The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-11-06
PASS TROUBLE ON
Quality of Goods Is Lowered,
Say Laundrymen.
Goods Have Not Endurance of
Few Years Ago.
LAUNDRY DOES NOT SPOIL THEM
Manufacturer to Blame for
Spoiled Clothes.
Part of Ruined Rug Was
Made of Paper.
LAUNDRY DOES NOT SPOIL THEM

This is the tale of the collar that
goeth to the laundry and cometh back
with edges which would do credit to
q rip saw for bloodletting and hath no
equal as a stimulator of the vocabu-
larry; the tale of the linen which is
sent away whole and cometh back in
tatters, rivalled only in raggedness by
the disposition of the lady who owns
it; the tale the shirt which is even
as a georgette waist for transparency
after one visit to the laundry, and OF
the rug which was brown and white
when it went away to be cleaned,
brown and holey when it it returned
incidentally this is the passing of the
buck by the laundryman, the alibi of
the wet wash artist, the defense of
the cleaner
Standard of Quality Drops.
It's all on account of the drop in the
standards of quality which has &C.
CURED since the war, say the laundry
men. They maintain that goods haven't
the stamina now that they had very
few years before, and that therein.
and not in the treatment which they
are accorded at the laundry, lies the
main cause of the damage they suffer
when being washed.
"Of course we do spoil things some
the past we have been called on to
shoulder responsibility which really
belongs to the manufacturers of goods
not of the same quality now Whlch
they were a few years ago." said
Frank Ripley. of the Topeka Laundry
company.
Rugs Made OF Paper.
Mr. Ripley cited the case of To-
peka woman who recently sent a rug
hi 4 to ha CHI
was a beautiful little affair, with
brown and white as a color scheme
brown background and white figures.
When the rug was returned there was
not a trace of the white figures re-
maining They had dropped COM
pletely out of the fabric, leaving a
very unattractive openwork design.
Naturally, the owner of the rug sent
it back to the laundry with a request
for adjustment of the damage. Mr..
Ripley examined it closely, and where
the white figures had once been found
few of the threads" remaining.
They were purely and simply paper
twisted into strings.
Not surprising" said Mr.. Ripley,
THAT. when the rug was put into hot,
soapy water, the paper melted into a
pulp and disappeared"
Paper in Soft Collars.
Take the case of the soft collar.
heavily ribbed and glossy of finish, a
pleasing object when new, and more
charming because it costs less at
Blanks than at some other place of
greater reputation. Purchased and
worn, in the course of time it is neces-
sary to have the collar Numbered. 1t
comes back in shreds. The filling
threads have dropped out entirely in
several large areas. An examination
shows that the beautiful gloss had
been impaired by the silk filling which
constituted only 10 per cent of the
weight of the material The other 90
per cent went to make the heavy
ribbed cotton warp. The weakness
That such an uneven distribution of
weight produced was evident to any
eye which examined the collar closely.
Try TO Avoid Damage.
mat the laundrymen are really try
ing TO avoid damage to goods is in
dicated by the fact that there is an
institution known as the Mellon insti-
tute, in connection with the University
OF Chicago, which is largely busy on
the problems of laundrymen.
In this institute there are textile ex-
perts. chemists and engineers, whose
sole job it is to find methods of send
ing back your collar without saw edges
and your shirts whole
The Laundry Owners National as
ISOLATION, which is one of the most
efficient trade organizations in the
world, is considering the erection, near
Chicago, of model laundry, to which
any laundryman who is a member of
the association. may refer his problems
OF any sort for solution. In this laun-
dry there will be experts on every
phase of the laundry business from the
cost system to the ironing of a GER
tain type OF work
Send Them to Institute.
The laundrymen who run into cues