The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-02-09
The Heating Of Our Houses.

Entering the door of one of our
" comfortable" modern houses, what
meets US? A puff of scorched air
from register, redolent OF burning
iron, or of boiled air from steam
heater. The thermometer is standing
at about "a. We advance to the parlor.
There matters are even worse, for the
outside cold has entered with mo-
mentary freshness. The plants in the
window look yellow and fOrlOrn.
Ominous cracks are visible here and
there in the furniture-nay, a strip of
ornamental veneer has actually split
off from the piano and lies on the
carpet. Our hostess coming forward
to meet us, is wrapped in a little
shawl, and remarks that is an awful
day; that she hasn't been out, of
course, but even in the warm house
has felt the cold. In effect, she looks
blue and pinched. Whereat we WON
der, for the room feels insufficiently
hot; but We place ourselves beside
her where she sits covering over the
register, and conversation goes on with
what spirit it may under these circum-
stances. '-.i.'- -
At the end of an hour we are sur
prised to find ourselves little chilly.
That is, our head is hot enough-a
little too hot, perhsps-but both
hands and feet are cold, and we are in
clined to agree with our friend when
she opines that "the girl" must have
let the fire go down. But glanciDg at
the thermometer, We stare to see that
the mercury has risen instead of fall
ing. 1t is now at 500. And after all
why should We wonder? Nature is
inevitable in her retributions, and We
suffer the penalty of deranged cir
culatiOn when we violate her laws of
temperature. E..lit., E;
Bad enough, if this were ali ! One
can live and be useful under the
trifiing discomfort of cold exuemities,
as our worthy forefathers sufficiently
proved. But how much of life and of
life's best energies, of thought, of wit,
of gOod-humor, of aspiration, goes
down through those holes in the floor
into neither silence? AS from some
Kobold's cave, the invisible gnOmes of
the furnace climb, emerge and steal
flom us the choicest, finest, most in
tangible part of ourselves. No man
ever lived and worked his best in q
room heated over 6S0-a sentence We
should like to engrave in letters of
gold on the iron plate of every regis
ter and the front of every steam
heater in the land from this day forth
and forever. ---..--...-
The time may come when a perfect
system Of house. warming, one com-
bining healtnfulness, comfort, and
economy, shall be introduced. But
certain it is, we have none such now.
The hot-water furnace, in which
a large chamber well supplied with
fresh air is heated by coils of pipe
filled with boiling water, and the
warmth taken thence and diffused
over the house, approached more
nearly to the ideal than any other in
all respects save one: it is SD costly, that
only the most MISUNDERSTANDING man.
sions can afford to enjoy it. Open
fires are not sufficient, except in
the most moderate winter cold, to
supply the artificially-stimulated de.
mand for heat made by the human
race to-day; and even in the case of
that cheapest of fuels, coke, they
cost more than the furnace. The
big base-burning hall-stoves, which
make many of our farm-houses SO
comfortable, take room which cannot
be afforded in city entries, where each
inch of space is precious. In the air
tight yariety-warranted, by a good
deacon who dealt in the article in the
days of our youth, to burn up every
bit of q noxious gas which, as he was
informed, abounded in the air, and
the name of which was-Oxygen =
what can be said in its favor? 1t is
best left to silence, and that necessity
on which it bases its sole claim to hui
man federation. -f-+.-.
There remains, then, for the average
house, only the hOt-air furnace and
the steam heater. Both have insep-
arabic evils connected with them, both
advantages equally inseparable. In
one, abundant moisture is provided !;
in the other an unfailing supply, bar
ring accidents, of outer air. And
either can be made tolerably comfort
able and sufficiently wholesome only
by intelligent watchfulness, by strict
regulation of heat, by observation of
thermometers, by periodical care of
evaporators and water-pans, by renew
ing the air of rooms through open
windows, and that perpetual vigilance
which is the price of the good things
we enjoy, and, above all, of that
healthful food which we consume with
our lungs, and without which We can
enjoy nothing.-Home and Society,
.Scribner's for February. ..- .e1-s -