The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1886-03-04
RuR. PIaoe ofCarpets.

Before another twenty years shall
nave passed away we venture to predict
that there will scarcely be room in the
city which will be covered from end to
end and side to side with thick,
impenetrable carpet. Apart from all
fashion and all theory, it will be recog-
nized as q fact that health demands
movable floor coverings, or, failing
these, coverings which can be cleansedl
daily. The ancients understood this
perfectly. Socrates waxed eloquent imp
describing what house should be. how
needful air and sunshine and cleanli-
ness were for health and imagination
calls up the interiors of that time with
their mosaic pavements and the absence
of all that would have harbored dust,
and in doing 50 disease. The luxurious
native of the East, the inventor of car
pets, never even in his most indolent
moment conceived the possibility of
saving himself the trouble of shaking
his carpet by fixing it to the floor, and
although we can not credit him with
any exalted ideas of cleanliness In his
domestic arrangements, we must at
least concede that he showed good
deal Of common sense in this respect.
Twenty five years ago physicians be-
gan to enter protest against the ener-
walton of modern homes: thence they
passed to detail; the more enlightened
entered upon q sort of crusade against
floor covering, and declared that infec-
| tious diseases were harbOred in the
wooden hangings and carpets Of their
well-to-do patients quite as surely as
| amid the squalor and filth of over
| Cat least sensible people do mott in four
post bedsteads, with wooden curtains
drawn closely around them; they. are
even recognizing the desirability of
leaving their windows unincumbered
with Voluminous folds Of velvet and Of
rep, and going stage further they are
beginning to realize that floors and
their coverings are important factors in
the question Of hygiene.
Rugs are certainly free from many Of
the most serious objections to carpets,
even when they are fixed upon the floor,
| which in our estimation they never
ought to be. It Is possible to wash well
| all around them, to remove the dust
| from the corners of the room, and even
under the edges Of the rug itself. But
| such a condition of affairs is still far
| from satisfactory. There is always
more or less dirt about stationary car
l pet, in any room that is much lived in,
L AAONACCAA1sAAO
can not rid an immovable rug of dust
as readily on the floor as they could of
it Carpets ought. as matter of health,
to be taken up once 3 week, laid over =
line and thoroughly beaten, but where
is the household where this rule is en-
forced?
The growing conviction of the superb
GRITTY Of rugs to carpets is shown in the
newest houses, in many Of which the
floors are expressly arranged with
stained borders, a parquet flooring,
which it is possible to leave entirely I'M
covered. What q boon this is TO per-
sons of small means! Nothing eats into
8 small sum of money for house-furnish-
ing more disastrously than q carpet. It
is useless to buy . cheap one; cheap car
pets are never OF any use, and the price
of q good one is q formidable considers
ton This is another argument in fav-
| or Of rugs-cheap rugs wear q great
deal better than cheap carpets. for the
obvious reason that they are not pulled
and strained in every direction. and are
only subjected to limited wear and tear.
IN y TSSaaes