far not been made lower than
16 candle-power for 200 volts, which is a common pressure in towns,
but to compensate for this it must be borne in mind that a 25 c.p.
metal filament lamp consumes about the same current as an 8 c.p. carbon
filament lamp, and it is undoubtedly only a question of time before
lamps of smaller candle-power and taking less current are put on the
market.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLII_
A BREAKFAST COOKER FOR TOASTING, GRILLING AND BOILING
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLIIa_
A TOASTER FOR THE BREAKFAST TABLE
You do not need to ring for more toast but make it yourself and eat it
while hot and crisp.
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLIIb_
A PRETTY LITTLE ELECTRIC HOT PLATE FOR TABLE USE
(The British Electric Transformer Co.)]
Makes of Lamp.
The invention and development of the drawn-wire lamp, made by various
firms and sold under trade names such as "Osram," "Mazda," and "Z,"
have made a great saving in the annual bill for electric light, and at
the same time have raised the standard of illumination. With the carbon
filament, a 32 c.p. lamp would burn for seven and a half hours with
the expenditure of one unit of electricity. Now the same light can be
obtained for twenty-five hours at the same cost with the metal filament
lamp. Against this saving must be set the increased cost of the lamps
and the fact that higher candle-power lamps are being used, so the
saving is not as large as the above figures would indicate. This type
of lamp will undoubtedly be further developed, and the time is not far
distant when the present consumption will be considerably reduced, so
that a combination of lower charges and improved lamps will bring the
electric light within the reach of even "the poor man."
Scarcity of labour and the difficult state of the domestic labour
market have made many people look round for labour- and dirt-saving
methods of warming and of cooking; and certainly if not as attractive
as a coal fire, an electric fire is both convenient and dirt and labour
saving; it is likewise a boon in bedrooms and other rooms which need to
be heated only for an hour or two at a time.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLIII_
AN ELECTRIC COOKER OF CONVENIENT MAKE SUITABLE FOR FAMILY USE
(Messrs. Townshends, Ltd.)]
Electric Fires.
Various makes of fires are illustrated in this book.
A great advantage of the electric fire is that it is red-hot in a few
seconds and may be placed where it is most required.
The Electric House.
Now let us see how things are done in a house which is worked by
electricity throughout. A maid is awakened by an electric alarum
(she cannot say that her clock was wrong, because all the clocks are
controlled by a master pendulum). She goes downstairs, touches a
switch, and sets the hot-water apparatus going. To warm or light a
room, to set the cooker to work, needs but a touch. An electric service
lift makes the laying and clearing and serving of meals a quick and
easy matter. There are no heavy trays and cans and coal boxes to haul
about the house upstairs and down. The cleaning of the rooms is eased
by the use of electric vacuum cleaners, and when there is no dust and
smoke from coal fires the house does not become nearly so dirty.
The breakfast dishes are kept hot on a heater. If more boiling water
or more toast is needed, it can be obtained in a moment or two without
leaving the dining-room. If you wish to speak to a servant, you do
not ring and wait for her to run up or down stairs, you telephone your
instructions.
In the Kitchen.
Let us descend to the kitchen. In the average kitchen the coal range is
placed where it is difficult to see the contents of the pots and pans,
and each time the cook wishes to put anything into the oven or take it
out she must stoop. To stoop and then lift a weight from oven to table
adds considerably to the labour of the day. In the intervals of cooking
the fire must be made up, and not only must all the pots and pans be
cleaned inside, but the outside becomes black and sooty, and must be
scrubbed. Dampers must be pulled in and out, and the cooking of the
household and supply of hot water attended to.
In an electrically fitted kitchen what do we see? A clean,
bright-looking oven and a hot plate for boiling and simmering, and
probably a grill, completed by a plate heater, all standing on a table
placed in a good light and conveniently near the sink. The cook may sit
at ease peeling apples and put out a hand to alter the heat of the oven
or hot plate, or to move a saucepan. If she is a forgetful person,
a red lamp reminds her of the fact that she has not switched off the
current from any portion of the cooking apparatus no longer needed.
This is not a fairy story. It is a statement of plain fact, and one
into which the public must enquire if it will solve the labour question.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLIV_
ELECTRIC OVEN AND HOT PLATE
(The Dowsing Radiant Heat Co.)]
Simplicity.
That electrical household labour-saving appliances are no longer in the
experimental stages, and that now they can be depended upon to work
satisfactorily, is shown by the number of schools and restaurants and
canteens in which electricity is used.
Yet all the cook has to do is to turn the switches and so obtain
different degrees of heat. If she needs a fierce heat, she can secure
it in a moment, while if she requires a gentle heat, she can secure
that, in either case by turning a switch. If a fuse should go, it
is an easy matter to replace it, and the watchful red lamp makes it
impossible to leave the current on unawares. No one who has seen an
electrically fitted kitchen can doubt that it is labour and dirt saving.
In a school where three cooks were kept, two now do the work with
ease, and where a cook and kitchen-maid were needed, now that all
coal carrying, range cleaning, stooping, and so much dirt have been
eliminated, the cook does the work cheerfully and single-handed, except
for the help of a woman once a week to clean areas, kitchen stairs, and
passage, and to scrub. The cost of a woman one day a week at 2s. 6d.
plus 1s. 6d. worth of food amounts to 4s. a week; while a kitchen-maid
at as low a wage as £16, with washing, insurance, and food, would not
cost less than 18s. a week.
But there is not only the economy of labour and dirt to consider. There
is the saving in the food itself.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLV_
AN ELECTRIC FIREPLACE SUITABLE FOR OPEN HEARTHS
(Messrs. Crompton & Co.)]
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLVa_
AN ELECTRIC FIRE
One great advantage about electric fires is that there is no waiting
for them "to burn up." They become red hot in a few seconds. (Messrs.
Belling & Co.)]
The Saving of Meat.
I will confine myself to the question of meat. When roasting with coal
the loss of weight on a joint is anything between 25 per cent. and 35
per cent. A really bad cook who gallops the meat and does not baste it
can effect a shrinkage of even 50 per cent.; but, fortunately, in this
land of bad cooks there are few who sin so deeply as this. Twenty-five
per cent., however, is quite a common loss, and even good and careful
cooks will account for a 20 per cent. loss. In proof of this weigh the
meat before and after cooking.
It is the boast of those who cook by electricity that they reduce this
loss to 8 per cent. Even when cooking electrically it would be easy to
cause a shrinkage of 10 to 15 per cent.; while, on the other hand, very
clever cooks will bring down the shrinkage to 5 per cent. Allowing,
then, to be fair, a loss of 25 per cent. when cooking by coal (that
is a quarter) and a loss of 10 per cent, when cooking by electricity,
you have a saving of 15 per cent. on your meat bill. Put this at £50 a
year, and you have saved £7 10s. on that item alone.
In one case when cooking on a large scale it was found that plates of
meat which had cost 5d. could be provided for 4d., a point which the
authorities responsible for the running of canteens for troops and
munition workers might do well to note.
The Cost of Current.
We must now consider the question of cost of current, and here we
are in many cases up against a difficulty, for unless current can be
obtained at a reasonable price the use of electricity in the household
is not a paying proposition. Speaking without inside knowledge of the
workings of the power companies, it would appear that they are greatly
to blame that electricity is not in more general use. Apparently few
of them make any effort to induce their customers to use current for
aught but lighting purposes. The offer of a flat rate of 1d. per unit
for all domestic purposes, added to an energetic pushing of electrical
apparatus and demonstration of its value, would result in an enormous
betterment in the conditions of domestic labour and in the purifying of
the air of towns.
There are, of course, electric supply companies who are more
enterprising--Marylebone, West Ham, and Poplar, for instance, and some
provincial town companies. The engineers of these supply companies have
formed what is known as the "Point Five" Club, their object being to
supply current for heating and cooking at ½d. per unit. Still, when
Marylebone represents the only district in highly rented residential
parts of London willing to do this, I think I am not unjust when I
say that the electrical companies are sadly behind the times in their
methods.
It is said that the current used for cooking (allowing for late dinner)
should be 1 unit per day per person, and that the amount should
diminish with the number of persons cooked for, until, when cooking
for 100 persons, the saving would be as much as 50 per cent. This,
naturally, depends to some extent upon the cook, who can, if she will,
waste current and spoil food by cooking it at too high a temperature;
for, as all cooks know, after the first ten minutes' cooking in a hot
oven the meat should be cooked quite gently. Those of my readers who
are interested in the question of electrically fitted houses can see
the various utensils, stoves, etc., at the showrooms of the makers;
they can attend demonstrations at Tricity House, 48, Oxford Street
(the Electrical Restaurant); and also add to their knowledge of the
subject by the perusal of "Electric Cooking, Heating, and Cleaning," an
excellent book, published by Constable and Co., price 3s. 6d. net.
At Tricity House, a most popular restaurant near the Tottenham Court
Road end of Oxford Street, all the cooking is done by electricity,
and a clever lady demonstrator will show the enquirer exactly how the
various apparatus is used.
Labour-Saving and Comfort-Giving Appliances.
But even when all the cooking is not done by electricity, the would-be
labour-saver may avail himself of a large number of labour-saving
inventions and comfort-giving inventions in the shape of chafing
dishes, kettles, toasters, and dish-heaters. Examples of these are
to be found in all electrical showrooms, and these, even when cheap
current is not available, may prove a great convenience and indirectly
a saving of money. In one house known to me, where one servant only has
been employed since the war, the owner switches on an electric fire,
and grills the bacon, and makes toast and coffee in the dining-room,
the table being laid and the materials left ready over night, thus
saving any breakfast cooking and table-laying at the busiest time in
the morning. The table is covered with a wrapper, and the room is swept
and dusted later in the day.
Another useful small appliance is the electric fan. In the sick-room
it is invaluable, also for clearing a room of the smell of smoke, and
being portable it can be carried from room to room and attached to an
ordinary wall socket.
For large houses there is a great demand for small domestic motors,
and great saving of labour can be effected by using them for driving
boot-cleaning machines, washing-up machines, and polishing hobs for
brass and silver cleaning.
Before writing these articles I visited kitchens where coal, gas, or
electricity were in use, and I have also cooked on coal ranges and gas
and electric cookers. Excellent results may be obtained by all three,
but there is no possible doubt that as regards labour and dirt-saving,
gas or electricity is preferable to coal. At the same time, as one
cannot in many cases use either, it is only fair to say that some of
the modern coal ranges do their work admirably, at the least possible
consumption of fuel.
As, however, a coal range cannot be regarded as a labour-saving
apparatus, I do not give any consideration to them in these pages,
which are, as I have already said, devoted, not to ideal homes and
dream homes, but to those where the scarcity of labour makes it
necessary to save work, and ultimately cost, as much as possible.
A FINAL WORD
Just as the book was going to press I received this letter--
"I must tell you how thankful I have been for your labour-saving ideas.
My cook left to make munitions; my housemaid's fancy led her to become
the driver of a tradesman's cart; the parlourmaid remained, and still
remains, bless her! I have had to rely on what temporary help I could
obtain, for cooks so far turn a deaf ear to my entreaties. Had it not
been for our gas fires, circulator, and cooker, our washing-rooms and
our lift, Heaven knows what would have become of us.
"As it is we really have managed extraordinarily well. Most people's
houses are too full of things which no one wants. Most people eat too
much and serve the food with unnecessary elaboration, and vast numbers
of women spend their lives fussing over trifles and making unnecessary
work for vast numbers of other women.
"Will it be different after the war?
"Let us hope so."
The greatest Labour-Saving apparatus we possess is the Brain; it has
not been worn out by too much use.
This statement appears on the first page of this book, and again on
the last.
It bears repetition.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLVI_
AN ELECTRIC RADIATOR
(The Dowsing R. H. Co.)]
INDEX
Advantages, some financial, 63
Advice, useful, 149
Appliances, household, 49
labour-saving, 185-186
simplicity of labour-saving, 180
Architects, reasons for women, 31
Arrangements, advantages of labour-saving, 70
Basement, general description of, 65
house, disadvantages of, 54-55
Bath, 45
Bedroom, 45
Bills, gas, coke, coal, 146
Coke, economy of, 144
Colleges, need of training, 20
Companies, Electrical Supply, 183
Cook, wages of, 120
Cookers, gas, 83
good idea for gas, 154
Cooker, size of, 155
Cooking, advantages of advanced, 127
economy of electrical, 182
Cost, counting the, 141, 145
Current, electric, cost of, 182
how to avoid waste of, 175
Decoration, 44
Dinner bogey, how to abolish the, 133
Domestic premises, 41, 43
Domestic problem, solving of, 25
Domestic service, advantages and disadvantages of, 19
Domestic training, advantages of, 13-14
for all girls, 11
national importance of, 12
Dressing-room, clever idea for, 45
Electric house, description of, 178
Electric light, fitting and arranging of, 174
Electricity, economy of, 171
cooking by, 134
Employer, ignorance of, 8
Entertaining, 137
Equipment, personal, 138
Family arrangements, 93
Fare, planning of bills of, 159
Fires, advantage of electric, 153
various makes of electric, 178
Flat, description of, 77-78
general arrangement of, 100
labour-saving, 99
Fuel, economy of, 147
Furnace, feeding of, 94
lighting of, 143
Furniture, 44
Gas, cost of cooking by, 160
use of, 148
Geysers, 151
Governesses, secretaries, companions, 18
Grill, management of, 162
Heating, water, 150
Home, the ideal, 37
House, labour-saving, 66
condition of the modern, 53
country, 95-97
furnishing of, 69
heating and lighting of, 46
how to reduce work of, 36
inconvenience of the modern, 29
suggestions for rebuilding, 30
Houses, labour-saving method of heating, 142
Kitchen, electrically fitted, 179
warming of, 165
Labour-making house, condition of, 76
conversion of, 57
description of, 56
some experiences of, 75
work of, 73-74
Labour-saving house, arrangement of, 89-91
convenience of, 110
description of, 88
domestic arrangements of, 79-80
economy of, 115
London, 87
menu of, 113
provincial, 108
reasons for, 3-4
suggestion for, 64
the ideal, 35
Labour-saving ideas, test of, 107
Lamp, makes of, 176-177
Lights, rate of basement, 172
checking of waste of, 173
Lighting, various means of, 152
Look-ahead plan, advantage of, 130
Meals, arrangement of, 114
Meat, saving of, 181
Menu, 121-124
Meters, slot, 166-169
Mistresses, new race wanted, 10
Nurse and Nursery, 62
Ordering, method of, 125
Oven, temperature of, 161
Restaurant, the electrical, 184
Rooms, arrangement of, 109
Rubbish, destruction of, 165
Servants, 9
shortage of, 7
their dislikes, 21-22
Service, cost of, 141
Service room, 42
Shopping, 126
Soups, 128
Stove, cleaning of, 164
Suburban house, description of, 101
furniture and fittings of, 102-103
Sweets, 129
Table, useful advice for, 49
Time, division of, 114
saving of, 119
Utensils, cleaning, 135
gas-cooking, 163
Waste, checking of, 173
Water service, 32
Water system, question of hot, 58
Work, dislike of menial, 17
organization of, 92-93
Worker, how to obtain best results, 26
_THE QUESTION OF THE MOMENT_
WAR RATION COOKERY
(THE EAT-LESS-MEAT BOOK)
BY MRS. C. S. PEEL
The Director of Women's Service, Ministry of Food.
(Second Edition.) Crown 8vo. =2/6= net.
"Mrs. Peel is universally recognized as the soundest and most sensible
authority upon middle-class housekeeping; she knows her subject inside
out, she has no fads, and she writes with great vivacity and verve.
She is just the person whose advice the small householder needs at
the present time, and this practical and business-like handbook is
nothing less than a public service of the highest quality. It ought
to be on every kitchen shelf throughout the length and breadth of the
country.... Indeed, the whole volume is invaluable, and we commend it
without reserve to every class of the loyal-hearted public."--_Daily
Telegraph._
"Mrs. Peel's book is eminently practical. It puts in an intelligible
way the problem of war-ration housekeeping."--_Land and Water._
"The book gives excellent hints as to the cooking of our war-time
rations. In addition to a quantity of recipes, Mrs. Peel has advice to
give on food values."--_Spectator._
JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, W. 1.
_NOVELS BY MRS. C. S. PEEL_
THE HAT SHOP
Crown 8vo. =6/-= and =1/3= net.
"Mrs. Peel is to be sincerely congratulated on her vivid picture of
one side of the world of fashion and of the cost to those who serve
it."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
"The book is interesting and written with first-hand
knowledge."--_Morning Post._
"The bright and the shady side of feminine life in London are both
exhibited in 'The Hat Shop.' Mrs. Peel's pages are closely observed and
convincingly drawn."--_Sunday Times._
Mrs. BARNET--Robes
Crown 8vo. =6/-=
"With insight and tenderness and courage, Mrs. Peel has written one of
the most charming and at the same time most living of stories. It is
stamped with truth and is very beautifully told."--_Outlook._
"Mrs. Peel has handled a prolific theme in a masterly manner."--_Globe._
A Mrs. JONES
Crown 8vo. =6/-=
"This intensely clever and human-hearted story.... Fresh, genuine, so
impeccably true to nature. A very fine novel indeed."--_Mr. Arthur
Waugh in the 'Outlook.'_
"The description of a fashion paper's office and its Jewish
administration is vivid, real and humorous. The book goes merrily
forward, the interest of the reader sustained to the finish."--_Daily
Telegraph._
JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, W. 1.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Original inconsistencies in chapter titles between the Table of
Contents and the first pages of each chapter have been retained.
Likewise, the titles on the List of Illustrations and the illustrations
themselves appear here just as they did in the original text, including
Plate 44's labeling of "Gas Oven" in the LOI and as "Electric Oven" in
its caption.
Minor punctuation errors fixed on pages 45 and 162. Punctuation on
Plates 4, 5, 6, 16, 20, 22, 34, 39, 40, 41, 42, 42a, 44 was made
consistent with the other Plates. Variable use of the words fire-place,
fireplace, Croutons, and Croûtons were retained. Other variations in
hyphenated words were retained only when they seemed to be used for
emphasis or when part of a quoted letter. The following changes were
made for consistency or due to typographical error:
Page 31, "house-work" changed to "housework." (...neither do they have
to do housework...)
Page 79, "talboys" changed to "tallboys." (...tallboys in a shocking
state of ill-usage.)
Page 121, "fourquarter" changed to "forequarter." (...a forequarter of
lamb has been in the house...)
Page 134, "House-Work" changed to "Housework." (A Letter from a
Professional Woman who does her own Housework.)
Plate 15, "WASH-STAND" changed to "WASHSTAND." (GAS-HEATED TOWEL RAIL
AND FIXED WASHSTAND)
Plate 32, "ELECTRC" changed to "ELECTRIC." (AN ELECTRIC KITCHEN IN A
CITY INSTITUTION.)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Labour-saving House" ***
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