Dial Calendar.—This is a calendar which combines many good points. It is not only a monthly calendar, but weekly and daily as well. By means of two movable discs the calendar for the week appears in an opening cut in the frame just above the monthly calendar, and lest even then a person should be mystified about the date a broad black band can be shifted daily to mark the actual day. The calendar would appear to be an ideal one if only its owners remember to set it, but the trouble with the shifting calendars is that so few people remember to adjust them.
Combination Cot And Step-Ladder.—We have had lots of clever inventions for saving room in small houses, but the most original is certainly this combination of a bed and a step-ladder. It should prove a very useful article where the occupant of the bed is a light sleeper and doesn't mind having to get up
when the step-ladder is needed. It might also be useful in very large families where chairs were scarce. By day it could be stood upright, and the children roosted on its various steps. By night the little brood could come down from their perches, the steps be laid lengthwise, and the family put to bed on the cot.
With the addition of a strong wire spring attached to an alarm clock, it should also make an excellent servants' bed.
At 6:30 every morning the alarm would work the spring, and the bed immediately be transformed into a pair of steps. This would promote habits of punctuality and early rising in domestic servants that would be invaluable to them.
It is true that they might resent the invention, and leave the situation, but the mistress would still have the combination bed for the newcomer.
It would be an invaluable article for house decorators and paper-hangers. They could use it as a step-ladder until they got tired of working, and then turn it over and sleep on it until they were rested.
In fact, the uses of this combination cot and step-ladder are infinite. It seems to be an article that no well-regulated family can do without.