"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."
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.