The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-12 00:00:00

AMERICAN WASHING MACHINE.

An exceedingly ingenious and useful domestic imple,
ment is now being exhibited daily on the premises of
Hr. B. Moore, an American, 133, High Holbert), by
which an entirely new, easy, and efficient mode of wash-
ing all kinds of garments and fabrics is substituted for
the tedious and laborious process by hand in use from
time immemorial. The essential characteristic of the
invention consists in the employment of floating balls
in the operation of washing. Some 209 or 300 of these
bells, each of which is about the size of a Seville orange,
and made of elm wood, are put into a wooden trough,
two or three feet long by 15 inches deep, containing
water or soapsuds, in which they all float. A fulcrum
is placed at the back of the trough, having a cross beam
attached to it resembling a common pump-handle. On
one side of the fulcrum an apparatus like a small win-
dow-sash, to which the clothes to be washed are fastened,
is suspended from the cross-beam immediately over t'le
mouth of the trough, and at the extreme end of the
beam, on the opposite side of the tulcrum, is a box into
which weight may be put until it slightly weighs the
sash up in the air. This done, the person performing
the operation moves the beam•hancl!ts up and down as if
she were pumping water, the effect of which is to immerse
the sash laden with clothes among the bale and suds,
al d move it about among them. The balls produce a
gentle friction upon the linen, which, without in the
slightest degree injuring its fabric, or breaking or tearing
off buttons, effectually removes every trace of dirt in an
incredibly few minutes, and the operation is complete.
The labour required is so slight that a child from 12 to
14 years of age may perform it with ease. In seine of
the machines of larger size and greater cost the requisite
motion, produced by turning a wheel, is even done at
less trouble. The action made on the linen is equiva.
hint to the ordinary threefold process of pounding, rub-
bing, and squeezing, and as it can never exceed the re-
sistance offered by the floating balls, it is thereby kept
within bounds, which are perfectly safe for the most de-
licate fabrics, the wear and tear being, indeed, less than
in ordinary washing by hand. The machine was
vented two or three years ago by one Christopher
Hollingsworth, a farmer in Indiana, whose patent
rights, so far as they relate to the whole continent of
Europe, have been purchased by Mr. Moore and his
partners. They exhibited the implement at the Paris
Exhibition, where it attracted considerable interest, and
numbers were sold, tie Duchess of Sutherland, who
bought no fewer than four, being among the purchasers.
Several of the Parisian laundresses also adopted it,
and others of them, who were not able to pay for it at
once, did so by instalments rather than remain with•
out ir. The consumption of soap and fuel is much less
Shan in washing by hand ; and the fingers of the ope-
rater are never wet during the process, except to the
extent necessary in putting the clothes into the sash,
and taking them out and wringing them when washed.
In the saving of labour; time, and material, its advan-
tages can scarcely be exaggerated, while the price ie not
such as to preclule it coming into general use,