WOMAN'S WORLD.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12569, 11 August 1906, Page 7

WOMAN'S WORLD.

IN A SERVANTLESS COUNTRY. THE AMERICAN HOUSEWIFES CONTRIVANCES. In a recent issue of "Black and White," Miss Elizabeth Banks tells how the housewives of New York manage without servants. The immediate subject of her confidences is a visiting Englishman, who, sho says, went away puzzled over tbe information she gave Mm. I told him, she continues, of one woman who went to Paris once a year and bought her clothes, and then came home and- washed aaid ironed her own lingerie. I explained that a young married woman next door always had all her housework don© at ten o'clock in tho morning, her husband off to his business till six o'clock, her baby in tlie " jumper," and then doomed hoTself a lady of leisure for hours at a time. 1 explained that a "jumper" was an American mechanical substitute for a nurse-girl, price from six to sixty dollars, according to make and ornamentation. Nurse girls here being scarce, tlio baby-jumper factories turn out these useful contrivances for jumping a baby up anS down, while its mother rests. You put a baby in, touch a button, aud up and down goes tlie infant, crowing with delight.

As I have said, the Englishman went t away puzzled, also horrified, and I am not sure that on his return to his ovni > country he will not become a lecturer on the atrocities of the American bar- ! barian housekeepers and mothers. It ' is partly for this reason, that I feel it ! my duty to tell something in print of the necessity for and convenience of the "baby-jumper.'' Also the "baby- j walker."' The latter is on arrange ■ ment, angle-shaped, irsido ot wlueh '■ one puts a bai>y. TJie machine is wound up ajid started, and so the baby learns to walk. THE SERVANT QUESTION. Every year the difficulty of getting servants increases, also the wages askeU ; by those who can be got, increase, ami j every year the number of inventions • for making housework easy is steadily increasing. 'lliiis is tho only silver lining to the domestic servant problem j cloud. A guinea a week for an or- j dinary Irish emigrant yirl is Ik\voikl ; the means of an ordinary householder, oven though tho impudence and incompetence of tho said emigrant were r.of. beyond the patience of the housewife. who prefers to do her own work according to the lateet improved machinery methods to paying out such quod money for such hindering '"help/ . This boing the case, the iVw darkey serving women who still remain in New York have found it most profitable to set up houKvs of their own in tenements and hire out by the day for washing, ircning, and scrubbing. With occasional assistance of this kind tho averago Now York "woman scorns to jio-t en very woll unless she has a Large fa.mily, and largo families are not com man. THE AMERICAN BHEAKFAST. The New York department stores are full of work-easing contrivances, they are also full of prepared foods, which makes the business of cooking a not very difUcult one. "BrraJ;fast foods'' abound. There are cereals— wheat, oats, corn (.and some say hay), prepared in such a way that no cooking is necessary. They may bo heated if desired, but the popular ivsctihod ot serving is to have them cold with sugar and cream. Many a New York business and professional man now goes to his office contented, with a breakfast of suoh food and a cup of coffeo. and hie wife has prepared it in less than five minutes. Then foe lunches heartily down town, and perliajxs expensively;, while his wife, for her luncheon, Jioats a tin of soup, which an honest critic nrast adimit is better than niiic-teaitihs of tho soup made from tho okl-fushion-ed stock-pot. With tllw aid of the delicatessen shop tho homo dinner is prepared in less tlian half an hour, and many a dinner of this sort is served to unexpected guests, who are under the impression that tho host must keep a chef. Jellies, iee-ercatn.s. suoh delicious plum puddings as would put maary a homo-mado one to shame, hundreds of oilier prepared sweets, are sent freezing cold or piping hot from the shops, and thus a dinner goes off very nicely. HOUSE BUILDING TO SAVE LABOUR. As tho help her out- in tho matter of oookin.g, so tho builders of houses and flats help her in regard to other household work. In each flat one finds a (stationary refrigerator of such (spaciousness and convenience as delight the heart of the housewife. Into the kitchen comes tho lift or "dumb-waiter," as it is called here, bringing up tho ice, groceries, and all , other things purchased, so that tho housekeeper has no need to see her tradesman, much less have her hall muddied with his dirty boot?. The telephone and the messenger call bos nlso do much toward helping out the American, housewife. While in England only the wealthier clasws have tho luxury of a telephone in their residences, in American cities and throughout the country villages and farming regions, people who cannot afford to keep .-crvants do jiffonl telephones. In New York the telephone is really but little cheaper than in London, a private wire, allowing Goo_ messages, costing eleven guineas a year. But with tho telephone tho American woman doing her own housework does not feel cut off from her kind. She oan- even telephone for a friend to come round and fasten her bodice up the back—a thing which I myself have often had to do, my thoughts turning regretfully to tho trim and respectful little maid-servant I to have in London at tho wages of what I now realise to be but tho proverbial "mere song." And to save steps here, most householders havo their telephone ioccivcr arranged to place on a table, and -with <a cord long enough to be carried from ono room to another. The American woman carries it to the kitchen end ha* it by the sink whilo sho washes her dishee. Messenger call-boxes are put in one's house or flat free of charge, the companies expecting <o make their profit on the messages that are.sent out by their boys. In London, I remember, one must pay a guinea A year for the mere privilege of having a call-box m the houee. And, oh, how the folding furniture help* to make housework easy! What is a piano or writing desk jn the day time is turned round and made into a spring bod with hair math-ess at night. You but press the button and the transformation is made. And one piece of furniture being really two pieces, saves dusting, at least. Dining-room and kitchen connect with a in the wall, or with a sort of revolving lift, so that dishes and food are pushed back and forth, and hundreds of steps- a. day are raved. BATH-TUB AND WASH-TUB COMBINED. The cheapest tenement houee flats of modern build have hot and cold running water in the kitchens and a wonderfully clever arrangement; calh-d a "combination bath-tub wash-tub." This i<3 in the kitchen, and is fixed high enough, for laundry work. As a waslitub it is divided into thrcf compartments, each having a spigot for hot and cold water a.nd a wnsto exit. When it is desired for a bath-tub, the compartments are pulkd out. and there you have a more roomy and comfortnblo | bath-tub than many a Belgravia man- j sion can "boast. Thi« combination which j I have been describing is only in tho cheap tenement flats, •which, by the way, are nl=x> oiUm heated with stoam. | The regular flnte all have th<?ir delight- j ful tiled bathroom':, with porcelain tube, , nickel fittings, and every imaginable ; luxury, and "when I say that four am\\ five-room flats with such bathrooms, '■ steam heat, gas ranges and hot water supplied by- the landlord can be Mro-d in the central parts of New York for fivo and six guinctw a month, while in ; Harlem (corresponding to South Kensington or St. John's Wood in London in point of convenience) tho same kiivl of fTat lets for four guineas a month, it will be wn that flat tvnt orw/if tho , things that are cheap in Now York. LS THE AMERICAN WOMAN TO BE ENVIED P This cheap flat rent and tho conveniences supplied by landlords which I have mentioned certainly are compensations for muuh to the house-keeper in New York and all of our larger American cities. What with her cooked and "pro~d'ie:e6.tod" foods of various sorts, hear long-handled scrubbing brushes, her house-flannels on patent mop sticks which allow her to scrub and ■wipe the floor while stunxlinK upright in her best gown; 'hc-r brushes of every conceiva-ble kind for i>&n&tratin.g into corners; her patent irons and pa tentironing boards, wihdch latter spring into position all covered" and ready, with but the pressure of tho thumb; her gas ranges that need only a loafcch to make ifckem ready for grilling a steak or roasting a joint; her kitchen I dxesser ■which • needs bub another pressure to bo turned into a pastry board,

T rolling-pin, tea-caddy, coffee-can and a dozen other things; and her huge ' apron with sleeves which sho throne ,on and off a dozen times a day as she ! acts tlio part of mistress or servant— , with all these things, I say, tho average i American city housewife, servnivtless as sho is, is not perhaps so much to ;be pitied as envied. "Where sho has I children, ■ oven with the help of baby- : walkers and baby-jumpers, she is fre- : quently an overworked, wcul-dressed, . \vell-e<ltiC3.tcd drudge; but when her daughters are old enotigli to do the-ir part of the housework, or when, as too frequently happens, rfie is with--1 out children, her work is almost play, I if she is a eaj-eful and sen«il)le mnnnger. j Most American women have given up : tho idea of trying to live with servants, ami «re trying to discover the easiest to live without thorn. 1 j hare a. number of American friends j v.ho keep carriages but do not : servants.