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.]