The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-01-28


 one of the clerks perhaps before the guest has pushed the bell for the elevator
 The lot of the housemaid here is
 happy one compared with that of her predecessor. There is no more need Of
 bandaging heads and tuckng up skirts and throwing up windows so as to offset clouds of dust. The housemaid simply runs what might be called a pneumatic
 broom over the carpets and the furni- ture an easy and quickly done task,
 and, at the same time, a most efhcacious way of removing the dust. which is not raised in one part of the room only to fall in another, but is carried down to
 the basement and there elected.
 How Potatoes Are Peeled. Down stairs in the kitchen potatoes
 and other vegetables are poured into q
 revolving circular bin, with a bottom like a. cheese grater and peeled by the peck in less time than a man with knife could peel enough apples for pie All the while clean water Is run ming through the bin, and when the peel | ing Is over the vegetables are automau- cally deposited In basket Electrical
 marvels are verywhere-freezing ice l cream chopping and slicing meat, mould | ing butter cleaning and sharpening
 knives and kneading dough; while from | a bin on the kitchen floor all the gar 1 bage is automatically fed to blast fur
 mace beneath, and the heat from this furnace is turned into boiler which 1 generates fiftq-horse power of steam for I use in the kitchen There are two Ice ] plants that can manufacture sixty tons | a day. Special boxes freeze filtered wa | ter for the earafes on the dining room | tables and there are other machines
 which cut the ice for the bar into neat
 cubes or shave it to the thinness of tis- l sue paper.
 For the apparatus which supplies the
 power to the machines, great and small, l more than a hundred mechanics, stokers | and engineers are required, nor does this l force include the men working at the 1 kitchen equipment and In the black | smiths shop, the locksmiths shop and l the slversmiths shop. These shops are
 all tucked away in the lower basement
 forty feet below the city's great thor 1 oughfare, together with the headquar- l ters of the army of mechanics-a large
 office with a head engineer, his assist ants, clerks, tellers and bookkeepers. In addition to supplying wine for use l in their own dining rooms, city hotels | carry on a brisk trade with outside cus- | toners. and in the cellars of the Astor | Is machinery which can wash, cork and uncork, cap and wrap with tinsel thou
 sand bottles a day. There, too devices | resembling typewrlters stamp out paper ] SlencllS TOT maTklnB ana duuIeSSHiS liiS boxes, thus doing away with the old l fashioned metal stencils and the still | more anticipated scrawl of the inartistic porter.
 A Serio-Comic Sid
 | In one instance, at least, the electrical wonderworks in use in the twentieth cen l tury hotel have a serio-comic side. For 1 many years the police commissioners and the managers of the hotels and ] theatres, not to mention the private citi- l zens suffering from the loss of sleep | have been trying to abolish the nuisance attending the miX-up of carriages after | the curtain goes down or after the or 1 chestra in the ballroom has played the | last waltz One improvement which has | been generally adopted is an electric | screen over the hotel or theatre exit, l upon which appears the number of the | carriage wanted. It happens very often l however, that the driver is in a doze on | his box and before he notices the sign some one has to dig him in the ribs. An attendant at this new uptown hotel, l however. stirs the man on the box by l means of searchlight. When this is | suddenly turned upon the lines of wait | ing vehicles the horses get fidgety, walk | ing the drivers up, and so, without noise | or confusion, the right carriage stars l for the door at the right moment l The story of the revolution that cleo | tricity has produced in hotel methods 1 would not be complete without mention | of the pleasure produced in addition to | the comfort and convenience. In the | Crangerie of the Astor an electrical l scheme causes clouds to appear across | the ceilings, with the moon shining l though them; and this gives the finish | ing touch to the prevailing atmosphere. | Different colored lights are thrown upon the guests, enhancing the beauty of
 many dazzling gown, and invisible l globes behind the walls increase the real | istic effects of the painted scenes. | In short, a hotel like this latest one of | which New York boasts is unique ex 1 position of the practical side of scientific 1 progress. It might be regarded as an l electrical show well worth any price of | admission: but, as a matter of fact. it is l simply the twentieth century hotel, a combination of everything imaginable as 1 caer arlls hof nrin md l11.