صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

"Of course I am. go with you, and on it."

Come what may, I'll there's my hand

we came out of this building we turned to our left hand, and, if I mistake not, went off in that direction. I think, if you've no objection, we'll go that way now."

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

With that we left our hotel and set off in the direction of the Casino, stopping, however, on the way to make the purchases above referred to.

On arrival at the place we sought, we stopped and looked about us. I pointed to a street on our right.

"That was the way we came from the mosque," I said. Then, pointing to a narrow alley way almost opposite where we were, I continued, "And that was where I saw Nikola standing watching us. Now when

We accordingly set off at a good pace, and after awhile arrived at the spot where the guide had caught us up. It looked a miserably dirty neighbourhood in the bright sunlight. Beckenham looked round him thoughtfully, and finally said:

"Now we turn to our right, I think."
"Quite so. Come along!”

But

We passed down one thoroughfare and up another, and at last reached the spot where I had commented on the sign-boards, and where we had been garotted. Surely the house must be near at hand now. though we hunted high and low, up one street and down another, not a single trace of any building answering the description of the one we wanted could we discover. At last, after nearly an hour's search, we were obliged to give it up, and return to our hotel, unsuccessful.

As we finished lunch a large steamer made her appearance in the harbour, and brought up opposite the town. We questioned our landlord, who was an authority on the subject, and he informed us that she was the s.s. Pescadore, of Hull, bound to Melbourne.

Hearing this we immediately chartered a boat, pulled off to her, and interviewed the captain. As good luck would have it, he had room for a couple of passengers. We therefore paid the passage money there and then, provided ourselves with a few necessaries, articles of attire, toilet, etc., and shortly before nightfall steamed into the Canal. Port Said was a thing of the past. Our eventful journey was resumed-what was the end of it all to be?

(To be continued next month, when the second part of the story will be bogun.)

UNKNOWN LONDON.

VI.-MODEL AND OTHER LAUNDRIES.

By H. D. LOWRY and T. S. C. CROWTHER.

[graphic]

HE last few years have seen the death of manyan opinion which had long been honoured merely because of its extreme old age; but among all latter-day

changes, nothing is more remarkable than the disappearance of the conviction which we English shared, through our invincible modesty, with our neighbours beyond the Channel, to the effect that they do things better in France than we can do them here. The French gommeux dresses nowadays in the fashion of England, turning up his trousers at the bottom in the finest weather; and it has been said at divers times-though one hardly believed it possible -that he sends his body-linen from Paris to Paris London when it requires to be washed and done up.

France herself has made the assertion credible, for it is but a few weeks since the closing of an "Exposition des Lavoirs" in the Champs de Mars, which was organised wholly and entirely in order that the blanchisseuses of Paris might have an opportunity of giving a public demonstration of their ability to do work just as good as that done by their English rivals.

a

The effect of the show may be to injure our industries, though it can hardly do so as completely as the proposed establishment of a big steam laundry in Holland, which, specially favoured by the steamship companies, will make bid for London's washing. But the fact of its having been deemed necessary, is calculated to fill with legitimate pride all those who labour at this trade in the smoky London atmosphere; and it makes their operations interesting, if only as a matter of common patriotism, to the outsider.

One of the greatest boons conferred of late years on the respectable poor of the metropolis has been the establishment of municipal baths and washhouses. There is something pathetic in the spectacle-to be seen in the course of a Monday morning's journey on any of the suburban lines of clothes hung out to dry from the back windows of a little yellow-brick house, the trains

passing hard by at intervals of five minutes, and filling the air with smuts. And it is pleasing to learn that there are now about twenty-six public baths and washhouses in London, at which a woman may do her own washing, privately, and yet as effectually as if she could afford to pay for having the work done at a big steam laundry. Islington, to take one example, is particularly well provided in this respect: as, indeed, it is no more than reasonable to expect, seeing how dense is the population there, and how monstrously big the parish.

The first establishment was opened in Caledonian Road in May, 1892, while the second, which is believed to be the largest of its kind in the country, was inaugurated in

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

by Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, the President of the Board of Trade. These baths cover, with the quadrangle in front, an area of more than 30,000 square feet, and, in addition to two big swimming baths, and over ninety private baths, there are sixty-five washing compartments and drying closets in the public laundry, together with mangling, ironing, cloak and waiting rooms. A lack of cleanliness need no longer be among the hateful necessities imposed even upon the honest poor in London; and though these public baths and laundries are extremely expensive, there can be little doubt that their institution is the wisest of investments on the part of the public.

These things being as they are, it is greatly to be regretted that in another parish, where the old baths and laundries are just now being altered and enlarged, the authorities have decided that they can make no attempt to provide temporary accommodation for those who are thus deprived of the conveniences to which they have grown accustomed. The "dreamers of dreams," who hope for a London in which every citizen will enjoy every imaginable privilege of civilisation, are sometimes a little apt to justify the note of ridicule with which prosaic folk pronounce a sobriquet which ought to be altogether a title of honour. But there can be few who are not concerned to see London grow more habitable to each and all of its inhabitants; and to those who have this end in view, it must appear a matter of the utmost importance that public laundries should be opened wherever they are needed, and that, when they have once been opened, they should be kept in a state of the highest obtainable efficiency. The decision of the Commissioners in the case alluded to is greatly to be regretted, for it would be difficult to exaggerate the sense of deprivation from which the respectable poor people who have used the washhouses will suffer during the interval of compulsory idleness which has thus been imposed upon them.

But the great majority of Londoners must needs send their linen to professional laundresses, and among these there is infinite variety. In the suburbs, for example, towards the end of the week, one occasionally sees old men-or men otherwise rendered incapable of harder work-pushing perambulators on which are piled baskets and paper parcels of linen which has been washed and done up. Follow them home when their round is done and you will see that they issued from private houses where, when night

has fallen, you see through the open window without blinds women standing over the washtub, and at other times legions of clothes hanging from the lines.

The very existence of these places is said to be threatened by the new Factory Act, and lively protests have for that reason been made against it; for the new Act limits overtime with considerable stringency, and the laundresses who manage small private affairs of this kind say that they cannot manage to carry on their work if their liberty of action is to be thus curtailed. Being few in numbers, and not provided with the appliances the workers have at command in larger laundries, they cannot rush through a great amount of work in a short time. In other words, the period of greatest pressure is towards the end of the week, and then there is absolute need of working overtime. Upon the other hand, the managers of big laundries have their own peculiar difficulties to cope with: they find it difficult sometimes, for instance, to keep the temperature of their workrooms down to the degree which is theoretically obtainable, and allege that the small private laundries are much less troubled by the visits of the Government inspectors than the larger affairs, where inspection is not, and cannot be, made difficult by the proprietors.

To turn aside for a moment before describing a modern laundry, one must not forget to name the establishments-numerous in Soho in half a hundred by-streets-where blanchisseuses françaises carry on their business. A small shop window is hung with curtains of white Nottingham lace. Inside, by the light of one or two dim gaslights, a few women are engaged in the manipulation of shirts and collars.

But the model laundry must be described at once, for it is in places more or less meriting this description that the bulk of London's linen is washed and got up.

The linen, when it first of all reaches the laundry, is taken straight to the sorting room. Every customer has his own distinguishing mark in red or blue cotton, and it is necessary to see that nothing goes any further without having been rendered easy of identification by this means. Those who object to finding a few stitches of coloured thread in the corner of a handkerchief may be reminded that it is only a twelvemonth since a youth escaped imprisonment, when he had been arrested on a charge of pocketpicking, solely because of the fact that the three handkerchiefs which appeared to prove

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

which revolved upon its longitudinal axis, and the new, which revolves end over end, so that the cream comes in for two shocks at each completed revolution. And in each case the effectiveness of the machine is vastly increased by the change.

Sometimes, indeed, for collars and suchlike articles, an ordinary water trough suffices. The water is kept hot by a current of steam which, passing into it, condenses and gives up its latent heat. Naturally, it is this device which is used in the public laundries mentioned above, for in these places one of the most important matters is that each washer should have her own tub and her own little partition.

But the big machine takes almost everything, being very much more convenient. The "break-down" being accomplished, the water is drawn off, the washing compounds are admitted, and the water renewed. The door of the outer cylinder is closed, and, as the safety-valve shows, the pressure of the steam soon becomes considerably over the normal. This means that the temperature is higher than that of boiling water, and that, as the clothes revolve, they are being to all intents and purposes disinfected as well as washed, though one need hardly add that it is apt to go ill with the parent of sick

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

him guilty had all the same laundry-mark, and that mark his mother's. When this has been seen to, the divers articles are sorted into huge wicker baskets, and then they are ready for the wash.

The old custom of letting linen soak in water over night, in order that it may be the easier to cleanse in the morning, is now entirely superseded. The machine which does the washing consists, in the first place, of a big cylinder of metal. Boiling water and steam pass in at the top and can be drawn away at the bottom. Inside there is another cylinder, made of metal rods and divided in the middle by a partition. The inner cylinder takes the clothes; into the outer some hot water is admitted. Then the machinery is set in motion, and the inner cylinder revolves. By this means the clothes in the one half fall heavily upon the water, then rise again, while those contained in the other half fall in their turn. The force of the concussion drives the water through the material and cleanses it very thoroughly, so that the "break-down," which used to be effected by a whole night's soaking, is now carried out in ten minutes or thereabouts.

The difference between the old and the new washing-machine is much the same as the difference between the old barrel churn,

IRONING BY MACHINERY.

[ocr errors]
« السابقةمتابعة »