EXTENDED USE OF GAS COOKING-STOVES.
We have repeatedly called attention to the practical utility and convenience of gas-stoves for cooking purposes, and facts to hand seem to show that these are being largely taken advantage of by the public. Many gas Companies now lend them out at a cheap rate, and they may be had for purchase at a price to suit most buyers. Since the Corporation Gas Company of Glasgow introduced the system of hiring out these stoves, about three thousand five hundred had been lent out in six months, and the demand continues unabated. In hotels, restaurants, and many a private home, they are found doing their work with economy, ease, and a great saving of labour.
Dr Stevenson Macadam, speaking of gas-cooking in its sanitary aspects, says: ‘The wholesomeness of the meat cooked in the gas-stoves must be regarded as beyond doubt; gas-cooked meat will be found to be more juicy and palatable, and yet free from those alkaloidal bodies produced during the confined cooking of meat, which are more or less hurtful, and even poisonous.’ A joint cooked in a gas-oven weighs heavier than the same joint cooked in a coal-oven, from the fact, that in the case of the gas-cooked joint the juices are more perfectly preserved.
At the East London Hospital, where the entire cooking for an enormous number of patients is done by gas, the managers calculate that fully six hundred pounds is saved yearly since the introduction of gas-cooking.
For the extended use of gas-stoves in Scotland, the public is greatly indebted to R. and A. Main, Glasgow, who are ever ready to adopt everything new in gas-apparatus. Gas is also now largely used in connection with washing by means of steam. When we noticed Morton’s Steam-washer, probably not more than half a dozen had adopted this easy and economical method of washing, in Scotland, and now those who do so may be counted by the hundred.