Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-15

at home as is usual with u.s. Paris houses
are n0s furnished with laundries. There is
place for neither tubs nor drying racks or
lines. Everybody puts his linen out The
weekly washing thus becomes public ques-
tion in Paris.
You Get Your Washing Once n Week.
To the rich it is a matter OF small con-
sequence. All through the city there are
to be seen neat little black-faced shops over
whose doors are printed in white letters the
worp Blanchisserie, and in whose windows
are specimens of the work done within
beautiful linen garments, immaculate in
whiteness, and ironed and folded so as to look
as If Just from the factory. These shops
employ 10, u or 20 girls who Monday morn
in- 60 TO the homes of the customers for the
linen. Tuesday and "Wednesday they wash
Il at public washing house in the vicinity
OF the shop, and the rest of the week they
spend in ironing. Sunday the linen is re-
turned. The customer pays a good price
for good work, and unless he is foreigner
does not complain If his clothes fall to
pieces rapidly.
But for the modest Paris household of one
servant where economy rules; for the poor
who have no servant; for the wives of work
ingmen who not only manage the house.
hold, but work away from home 10 or II
hours OF every day, the weekly washing is
a more serious matter. To accommodate
their needs, as well as those of the laun-
dresses of the rich, some 400 public laun-
dries have been established in Paris.
Many OF these are on river, others are on
quiet streets just off the great boulevards.
APubIic Laundry of Paris.
A visit to one of these places compels the
breathing of great deal of soap-sudsy
steam and the soaking of the boots in the
pools and rivulets on the floor, but it is by
no means an uninteresting pilgrimage. A
preliminary trip should be made about
o clock in the afternoon of any day save
Saturday or Sunday, to see the clothes put
TO soak. At that time the patrons of the
place are ont in force, the bundles in arms,
bundles which by their size and condition
tell faithfully enough the situation of the
bearer-a pitiful tale it is, too, sometimes.
Each package handed in is numbered and
dumped into the big soaking tub where it
stays until morning when the owner comes
70 seek it, paving = to cents according to
size for its nights lodging, and to do her
Washing. The laundry is in one large
room Near the door Is space reserved
Tor the accountants desk, for a counter
over which are sold soap, washing fluid and
other necessary supplies for the big soak
ing tubs and for the great iron wringer.
The rest of the room is divided into stalls.
1t Is one Of these stalls which the wash
woman rents For l cent an hour, cents a
halliday or cents full day she has the
use Of pail, three tubs, a washing bo1-a
wooden box of three Sides waist-high, in
which she stands when before her tub and
which protects her from the splashings-a
washing brush and paddle and to as much
cold water as she wants. She pays a cent
pail for hot water or suds.
She Uses a Paddle and a Brush.
Thus equipped she cleans her linen, but
not in the orthodox American way bv rub
bing on board. Instead, she spreads the
garments one by one on the rough pine
table with which her stall is furnished, and
bv turn beats them with wooden paddle
and rubs them with a stiff brush. When
the dirt is thus beaten and brushed out the