CHARMING AND SIMPLE MODEL.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1569, 12 October 1912, Page 11

CHARMING AND SIMPLE MODEL.

the work. This is a point that should particularly interest Australian women. Is the enlightened middle-class mistress expected to grapple with it all? Should she have'help? And, if the latter, what sort in the future is likely to be most efficient? ' Miss fedden is of the opinion that the ultimate solution of this problem—for those' , of moderate means—will be the peripatetic housewife. The trained and educated domestic ' will arrive at the time fixed, bringing her cop and apron. She

will work so long for so much. More will be done, and more thoroughly in a limited time, though the mistress, naturally, must put up with les3 personal waiting on. The bell—that bane of kitchen existence—will cease to be rung for everything and nothing, and tho mistress will have to lace up her own shoes. For a certain typo of woman Miss Fedden thinks there ought to be a school for mistresses. Failing this, the dearth of tho old-fashioned servant will bring home the fact that n trained and certificated domestic will have to be accorded the social status of a trained and certificated nurss. Comparison between methods of housekeeping in America and England ore so often made to our own disadvantage that it is consoling to hear Miss Fedden, who haa been twice in- the Btato» $os^

fled in her praise. "Scarcity of domestic labour has niade the American woman turn her attention to managing the best way, often with good results. In thuir most modern dwellings, as in our np-tn-d;ito Hate) invention nnd construction al-most-reduce housework to child's play. In American provincial towns where there is littlo to distract, women concentrate on domestic affairs too much. In New York and other big centres of social and intellectual life it is not so, and mistresses nro often almost desperate for want of servants." A long sojourn in Bradford, where she was at a cottage settlement, lins Riven Mi?s Fedden a great respect for the Torkshirewoiuan, who cleans the outside as well as tho insido of her house, and scorns to buy baker's bread. In the home which is fitted with electric light, housework is much simplified. Each room has its ordinary light fittings. From thence an electric kettle may bo boiled, or an electric flat iron worked, or an electric fan adjusted to cool the air by means of flexes. Floor sweeping of every kind is worked from the plug .by an electric vacuum cleaner, and power being used the operator has both hands free to direct the instrument. About threequarters of an hour is the time taken to clean a large room, a smaller ono usually requiring half an hour.