Omaha daily bee., 1914-05-09
SHooING AWAY HOTEL WAITER
Ingenious Mechanical Devices Per-
form Services In n Magical
Way.

A French inventor who has achieved a
reputation for designing electrical con-
veniences principally for the household,
has incorporated number Of these de-
vices into a house which he calls the
electric home" This has attracted a
great deal of attention, and the inventor
now proposes to put into operation In
Paris an electric restaurant and hotel,
the chief feature of which will be the
total absence of walters. According to
the Scientific American the name "I1lec-
tro- Feria" has been chosen, all of the
services are centralized in the basement.
Here all of the apparatus required for
the service of the restaurant and the
bedrooms is arranged so conveniently
that the operator can promptly supply the
needs of any guest by pressing few
electric buttons. Three or four minutes
are occupied by a maid in carrying up
breakfast or the morning mail to a guest
lodged on the third floor. With the cleo
trio system the same service can be per-
formed in ten seconds by an almost mo-
tonless operator
When a guest awakes in the morning
his first desire is to know what ime 1t
is. Without rising, he touches a button
at his bedside and Immediately the time
appears on a large luminous dial pro-
jected on the ceiling. If 1t is time to
begin the new day, another button is
pressed and a voice, issuing from the
electric chandelier, asks what is wanted.
The guest still lying in bed. calls out to
tho ambient air, without using a tele-
phone, open the curtains and shutters.
let in the air; 1t is too warm. Send me a
cup of coffee and my letters" etc. These
orders are promptly obeyed. The cur
tains and shutters open and, flood the
room with light The top of chiffOnier
placed beside the bed, turns and extends
itself over the bed to form a convenient
table The breakfast and the letters ap-
pear on the chiffonier. and, in less than
a minute all of your desires are salts
fled, for your room is connected directly
with the basement, where the operator
has at hand the means OF furnishing
everything that you require with a mini
mum Of delay and eXertion,
The restaurant of the hotel is served in
tho same manner. Each small table, for
two or four persons, is provided with a
dictagraph, which is placed in the lamp
shade. You touch a button and voice
from the lamp shade asks what you wish.
You give your order in a loud voice, Y it'll
out putting your mouth to a telephone.
a silvered platter in the center of the
table sinks and presently reappears, laden
with the food you have ordered As soon
as you have helped yourself, the platter
again sinks and in twenty seconds re-
turns with the dishes ordered by your
neighbor. The plates, etc. are changed,
in a very convenient and practical man
ner, by means of little dumb waiter
with shelves
The promptness and rapidity OF the
service are due to the ingenious arrange
ment of the basement The kitchens are
close beside the service elevators The
serving tables and dish racks are placed
at intervals of sixteen feet, and each
supplies ten restaurant tables, or forty
guests, who can thus be served by a
single waiter In addition, an omnibus
waiter is provided for every eighty guests
for the work of changing plates, etc.
Each guest receives with his order, q
check which is numbered to correspond
with his individual push button. Pay
ment may be made to a cashier ut the
door, or by means of the service eleva
tor according to the system adopted.
Tables with twelve seats, for dinner
parties, will be operated in the sam,
manner. except that each dish will moy,
along the table TO the person who hai
ordered it, guided by the unseen maitr,
d'hotel with the aid OF a wide-angie peri
scope.
The visitor TO the basement will see IN,
dishes of food coming automatically fro1
the adjacent kitchens TO the hundreds o
little elevators that communicate will
the restaurant and the apartments, anC
soiled dishes going automatically from
the elevators TO the electric washing ma
chimes
The plan adopted for the electric hote
is the result of long study and research
on the part of it's protector, M GeorgiI
Knap, ia collaboration with NJ. Danger
The well known Partisan architect. Tn
bedrooms are constructed and arrange
on an ingenious system. which allows tn
little elevators to reach the rooms with
out wasIlng space or making themselye
conspicuous. The rooms are separate
by corridors two feet wide, In which IN
electric wires and .he hot and cold waite
pipes are placed. There are no radiator
in the rooms. which are heated by a nov,
system involving no complicated spps
ratus. Danger Il fire Is eliminated b
placing all wires and pipes m conduits @
fibrs-eement. Philadelphia Ledger