The Savannah morning news., 1902-08-17

ULuSI DlCSSluSo AAS Al1SI I'D
Alone.
Foreign folk with one accord declare
American women, and especially Amer
team housewives, to be the spoiled fav-
critics of fortune. This in fact of the
servant problem-wherefore it seems
worth while to look a little into the
matter-far enough at least to find out
whether or not the foreigners have rea-
sonable grounds for their contention.
cynic has recently set it down as
his opinion that there were more bath
tubs in the cities of New York and
Chicago than in all the British islands.
This does not in the least square with
the popular conception of the Briton
never divorced from his tub. But those
who know, say it accords infinitely
better with the facts. Running water
hot and cold, is at the service of all our
city folk and a large and quick-grow-
ing noiety of our country ones. What
with waterworks, windmills, artesian
wells and gravity flow, precious few
new houses need lack 1t, while among
old ones the force pump in the corner
of the kitchen porch robs the cistern
of its WEAKNESS. Other countries like
wise have running water, but the pro-
vision is niggard compared to our own,
and where it is found even much more
than half the time there is no provi-
sion for heating save by the kettleful.
A cognate aggravation of this hot
water deficit is that in many places
water can not be heated without max
ing up a special fire. That is to say
there is no gas stove, nor oil stove, nor
alcohol toy-stove, over which to make
tea, boil eggs or heat a casual sad
iron. The kettle on the hob which
sings and splutters so alluringly
through the pages of English novels,
is undoubtedly picturesque-and more
gey i'll to handle, and worse to furnish.
Then there are the matters of heat
ing and cooling. Where, outside Amer
lea, do steam heat, furnaces, hot water
pipes, gas logs, gas ranges, and all
their kind, Danish dust and CRIME, and
save back aches, rough hands and
goose flesh, not to mention more seri-
Gus ills? Open fires are all very we'll
more than delightful as decorative adj
juncts to a house already sufficiently
warm, but intolerably burdensome as
a dependence-fully doubling, some
times almost trebling, the work of
housewife the result of keeping it in
family temperate and strongly frigid
zones. The German hausfrau with her
big highly decorated porcelain stove is
in but slightly better case. In Russia,
where the plain people sleep for the
most part wrapped in sheepskin coats,
on the brick or stone floor over the
stove, with the ever-ready samovar
bubbling on the chimney shelf above
their heads, the problem of keeping
warm is reduced to its lowest terms.
Americans would not accept such a re-
duction, any more than they would ac-
oept the French plan of half-freezing
in bed to save the trouble and expense
of fires, nor the italian habit of SILVER
ing genteelly around diminutive braz-
Ter full of half-dead Goals.
Europe sets awnings upon her pal
aces, especially her pleasure palaces.
In America one finds them everywhere
even upon tenements. That they are
not entirely universal is due, in large
measure to the universal vacation hab-
it. AS much may be said of window
and door screens, which bar dust and
insects and let in the fresh air. But
none of these adventurous aids to sum-
mer comfort affords half so strong
contrast as does the use of ice. Here
everybody, without regard to age, sex,
color or previous condition, regards 1t
to be done without in hot weather than
bread or clothes. 1t is far otherwise
elsewhere. London's bars even which
serve iced drinks placard them as
American" Housewives abroad get
along without it, or If very progressive,
manage upon the most sparing supply.
The buying is often literally from hand
to mouth-no more than sufficient for
present economical consumption.
Such lavish extravaganza as buying ice
to melt while keeping other things cool
and fresh, is unheard, and unthought
of. There is something pitiful in hear
Ing that so near us as the West Indies
the supply of ice is often fetched home
Wrapped in a single palm leaf By way
Of contrast, in New Orleans artificial
ice Is SO cheap the levee gangs and
roustabouts while at work, often peIt
each other with bits of 1t snatched
from their drinking water. And in the
harvest fields of the West and the Mid
die South a barrel of ice water, con-
stantly replenished, stands sweating
ccolness in some convenient shade.
Throughout Great Britain, the coun-
try whose standard of comfort most
nearly approaches our own, many
things which American laborers eat
beautifully are reserved for the very
rlcn. Peaches, for example. Unless
imported and tasteless as well as dear
they are wall-fruit, only a little less
havorless, and dearer still Peach trees
grow well enough, but will fruit only
on wall, or in glass house. The
Dest of the fruit fetches five shillings,
little more than a dollar apiece. Ten
shilling the dozen, will, gin a favorable
season, buy fair fruit. A basket
meaning maybe four fine peaches pack
ed in silver tissue paper, cotton WOOL
anu osier-willow, may stand you in
guinea. So it is easy to understand
mat many among even the well-to-do
I'VE and die without ever tasting a
really fine peach.
1t is much the same as to melons.
france supplies the bulk of those
grown outside melon houses and cold
frames English gardeners have the
SOIL and the skill, but lack of sunshine
10 perfect them in the open. Private
gardeners, of course, take pains to sup
ply the tables of the great, but only in
exceptional localities, are there mark
ct possibilities. In the case of grapes
what has been said of melons and
peaches applies with double force. Still
me markets are better supplied. since
grapes from France, Spain, Sicily, even
rom California, are brought in, and
ltach the consumer in fairly good con-
ulIlon Green corn, however, crown of
american summer delights, the Briton
1CG L - - 49,.