ELECTRICITY IN THE HOME.

Mataura Ensign, 18 September 1906, Page 1

ELECTRICITY IN THE HOME.

o AMEMCAN CONVENIENCES. The many and various uses to which electricity is being put in American homes are sur\-eyed in a recent issue of tho 'Scientific American.' The sen r ant question is a keener problem in tho United States than it is oven in Britain, nnd tho new handmaiden, electricity, is moro in evidence. But even there the labour-saving devices are mostly in use in the various hotels, from which, one may suppose, they will bo gradually transplanted in slightly modified forms into the private houses. In ono of the hotels a completo electrical cooking plant is installed in tho centre of one of tho restaurants, which it keeps supplied with well-cooked viands without any of tho usuul' accompaniments of smoko, heat, nnd smell. Hero is ono lino for the kitchen-dining-room of the future. But to take the things in a more appropriate order, wo find there is an efficient potato-paring machine, which, under the influence of a small electric motor, delivers potatoes cleanly pared and ready for cooking, except that tho eyes must bo cut out by hand; while another little motor is engaged in chopping cabbages. .Over tho cooking apparatus already mentioned is an olcctricallydriven suction fan, which draws off all the odours created by tho stewing foods. After dinner the plates and dishes are washed by an electric machine, which drives three changes of water over their surface, und afterwords dries them by a fan apparatus. Tho knives are cleaned by passing them between rapidly-revolving duffwheels, and the *steol blades may be ground sharp at the same time if so desired. To obviate tho storing and huuling of ico, a small electric refrigerating plant is a perfectly practicable apparatus. In tho smokingroom abovo is.an electric cigar-light-er, while, in my lady's room may bo found electrically heated curling irons and an ingenious hair-drying machine, which blows a continuous . blast of hot dry air through my lady's tresses so as to dry tho most luxuriant hair in a few. minutes.