NOTES.

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 9, 1 July 1911, Page 735

NOTES.

The frequent opening of new hotels in London sometimes gives rise to surprise that there should be a sufficient number of travelling people to make use of all the accommodation provided. But in the matter of ' hotel accommodation London, in proportion to its population, is far behind New York. The latest New York scheme is for the building of a twenty-five storey hotel at a cost of £3,000,000. The site alone cost £1,500,000. The new hotel is to have 1600 rooms, and among its attractions are a roof garden and a Turkish, bath. The hotel will be a commercial house,, and will have entrances on four leading thoroughfares. It will be the biggest hotel in the world.

The value of models in litigation has often been proved. Mr. Percy Collins, who writes in the “World's Work and Play" on the modelmaking of Mr. John B. Thorp, shows by many examples how useful a careful scale model may also prove in carrying out building operations. ‘ ‘ All architects,' ' he says, ‘‘ at times experience a difficulty in explaining to their clients the actual significance of plans and working drawings, this difficulty being accentuated when alterations or additions to existing structures are under discussion. Por instance, a gentleman may wish to build a new wing to his country house, and he naturally desires to see for himself exactly what the architect has in mind — this before he commits himself to contracts." * * * The hatred of everything Gothic and Mediaeval which was very general in England during the eighteenth century forms a very curious chapter in architectural history. It often took the form of covering up work which, according to the ideas of the present day, was infinitely superior to that which replaced it. - An example of this perverted taste has recently come to light at Farnham, Surrey. Alterations at the Goat's Head Tavern in that town have revealed the fact that the house possesses a fineGothic facade. The front of the house was found to have two casings. Underneath some modern lath and plaster work was another covering of old roughcast, and when this was removed evidence as found of a much earlier framework, to which much of the present house has been added. The date of the earliest part is probably of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. * -X- * The “Ormrod" concrete Machine Company, of Knight St., Liverpool, has issued a neat booklet which gives particulars of their concrete block, brick and tile-making machines, moulds, mixers, etc. These machines contain some special improvements, which are protected by registration. They are worked entirely on the face-down principle. They are designed for hollow blocks 9in. or more on the bed, giving a perfect system of vertical and horizontal cavity, to, ensure thoroughly dry walls, and also

for solid blocks, 9in. and 4%in. on bed, for the purpose of building' walls with a complete cavity secured with iron ties, or for solid walls. The “Ormrod” concrete batch mixers are portable and easily worked. * * * What bad housing conditions mean in the way of injury to public health was vividly set forth by Dr. C. W. Milner, chairman of the Nottingham Housing Committee, in a recent lecture. Many people thought Nottingham a healthy town, he said, but they were mistaken. If the death rate of Nottingham during the last ten years had been no higher than the average for other towns, 367 lives would have been saved every year. The child death rate in Nottingham was higher, he said, than even in London; had it been equal to the average during the last ten years 2300 more children would have .lived. Of course, Dr. Milner did not. maintain that bad housing conditions were alone responsible for the high rate of mortality in the town. But it was not difficult for him to prove a close connection between the two facts. w * * One of the difficulties of Dr. Dudfield, London, is the very low moral and intellectual standard of the tenants in some of the houses with which he is concerned. He thinks the people require improving more than the dwellings require demolishing. The connection between good housing and good living is a very close and intimate one. But what is cause and which is

effect? The answer is that they re-act upon each other. Some of the Paddington houses, with their dark basements and the utter inadequacy of facilities for cleanliness and comfort which always characterises the ordinary terrace house when inhabited by three, four, or five families, certainly do not tend to foster domestic and civic virtues. But in saying this we give full recognition to the other side of the matter. Eeligion and morality inevitablv tend to cleanliness, neatness and order. Every movement making for the moral and intellectual improvement of the people is an indirect contribution to the solution of this difficult problem. * * * At a recent meeting of the London Association of Master Decorators, Mr. Dakin (of Messrs. 11. Dakin & Co.) put forward a scheme for establishing scholarships for London students of the decorating and allied trades. Such scholarships already exist for students in other parts of the country, and Mr. Dakin pointed out that many young men in London never get the opportunities for learning the branches of decorating that they would in the provincial cities. London has in the past very largely drawn on provincial talent for the better class - of workmen and artists. To remedy these unsatisfactory conditions in the London decorating trade, Mr. Dakin proposes that the London Association should hold periodical examinations of practical work done by young men, and should award as a result of these-examinations, say, three scholarships, varying in value from £lO to £3O, or perhaps £SO. These are excellent proposals as far as they go, but they do not seem to us to go very far. They will doubtless stimulate the efforts of a few young decorators, and that is well; but the need of the trade seems to be a higher standard among the rank and file of its members, and this can only be obtained by some educational scheme applicable to all learners. » » * What the Chimney-stack said to , the Vent-pipe. A Soliloquy. (By “Bob o’ Brixton,” in “Illustrated Builder. “Halloo, Vent Pipe! poking your nose into my face again. I can’t stand having you for company. I put up with the ridge tiles, though they are rather stuck up, and have hobgoblins at their ends ugly enough to drive away all the evil spirits ever invented. But you, ‘ V.P.,’ as I see you are called on the drawing, where is your pedigree. I came over with the Conqueror, and have remained ever since, always given a fine position in the design, and dressed up in all sorts of architectural ‘frills and furbelows,’ so that I’m no eye-sore like you. My boss, called an architect,’! believe, gives. quite a long description of me in that rigmarole of technical

expressions, called a specification, or something of the kind, which the foreman kept looking at. I had too, quite a grand set of swaddling •• clothes, in the form of detail drawings, all to ni3self, but you were dismissed in two lines of typewriting, as if the boss was ashamed of having anything to do with you, and no wonder. You can’t be called a beauty, even by accident. And then, that cap! It makes •me laugh. Haney wearing a wire thing like that in public! Then how you crawl up the house and wriggle over the roof —just like a cast-iron snake! Well, there, I must not keep on like this, or you will think I’m jealous. I’m in a bad mood to-day, owing to the wind, perhaps, and do feel a bit thick in the “throat,” besides fancying I < have several gatherings in my “breast,” and, to crown all, those tin cans on the top of my “head don’t improve my temper at all. Take my advice, old ‘Y.P.,’ and get your boss, and mine, to give you, as he has me in times gone by, a bit of his kind attention, so as to improve you into a presentable addition to our select family of features, then we’ll all chum up together and help on appearances all round!”