IN THE WASH,

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 71, 23 March 1912, Page 11

IN THE WASH,

THE LINEN OF THE FLEET. AT THE UNION COMPANY'S" LAUNDRY. HOW THE WORK IS PUT THROUGH. (By "Autos.") ' A laundry hasi been defined as a place where every day is washing daydreadful thought for the average citizen "who finds once a week quite enough. It also suggests a dark and clingy, shop where you cull to leave your collars and ' boiled shirts with an inscrutable Chinese , person, whom even a mention of the new Republic of the East will not move to conversation. He merely smiles, hands you a piece of paper covered with hieroglyphics, and turns again to his ironing in the stuffy gloom. His mates have never even troubled to look up, and you are glad to get out of the place, carefully stowing away your ticket, where it will' not be lost, lor without it "no savee, no collar" next time you call on Chung Ling. .So your impressions of laundries and washing-days are not highly exhilarating. . FROM SHIP TO LAUNDRY. But come to Evans Bay, near the Patent. Slip, and see another kind of laundry with other methods of washing, where there, is always plenty of air and light, and science comes to the aid of man, as it has done and is still doing in most of the domestic arts. Here in their new building of red brick and cream-tinted r»ugh-cast, the Union Steam Ship Company washes the linen of its huge fleet . It is a big building, for the scope of its work is big. Here comes the com'pany's motor-lorry piled high with long canvas kitbags full of soiled linen several times a day. "As the different Vessel* of the fleet arrive in .Wellington thelorry swings alongside, receives ' its load,' and humes round to Evans Bay. Here it runs into the yard of the laundry ;' the clothes are unshipped, and through a shoot from the upper story fresh, ' clean linen is deposited on the lorry to be taken back to the ship, So the process „iuns on through 'tne week. • .A. TREMENDOUS WASIli' Few people could have any conception of what a tremendous task it is to wash for a great fleet of •steamers. If you take a passage to Lyttelton and lie down in your bunk for an hour or so on the voyage, the sheets of your bunk axe soiled in the eyes of the company and are sent to the laundry before they» are -used again. So it is ' with towels and .«verytning. How- many landladies in boardinghouses would be so particular?- The result it> an enormous wash for the laundry at Evans Bay. A' single steamer, say, the Maori or the Mararoa, may bring mover 2000. pieces of linen per voyage for the wash. In rush time during the holidays and at Christmas over a thousand toiled sheets alone are returned by the North-South ferry boats. The Maitai, on the San Francisco run, is credited on one occasion with, 6561 pieces in 61 bag©. The Manuka has sent in 4028 pieces in 44 bags, and even a little West Coast boat like the Arahura has done over her 3000. The average of the Sydney boats runs about 3000 pieces also. Every little collier or coaster in the company s service adds her quota, with th© net result that the~4aundry has to get through from 30,000 to 40,000 pieces of linen a week' on an average right through the year, ft may be more, it may be less, according to seasonal travelling^ but that is apout the average. 1 A nice wash for the lady of the suds to contemplate or Chung Ling + o operate with his hieroglyphic, tickets in a back room of a dark shop. NO FANCY STUFF. Fortunately it is plain washing they do at Evans Bay. You will look in vain at the_ laundry for any collars or shirts or ladies' lingerie, or any of the articles of human apparel that go inseparably with the popular notion of "washing." It is work of a simpler nature on a vastly larger scale. It is ship's washing, impersonal stuff throughout. Here are some of the standard things in the everyday work of the laundry :— Sheets, pillowslips, blankets, • rugs, towels, tablecloths, Serviettes, counterpanes, bath screens, bolster-covers, mat-tress-covers, dusters, and linen-bags. Nothing fancy about it — just the kind of stuff the housewife puts. in the copper and through the wringer and hangs upon the line for the most part. But it's the quantity — forty thousand pieces a week — about- six or seven thousand sheets, and other articles on a lesser scale. Obviously, j£ is not work for hands j you want machines for quantity^ WASHING BY MACHINE. So the process at the Evans BayLaundry is almost entirely mechanical. A few" big machines do the work of a» host of washerwomen . and , with much less noise. First the soiled linen io tumbled out of the bags and sorted in large bins in the .wash-house proper — a large, airy section of the buildings, full of machinery and a bit web .underfoot, like ail wash-houses. Meanwhile, in two large tanks suitable . washing-suds have been prepared. The clothes arethrown into huge barrels, .revolving on horizontal shafts like churns. . . The washing water is introduced, and, 'when all is, ready, the belt is switched? on to the driving pulley, and the mechanical washer begins to' turn at a fair speed. Nothing novel, but—after about three revolutions it suddenly stops and goes the opposite way for another three. Then it starts turning tbe, original, way, and so the process continues. There are ribs inside the "washers" which shake and beat the clothes about, reproducing me-chanically-the action of the, sturdy red arms of the lady of- the suds pummelling the inoffensive linen in the. .washtub. When it is considered that the .washing has proceeded far enough thu machine is stopped and the clothes- taken out. • HOW THE DRYING IS DONE. Next comes the' problem of drying.' To hang forty thousand pieces out on 'the line would take about as much ground as a flax-drying field, and in the pleasant 6iuntner weather we have been having since spring it would be> interesting to calculate how long . it would take the forty thousand to dry. No, "the hauging on the line" kind of thing would never do. Science' and "machinery come in again in a wonderful contrivance called the "hydro-extractor" — or short - S" r "hydro." There are four "hyros" to the six "washers." The hydro is something like a giant cream separator out of- a butter factory. It consists of a huge bowl/ perforated round the sides with small holes and revolving on a vertical axle at '1500 revolutions a minute. The effect is obvious. The centrifugal force of the high speed of rotation drives the water in the clothes right out through the holes iv the side of the bowl, and the linen comes out practically dry. It is, however, naturally limp and crumpled with the same force, and before being sent 'on the ironing machines it goes through a '.'tinu!>kr," another barreMike machine, which throws it about until the crinkles and creases are all looseneJ?. MECHANICAL IRONERS. The final process of ironing the sheets, table cloths, and other linen is mechanisal ulbo.. The- damnjgh slothes arejjaflsed

through ' a ' machine 'something ' like a printing press, as it 'consists of a number of rollers working round a main roller. Tho main central roller and the last of the series of smaller overhead roller^ are heated with eteain, 60 that they act like* hot point and other irons. Ihe clothes come out neatly ironed and dry on the other side. There ure three of these ironing machines. The clothes sre then placed in. trucks and sent up by lift to the upper storey, where they are sorted and placed in bags ready for despatch back to the ship wanting them, Tho blankets, . towels, -and heavier articles are dried out in the laundry- yards. Perfect system rules throughout, as a tally has to be kept -of all- linen coming in and going out. Naturally some of tho pieces .wear out and become unfit for further use. These are sorted out, bailed up. and sent to tho paper mills at Dunedin for working up into paper. Meanwhile the company's steamers from Vancouver to -Hobart' get their washing done in the most efficient and economical way possible.'