THE STEP-LADDER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1900, 27 March 1880, Page 3

THE STEP-LADDER.

It is very probable that' in the age preceding the step-ladder it was a common Sractice for the housewife who wished to take own the curtains to plaoe a chair on the centre-table and then to mount from one to other. It is claimed that we have hero the true origin of the step-ladder. lake the table, it is quadrupled, and the germs of its steps are contained in two steps which are formed when a chair is superimposed upon the table. Comparative anatomy, as well as hypothetical history, supports the theory that the step-ladder springs from the union of the chair and the table, although it must be confessed that it does not throw any light on the origin of the hinges, which form one of the leading characteristics of the step-ladder. In spite of its inoffensive look, it delights to do all the injury in its power. It uses its hinged forelegs with which to inflict painful and dangerous kicks. In the spring and autumn, when curtains are taken down, and picture frames are dusted, the surfaoe of the ladies of the household is to a large extent black and blue with the bruises thus inflicted. The step-ladder, with atrooious cunning, often lies down at night in the upper or lower hall, to wait for casual victims. The man who gets up in the night with a view either to cats or robbers, and walks within the clutches of a step-ladder stretched at full length on the floor, is generally an unrecognisable mass of bruises, broken glass and spilled kerosene by the time that help comes to release him. Men have been known to tangle themselves up so inextricably with a prone and vicious step-ladder that they have continued to fall over it for hours at a time. Among the whole family of domestio furniture, there_ is none that compare in subtle malignity with the treacherous and cruel step-ladder. That the step-ladder will roam vaßt distances if loft unfastened either day or night everyone is aware. Ho matter where it may be left it will never be found in the same place unless it has been securely fastened. Many a man has left a step-ladder in the front parlor when summoned to cease to hang pictures and come to dinner, but almost invariably he has found that ladder either in the attic or down cellar when the dinner haß come to an end. Stepladders left incautiously on the front steps of New York houses have been known to wander from house to house throughout the_ entire block, and there is one step-ladder in East Twenty-second street which is so well known to the police that it has been seized and carried to the station house as a vagrant at least a dozen timeß during the last ten years. —" New York Times."