houses save all water-carrying, for bathing or cleaning purposes, either up or down stairs; for a proper connection with a sewerage system will admit of a sink as well as a water pipe in every story. The burdensome daily details of housework are thus very greatly lightened, and health, and time, and exertion very much economized by the various appliances of the modern city bathroom.

Within fifteen years, there have been introduced into many of the more luxurious city houses, hoistways, somewhat like those used in stores, but upholstered, and, in fact, fitted up like little rooms; these are raised and lowered so as to save the exertion of using the stairs, and are exceedingly convenient for the old and feeble.

computed, at least nine-tenths of all the heat with it. With the introduction of stoves and furnaces, this ventilator was closed, and the air of warm rooms became unhealthily dry and hot, or vitiated by use, especially in schools, ball-rooms, court-rooms, public assemblies, etc. Many disorders were aggravated or made more common by this state of things; such as headaches, nervous affections, and lung complaints. Various plans of ventilation have been adopted to remedy these evils, but the principles of the science of pneumatics are even yet so imperfectly understood that no entirely satisfactory system of ventilation has yet been devised. The modes formerly used for large public buildings, such as churches: an opening at the ceiling, with a device outside for forming an upward current by the help of the This brief enumeration of improvements wind; in private houses, openings at the in domestic architecture could not properly sides of rooms, communicating indirectly include what may, however, in conclusion, with the external air; and where hot-air be merely mentioned; that is, those large furnaces were used, a pipe supplying air and splendidly finished houses which are from without, which is warmed by the erected by the great millionaires of the presfurnace, and passed on into the apart-ent day. The costly frescoes, the statues, ments, are now to a considerable extent the extravagant splendor of their fitting, giving place to a forced and downward ven- the picture-galleries, conservatories, libratilation, which more effectually removes the ries, etc., etc., though good and beautiful foul air, and avoids a current of cold air in themselves, are exceptions, but have been near the floor. greatly multiplied within the past fifteen or twenty years.

The use of gas for lighting streets and houses was first invented by an Englishman named Murdoch, and tried at Redruth, in Cornwall, in 1792. It was first introduced in the city of New York by the old New York Gas Company, chartered in 1823. It is now used in most of our cities, and its deprivation would be thought a very serious misfortune.

CHAPTER II.

FURNITURE—-FURNISHING GOODS, ETC. THE furniture of country dwellings during the latter part of the last century was scantier An equally, and indeed much more labor- than now, and, on the whole, of much saving and convenient improvement in our cheaper quality and poorer make, although modern domestic architectural arrangements, that of the wealthy was often handsomely is the introduction of water from water designed, well and massively made, and works. Water works were commenced in heavily and tastefully ornamented. Little New York before the Revolution, in 1774; machinery was used in manufacturing furbut none were erected there until 1797, niture, which had, therefore, to be made when the Manhattan Company put up a res- by hand labor. This made patterns more ervoir on what is now Chambers street. numerous, as one design usually served for a These small works were superseded by the single side-board, set of chairs, etc., and for Croton aqueduct, opened in 1842. Phila- those made by one workman only; while delphia was first supplied by a steam engine now, one pattern may serve for thousands of in 1799; and this was replaced by the celebrated Fairmount works, commenced in 1811. Almost all our larger or more enterprising cities are now provided with aqueducts.

The fountains thus set flowing in our

sets. There was, therefore, greater variety, and often remarkably fine workmanship, and even artistic skill. The greater cheapness of wood, and the little use made of veneering, occasioned much furniture to be made of solid wood. Many pieces of this ancient,

solid furniture now bring extravagant prices at auction, or from a second-hand store, where chance supplies a buyer with taste and means. As much as forty, or even sixty dollars each have been given for oldfashioned, carved, mahogany chairs; from twenty-five to fifty dollars for a tall clock,

etc., etc.

The increase in the supply of money, the decrease of any distinction between classes of society, and the general diffusion of wealth and comfort, render the difference between the furniture of the rich, and that of the poor, much less at the present day than formerly. Comparatively few luxuries of any kind are now accessible to the rich, which are not so to the farmer and the mechanic. This is not, of course, to be understood of the very poor, nor the very rich; nor of the most expensive luxuries; for Gobelin carpets an inch thick, marble statues, and pictures by great artists, Johannisberg wine, Strasburg pies, and the like, can never be possessed except by very few.

Chairs were of hard wood-maple, oak, cherry, or mahogany-with seats of wood, basket-work, or cushion, covered with cloth, haircloth, or leather. Much skill and taste was expended on many of the costly solid mahogany parlor chairs, and they are even now much more stately than most of their modern successors. The rocking-chair—a truly American invention-dates back to a point not ascertained, but certainly not less than seventy or eighty years ago. No rocking-chairs of so antique a pattern as common chairs can, however, be found. An early improvement upon the old-fashioned wooden or wicker chair-seat was the straw-seat, of straw or rushes, woven together in four compartments, which converged to the middle of the seat. The cane-seat, woven like fine basket-work of slender strips of ratan, came afterward, and is still much used; it is strong, neat, light, and convenient. Many business and study chairs are now made with the seat pivoted on a stout iron pin-a very convenient invention, rendering it very easy to turn round from writing-desk to customer or client.

The bedsteads of our grandparents and great-grandparents were very commonly "four-posters;" that is, they consisted of Tables were made of oak, pine, cherfour tall posts, into which were framed the ry, black walnut, and mahogany. In oldside and end pieces. These posts often sup-fashioned houses may sometimes still be ported a wooden frame covered with cloth, seen a small table hinged to the wall at one somewhat like a roof, and called a "tester," side, so as to turn up flat against it, secured, from whose four sides hung down the cur- when not in use, by a button. A leg hinged tains. Feather beds were universally used. on beneath hung flat to the table when thus Sheets were of linen; and coverlets of patch-raised, and swung to its right place when work, marseilles, chintz, etc.

lowered. Some old tables were enormously Carpets were comparatively little used; heavy, framed almost as strongly as a house, most people contenting themselves with a and with curiously complicated swinging legs floor, washed clean, sanded, or, at most, to hold up the leaves. Such tables were of painted. The carpets used eighty years ago ten heirlooms, as was much household furniwere mostly English or Scotch ingrain, though ture. The substantial strength and solid a good many home-made rag-carpets were materials used rendered it much more fit to also used; and the price per yard was, per- serve generation after generation than the haps, $1.50 to $1.75; not varying very much lighter and cheaper articles now made. The from the present price of a fair article, though present "extension tables," which are frethe same sum represented more value then. quently used in dining-rooms, were first There is a well-known anecdote of an honest patented in 1843; they draw out within old farmer who was one day introduced, for certain limits to any length, when additional the first time, to a carpeted room. The car-boards supply the top. Thus the same tapet, as was usual in those days, was a sort ble accommodates either a large party or a of patch in the middle of the room, surrounded with a wide margin of bare floor. The visitor skirted cautiously along the sides of the room, and when invited by the lady of the house to walk across, excused himself with rustic politeness, because, he said, “his boots were too dirty to walk on the "kiverlid."

small one.

The sideboard was an indispensable article in dining-rooms where it could be afforded, being used instead of a closet, to hold plate, wine, table-linen, cake, etc.

Bureaus, or chests of drawers, were made on a larger scale than now, sometimes towering far toward the ceiling, containing a

great number of drawers, large and small, Instead of the modern Yankee clock, the and often ornamented in a peculiar and first patent for which was taken out by Eli striking manner at the handles and keyholes, Terry, of Plymouth, Conn., in 1797, were with brass escutcheons elaborately and fanci-used either small Dutch clocks, stuck up on fully pierced or carved. the wall, like a swallow's nest, or the oldfashioned tall clocks, in cases seven feet high, which were sometimes very handsomely ornamented with carving, brass decorations, and richly painted dials. On the broad faces of these old clocks were sometimes given, besides the hour and the minute, a whole almanac of indications: the time of high tide, moon's age, day of the week and month, name of month, year, etc., etc. Occasionally, a wooden bird came out and was supposed to sing, or a tune was played when the hour struck. China and glass ware were much more A considerable number of these old clocks, costly than at present; pressed glass, now most of the best of which were made during so extensively used, having been introduced the first quarter of this century, are still in only within the present century. Pewter use, and they are often excellent time-keepplatters and plates were frequently the only ers.

The movable wash-stands, though still in use, have been replaced in many city houses. where aqueduct water in pipes is used, by fixed stands, usually fitted with elegant marble tops, having fixed basins sunk in them, faucets for water, and connecting by waste water pipes with sewer. A "water-back," or boiler, attached to the kitchen range or stove, is so arranged as to supply hot water through pipes, from which another faucet supplies hot water as desired—a most comfortable provision in cold weather.

In

dishes on a country table. Table crockery These observations do not include the was of white stoneware, usually blue-edged, Mississippi valley, which was just beginning or of the "willow pattern," though some to be settled by Anglo-American pioneers heavy china was imported. There was lit- at the close of the revolutionary war. tle silver ware, but what there was, was all that extensive region, the rudest substimore solidly manufactured than that now in tutes for all the supposed indispensable inuse. Block tin was much used until finally struments of civilized life were used. Fursuperseded by Britannia metal, which came niture, indeed, scarcely existed. A bedstead into use about forty years since; "albata," and a table, rudely hewn out by the sharp a sort of white metal, introduced within axe of the master of the house, some stools about twenty-five years, and German silver, of the same manufacture, a shelf, a row of an invention dating back, in this country, pegs in the log wall, an iron kettle, which about twice as far. A still later substitute often served in its own proper person the for the precious metals is "oreide," a sort various purposes of wash-basin, cookingof brass, very closely resembling gold; and kettle, soup-tureen, slop-dish, dish-pan, another, discovered within the last fifteen swill-pail, and hog-trough; a few tins, or a years by a French chemist, is aluminum, a little crockery, a chest or two, a stump hollight, strong metal, resembling silver in ap- lowed at the top for a mortar to pound corn, pearance, which can be extracted from com- and a stick for a pestle such was the mon clay, and other aluminous earths. scanty furnishing of that day in that region. This last metal, with its alloys, has already As the population has increased, it has come into very extensive use, for household | brought with it from the older states all as well as other purposes.

their improvements, and now no distinction can be found between the two sectionsat least, so far as concerns those of moderate or liberal means.

Silver forks were first brought into general use about thirty-five or forty years since. Those previously used were the common three-pronged steel forks, or two- Lamps, for oil, or candles of tallow, pronged ones, either of them sufficiently sperm, or wax, were the only means of inconvenient for carrying loose food to the lighting either rooms or streets, eighty years mouth. Another improvement, about as ago. A great amount of ingenuity has been old, in table furniture, is the invention of expended on lamps; a hundred and thirtybalanced knife handles, the weight in the seven patents for them having been issued handle keeping the blade off the table cloth from 1798 to 1847, and quite as many more when laid down; a little thing, but very since that date. The variety of these, and promotive of cleanliness. of the substances to the use of which they