Evening star., 1948-12-29
This and That
By Charles Z. Tracepell


MANS BEST FRIEND
Mans best friend, we've often heard
Is the faithful dog,
But some prefer the charger
That gathers up the herd.
The lonely lady loves her cat
Or canary bird
Some fancy just quiet fern,
Perhaps q pink-eyed rat.
But mans best friend, swear by joye,
Is neither plant nor beast
When wintry blasts blow fierce and cold,
1t Is a blazing stove! L. A. C.
Maybe Miss Lucille "a country correspondent
from Gunston Manor, Va has something there.
Undoubtedly, she has something there!
Who remembers the drum stove" for
instance?
1t was round, ornate, with nickel gimcracks,
and, above all, an isinglass or mica inset?
You could look through that window and
see the rosy glow.
In those days they knew nothing of psychol-
ogy, perhaps, but they used some Of its precepts
just the same.
The old folks knew nothing about vitamins.
either. but they got them when they ate their
Impressed foods.
Then the oil stove
In the old Washington days, when central
heating first was coming in. almost every house
had one or two portable oil stoves.
They were likely to be smelly and at times
dangerous, but they gave out great deal of
heat.
But it was the wood or coal stove, call it what
one did, that stood on thick zinc plate at
one side of the room.
The stove stood there all year around, as we
recall, but we have forgotten whether the zinc
plate did or not.
The stove pipe, however, had to be put up
and taken down." Usually this was UNDER
taken with considerable "mess," as the house
keeper said. Always there was some SCOT to
fall where it shouldn't.
Today it all seems very primitive but one
would be mistaken to feel sorry for the old
folks. They were tough breed. And, besides,
1t really wasn't bad heat, and 1t made people
work for what they got. One is always better
satisfied that way.
That is why 1t Is dificult to feel too sorry for
all the people who still have to use coal and
wood and oil stoves. You can take statistics
and prove that there are so many families
within the shadow of the Capitol"-who
have no central heating, etc., and proclaim
them poor and abused, and maybe they are,
but one may submit that they have something,
too. although it might be hard to make them
understand what.
A favorite old-time Washington stove was
the latrobe
runner Of central heating
There was sort of pot-bellied stove in the
parlor diving room, today and 1t had fues
running out Of it to the upstairs rooms.
Usually this was installed in the small two
story row house
1t was a sort of follow-up, we believe, on
the much older Franklin stove invented by and
named after Benjamin Franklin.
The latrobe was named after John Halle
hurt Latrobe, its inventor. John Hazlehurt
Latrobe was an American lawyer, son of Ben
jamin Henry Latrobe, architect who, as sur
veyor Of public buildings. planned and redeco-
rated the Capitol after its destruction by the
British in 1914
Many people think that this Latrobe was the
inventor of the "latrobe," or Baltimore heater,
but it was his son. The name, Baltimore
heater" shows where IT was first put into use,
in the famous small-row houses of that city.
That was because John Hazlehurt Latrobe, the
son, was for many years counsel for the Balti-
more g. Ohio Railroad
Those who still live in houses with latrobe
heating may have the satisfaction of knowing
that they possess something really historical.