Counterpane

“ I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane. ”

“ Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage’s side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. ”

“ In the bronchial affections common in this country warmed air is frequently of the utmost importance, and this can be obtained in moderate sized rooms by a gas stove properly constructed, with a regularity and economy which cannot be approached by coal or coke. Where the family consists of only two or three persons, small but powerful open gas fires, with an oven over the fire to utilize the waste heat, will be found of the greatest value and economy, as they do away entirely with the dirt and labour of coal fires, and yet fill all the purposes of a small kitchen range. ”

“ A portable steel oven, covering two burners, for use on gas and oil stoves alike, adds to the convenience of the gas plate, and sells for $2. If a gas range is desired, an excellent one with a large oven, broiler, and all conveniences may be purchased for $18, one with a smaller oven for $15. It might be well to suggest in passing that a small oven is poor economy. Water backs, for both gas and coal ranges, are $3.50 each. Where gas is unobtainable a three-burner wickless oil-stove plate will be found to give very good satisfaction, and can be placed on the coal range or on a table or box. ”

“ Every morning the fire is kindled in the stove, which resembles an enormous oven, and is kept burning for several hours. When it has burned down to a bed of coals, so that no more carbonic gas can be evolved, the chimney is closed, and port-holes near the top of the stove are opened into the room or rooms. The hot air comes out and warms the apartments, and there is enough of it to keep a good heat for twelve or fifteen boors. ”

“ Why not bake one's own pies, and make one's own hashes and soups and all manner of roadside grub?
Pronto the Jack, as he stirred and mixed, baked and invented, kept the kitchen hot. If it was a cold day he burned the gas under the big water boiler till the whole building lost its chill. He dared not, of course, build a fire in any of the fireplaces, but there were two gas heaters, and he used these, full blast, on a chill day or two, though the hot-water boiler was enough for ordinary cool occasions. ”

“ Oil and Gas Stoves.—In many households, oil, gas, and gasoline stoves have largely taken the place of the kitchen range, especially during the hot weather of summer. They can be used for nearly every purpose for which a wood or a coal range is used; they require much less labor and litter, and can be instantly started into full force and as quickly turned out when no longer required, while the fact that the heat can be regulated with exactness, makes them superior for certain processes of cooking to any other stove. ”

“ It will be seen, when we say that the entire cooking for a small family having late dinners, bread baked, and much water heated, is done for something under £2 a quarter, that gas as a fuel is not so great an extravagance after all. The stove used has the oven lined with a non-conducting substance, which has the advantage of keeping the heat within instead of sending it into the kitchen, as stoves made only of iron plates are apt to do. ”

“ The devotees of the tank gas method of cooking are many. It works the same as gas from city mains except that your supply is piped in from an individual tank which is installed outside the house and replenished monthly by the company supplying such fuel. The initial cost plus installation and operation about equals that of electricity but no cataclysm of nature will cause it to fail.
Cheapest of all is the kerosene oil stove. These range all the way from the modest two-burner table stove to the pretentious six-burner type with insulated oven and porcelain finish. ”

“ Gas does away with the handling of coal and ashes in the kitchen and is thus a clean and labor-saving fuel. It gives an intense heat the moment the flame is lighted and this heat is easily regulated in a well-made stove. The flame should burn with a clear blue or greenish color. With a properly constructed stove only a small percentage of the heat is lost. In all these points it has the advantage over coal. The comparative cost is studied in the problems on page 53. ”

“ Therefore there should be no very great difficulty in supplying the family table with dainties for either breakfast, luncheon, dinner or tea, and where it is necessary to bake bread in a town where gas can be procured, there is nothing that will be so satisfactory as a gas oven, failing one specially constructed for the purpose of baking bread. Usually the gas companies let out these stoves on hire, and so great has been the advantage from this arrangement that it will be found more economical to use a gas oven than an ordinary kitchener for the purpose. ”

“ The chances are, if this kind of a cook takes hold of the handle of a hot frying pan, pan and contents will be dumped in a heap into the fire to further add to the smoke and blaze.
When the old hand begins to cook, he first takes out of the fire the unburned pieces and blazing sticks, leaving a bed of glowing coals to which he can easily add a little wood, if the fire gets low and a watched pot refuses to boil to his satisfaction. ”

“ Of late years great strides have been made in the design and construction of gas kitcheners, which now, with their enamelled ovens, and tops, wrought steel grilling bars, atmospheric burners and other improvements, have reached a high degree of perfection. With due care, it is impossible to spoil a dinner on a gas stove. Actual experiment has proved that meat and other food loses less weight, and retains more of its flavour when cooked by gas, than if cooked by coal. It has been shown that meat cooked in a coal-heated oven loses about 35 per cent, of its weight, in a gas oven only 25 per cent. ”

“ Is the nursing of the sick more important to the Nation than the proper feeding, housing, and bringing up of the rising generation?
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. ”

“ When fresh fuel for feeding the boiler is first introduced, it is merely laid in the feeding-mouth. Here it is exposed to the action of a part of the heat of the burning fuel on the grate, and undergoes, in some degree, the process of coking. The door of the feeding-mouth is furnished with small apertures for the admission of a stream of air, which carries the smoke evolved by the coking of the fresh fuel over the burning fuel on the grate, by which this smoke is ignited, and becomes flame, and in this state enters the flue, and circulates round the boiler. ”

“ Amongst the essentials are a receptacle capable of containing the water and the steam produced by its evaporation, and strong enough continuously to withstand with safety the highest pressure of steam for which the boiler is intended. Another essential is a furnace for burning the fuel, and a further one is the provision of a sufficiency of heating surface for the transmission of the heat produced by the combustion of the fuel to the water which is required to be evaporated. ”

“ The economy of fuel depends, in a great degree, on the construction of the furnace, independently of the effects of the arrangements we have already described.
(p. 128) The grate or fire-place of an ordinary furnace is placed under the boiler; and the atmospheric air passing through the ignited fuel, supplies sufficient oxygen to support a large volume of flame, which is carried by the draught into a flue, which circulates twice or oftener round the boiler, and in immediate contact with it, and finally issues into the chimney. ”

“ The boilers, relieved of the strain upon their resources, begin to prime again with a continued crashing, shattering sound which the boilerman tries in vain to subdue with cold water through the injectors. The furnace glitters and the oil forges smoke. The air is laden with the peculiarly nauseous fumes of the water-gas that make the toilers feel sick and ill and destroy the appetite.
This time the men are unusually silent and mopish. Each selects a place for himself and sits, or lies down, apart from the others. ”

“ On the contrary, if the opening and exit into the draughts and chimney has a proper proportion, according to the different sizes of the Pans and to the requisite Fire in the Furnace under the pan, the Fireheat and Smoke will be longer contained under the pan and that, steadily coming from the Furnace, will be increased and strengthened, so that double work under the pan will result, and wood or coal will not so rapidly be burnt to ashes but last longer and consequently do more work. ”

“ Since then, almost every [Pg 206] year brings before the public some new range or cook-stove, or marked improvements on the old. By and by we expect to see stoves and ranges arranged for the use of gas, instead of coal, for cooking; and if a better quality of gas than that which has tormented us for the last few years can be furnished, we imagine any such invention will bring us nearer to the perfection of cooking arrangements than has ever been reached. To be free from smoke, and the dust and vexation of coal and ashes, will indeed be a consummation most devoutly to be wished. ”

“ If the cooking is done on an ordinary coal range the fire holes should be kept closed and the heat received through the top lids; if a gas range be employed, the gas jets should be kept low, and not allowed to flare round the utensil. When cooking is being done on the top of the range with wood, coal, gas, or oil as the fuel, an asbestos mat placed underneath will modify the heat. ”

“ Of paramount importance is, of course, the stove, and what kind it shall be, whether gas, coal, or oil. Those of us who have grown accustomed to the immunity from those inevitable accompaniments of a coal range, ashes, soot, dust, and heat, afforded by the gas range, with its easily regulated broiler and oven, could hardly be persuaded to go back to first principles, as it were, and the coal range. But when this is necessary, either for warmth or because there is no gas connection in the house, one has a wide choice of first-class stoves and can hardly go astray in selecting one. ”

“ In using boiling burners there is often great waste, as people will turn them full on and have the flames flaring up the sides of the pan, which is a waste of heat and causes a smell of gas. The flame should be kept right underneath the pan or kettle.
The simmering taps consume about 8 feet of gas per hour, and a clever person will, by using a three or four-tier pan, cook several dishes at the cost of about 16 feet of gas per hour, allowing for heating over a boiling tap at first and then simmering for the remainder of the time.
The griller uses as much gas as the oven per hour ”

“ The remains of the fuel were then raked out and the bread put in and baked by radiation from the hot walls.
Nowadays it is not customary to burn fuel in the oven itself, nor is the fuel always wood or even coal. The fuel is burned in a furnace underneath the oven, and coal or gas is generally used. Sometimes however the source of heat is electricity. ”

“ The first-helper gives her that, passing up and down every few minutes to look through the peepholes in her furnace-doors. He puts his glasses down on his nose, inspects the brew, and notices if her stomach's in good shape. If the bricks get as red as the gas flame, she's burning the living lining out of her. But he keeps the gas blowing in her ends, as hot as she'll stand it without a holler. On [Pg 34] either end the gas, and on top of it the air. The first-helper, who is cook of the furnace, makes a proper mixture out of them. ”

“ The Gas Boiler
In this boiler you get maximum comfort and maximum heat. No coal, no ashes, no bother, little cash. But this must be from the best makers. It is usually more costly to operate—but—!
Water Backs
Boiler makers in outstanding manufacturers make excellent water heaters in which water for laundry etc. is heated by heat which would otherwise be unused.
Radiators
Radiators are the translators! They are like the English writers who translate the Russian novel. The radiator alone tells us whether our hot water in the boiler is being translated into heat for our comfort. ”

“ After about ten to fifteen minutes, the gas may be turned half-way down, and this degree of heat steadily maintained till the cooking is completed.
Sometimes, when people are living in apartments, there is a supply of gas, but no cooker. In such a case, it would be easy to buy a gas ring and tubing to attach it to a gas jet. Over the ring a tin oven, such as can be had cheaply from most ironmongers, should be placed, and it will be found that a paper-bag dinner will emerge most successfully from it. ”

“ Arrangement must prevent all accidental dumpings of fuel in fire pot. Coal so used as to not disappear through grate. One [318] boiler employs a damper rod running to the front which enables the caretaker to open and close the smoke damper rapidly when building and this prevents gas and smoke leakage when door is open. Such a device as this makes a floor room in a cellar feasible. The boilers of some companies are so beautifully contrived and finished that they are no worse than a talking machine or upright piano in a play room. ”