Star.
London, England, 1824-06-28 00:00:00

WASHING BY STEAM.

This year has been remarkably prolific of Public '
Companies, for almost every purpose to which a highly
improved state of the arts and sciences could direct a
redundant capital. We have had Companies of all de-
scriptions—from the aristocratic speculators, who of-
fered to lend large sums on lands and houses, down to
the moderate Association who were content to advance
small ones on caps acid. gowns. We have seen Compa-
nies for draining bogs in Ireland, and for making pa-
tent coffins in this country; some for sharing the profits
of the pawnbrokers of Manchester, and others for par-
ticipating in the gains of the insurance brokers at
Lloyd's. These were natural, and perhaps fair subjects
for commercial speculation; but who could have thought
that the arts and sciences,,backed by large capital, would
have taken the field against the washerwomen of the me-
tropolis, and attempted to di ive them from the tuba of
which they have so lung held undisturbed possession?
So it is, however, and the name of "The London Pa-
tent Steam Washing Company" is to be added to the
list of those to which the present year has given rise.
The object of this Company is, as its name imports, to
wash clothes of all descriptions by the application of
steam. For this purpose an extensive establishment has
lately been erected at Phipps-bridge, near Merton,
Surrey. The use of steam in cleansing clothes is, we are
aware. not new, but the manner of its application
in the present case is, we think, novel and ingenious.
Scarcely a peasant woman in France who is not ac-
quainted with the process of boiling the clothes by
steam, by placing them in a wooden vessel fixed
over the boiler, and perforated with several holes at
the bottom. In this manner the clothes, having first
been sprinkled with an alkaline solution, are frequently
turned, and by the action of the steam perfectly cleansed.
The plan at Phipps-bridge has many advantages over
this simple process. The clothes are placed in copper
vessels, where the action of the steam is brought to bear
on them with great force, and by the revolving of the
vessel the steam can act upon every part equally. After
being perfectly cleansed in a short time, the clothes are taken up to
a large loft and there dried by " steam." The works at Phipps-
bridge are not yet finished, and of course the Company have not
fully established the practicability of the process; but from what we
saw of the plan, we have no doubt that clothes can be washed much
whiter, in a shorter time, and with much less injury from rubbing,
than by the common application in the tub, of soap, and the wrists
of the laundress. These are the princiral advantages which the pro-
prietors offer to the Public, with the additional, and not unimport-
ant one, that their method will considerably reduce the expense at
which families get their washing done at present. We will not stop
here to inquire how far any discovery which tends to reduce the
demand for manual labour ought in the present state of society to
be considered a benefit, for we are satisfied, that whichever way
that question might be decided in theory, it would be found in prac-
tice that every man would get his business done (no matter whether
by machinery or otherwise) by that means by which it could be dune
best and cheapest. lithe Washing Company shall prove on trial
that theirs is a more economical and less injurious mode of" getting
tip" clothes than that now in use, no doubt the Public will deal with
them. If it should turn out otherwise, they, and not the Public,
must bear the loss of the speculation.

The following was posted in the Discount-office of
the Bank of England on Saturday morning :
" BAN' or Eroxarto, Juno 24, 1824.
" Resolved, That advances be made on accepted Bills of Go-
remount, the East India Company, and other approved Bills, if
more than ninety-five days to run, at the rate of Four per Cent. per
annum interest.
" The parties engaging, by letter, to repay the said advances at
such period as may be agreed upon, but not to exceed three
months, or to be for less than one month."
Saturday, the remains of the late Right lion. Lord
11. M. Howaao were deposited in the family rault of his noble an-
cestors, in the choir of Arundel Church.
Tuesday, the Bishop of WiNciurrza, in whose dio-
, eese the whole of the County of Surrey is comprised, consecrated

the new Church at Brixton.
Lord and Lady PoNSONBY left Naples for Corfu ost
the 26Th of May. They meant to embark at Otranto.
A pack of harriers has been purchased for the KING%
diversion, which will hunt in the neighbourhood of Windsor, to be
kept in the same style as those of his late Royal Father, and to hum
alternately with the stag bounds.
Saturday morning, at ten o'clock, the Lords of the
Council assembled at the Council Office, Whitehall, to hear and de-
termine Preach Appeals: there were present the Loan Passanan,
Sir Jolts Ntemou., Lord Cowman's', &e. Their Lordships ad-
journed at half-past three o'clock.
The soi disnnt King and Queen of the Sandwich
Islands are at present laid up with the measles. Lord F. COPING-
SIAM, ,A Ito lately visited them, is indebted to them for having com-
municated to hint the contagion of tills very unpleasant epident:c
distempe:.