The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-06-28
The FurnIture-Craze.

Is it not almost time to rebel against the
professors of household art? They are 50
numerous, persistent and dogmatic that
| they make life burden. No man OF,
woman dares any longer to Uncomfortable
Id his or her own house. We must be
i artistic flfst and comfortable afterward-if
possible. According to this brood of
writer's and lecturers, who infest every
branch of literature, the end and aim of
existence is to be artistic. People are not
permitted to pursue the even tenor Of their
way through life, buying, using and en-
| joying the things which they chiefly like.
II a man accepts las he must, Cr be
deemed vulgar) the cant of the household
artists, he must fill his house with an odd
tumble of the furniture of the ages, eat
from high-art plates set on a spider-legged
table, hang his hat on Queen Anne hook,
put his cane in medieval rack, poke his
fire with an Egyptian obelisk, lie on a
Louis XIV. bedstead, and when he is car
ried to his long home in modern
casket," glad to escape the esthetic
trials of this mortal life, he is pelted into
his grave with artistic floral designs by the
CARLOAD.
Nearly every newspaper, book and
magazine in the land is laden with lectures
on the art of household decoration. Even
the hapless children are not spared. One
juvenile periodical has had essays on this
well worn subject, and little girls are
ruthlessly torn from their rag-babies and
taught to make denominations with red
flannel, flour barrels and gum-shellac. A
religious newspaper, giving way to an un-
holy impulse, forsakes the Shorter Cote
chism of the fathers, and shows its readers
back. aching bookcase, a bay window
filled with gimcracks, and design for a
fireplace which is calculated to make
angels weep. Young hOusekeepers go
mad over the vain attempt to be ecOnomi-
cal and esthetic; and sensible old people
are made wretched by the discovery that
their lives have been misshapen and
dwaffed by being spent in habitations un-
illumined by household taste. The shop
keepers aabble learnedly of Eastlake, the
Renaissance and Queen Anne, and even
the table, girls sigh for angel spoons, and
the scullion breaks common French china i
with superb disdain. ti.gf
The curious and worrying feature Of this
popular craze is that it has set us back
several centuries. Notwithstanding all
that has been said about the worlds
Udfrf f gyfHssnidfafkefs,s It appears, ne
Raphaels and Titians of cabinet-making,
the real old masters of the furniture-shop.
A sideboard with sixteen thin legs, for
years used as a hen coop or meal chest, is
dragged forth and extOlled as treasure.
A chest of drawers. which weighs ton,
and must be hoisted in by hole in the
wall, is rapturously depicted in the maya
zines as marvel of art To be thorough
w artistic we must discard carpets, tear
out the gas-pipes and water works, and q,
generally return to medieval simplicity. )
Candles which drip, waxed floors which
make one shiver and which trip up the
unwary, and open fireplaces which cheer :
and do not warm, must take the place OF q
modern but inartistic comforts. No more
water-pipes in the house for the disciple
of high art in household decoration. The
Icleanly bathing tub must be- banished, and
the crockery bowl, the terror of awkward
children and servants, must take its place.
Then, when the devotCe of art in the,
household has stripped his house of.all =
the conveniences which he weakly
deemed were the products of high civili-s''
cation, he may sit down among the dis 4
comforts of bis dead and. gone ancestors
and fancy that he is enjoying himself:
Taken in moderate doses, esthetics in
the household may be harmless. But
whst, with the cant of the professors and
the rapacity of the dealers, the whole
business Of household art has become AN
unmitigated nuisance. Painters '@audr
sculptors are coolly asked to decorate side
boards and fire-screens, and every popin-
Jay who has smattering Of art infictshis I.
crudities upon long suffering public II
is not too much to say that some OF the
F" designs and suggestions which have
been held forth as models for imitation are
preposterous beyond the power Of ridicule.
The tendency Of the whole business Is to
make house furnishings the end and aim
of life, to make ones surroundings the
principal figure instead of his accessories.
IN. 7. Times. II s5i 8i3s
SOME interesting statistics are furnished
by the European lpTess Respecting the
draining of the Zuyder Zee. A dam forty
kilometers Twenty four and three-quar- q
ter miiesJ long, fifty meters broad, at its
base,apd one and one-half meters above
the usual level of high water. is to be
carried across the gulf. Upon this will
be erected pumping engines capable or
discharging i, TIC ,O00, 900 gallons day.
Estimating the average depth of the gulf
Al about four and one half meters, It VIII
take steady pumping for sixteen years to
empty the Enclosure. The cost of re-
claiming the soc, GOO acres now under
water Is estimated at about $67 600, 600.
It is confidentally expected that about
430, 900 acres will be suitable for agricul-
ture, and can be sold at an. average price
of $500 an acre.
a