NEW METHOD OF HOUSEKEEPING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 347, 22 March 1911, Page 2

NEW METHOD OF HOUSEKEEPING.

Servant Problem Solved. At the beginnings of things the family hearth was the centre of all the industries which have since become specialised, and have been removed to factories. The removal of each class of work —soap-making, brewing, baking, weaving, etc. marked an advance in house-keep-ing. Now only four classes are left —laundry work (and this is fast going), housekeeping, cooking, and the care and training of children. An attempt is being made to centralise these also. The inefficiency and unhygienic character of the usual methods of housekeeping are obvious. Much of the dust dislodged by the broom settles down again, after poisoning the air for hours. Carpets, curtains, and the upholstery and carved decorations of furniture are never free from dust. No diligence in housekeeping can keep the house clean so long as it is heated with coal and lighted with gas or oil. The progress of applied science has given us electric light, steam heat, ventilating apparatus., and pneumatic sweepers, but these blessings are enjoyed only by the rich and cannot be introduced into the Ordinary small home. The defects of home cooking are apparent to every physician. Almost every other art has become highly specialised, but in the preparation of food we cling tenaciously to amateur methods. NO SHOPPING TO IJO : NO FIRES TO MAKE. The same is true of the carc of children, so that the mother is expected to be an embryo combination of cook, nurse, laundress, chambermaid, waitress, governess, and housekeeper—Jack of all trades and master of none. A reform movement of this state of things has been made by Mr. Otto Fick, who has established a cooperative apartment house, or flats, of a novel type in Copenhagen. The apartments—twenty-five in number and containing from three to five rooms each —are rented unfurnished, so that each family can furnish its home in accordance with its own tastes and requirements. Each apartment has a kitchenette with a gas stove and a bathroom, supplied with hot water day and night. Electric light and central steam heating are included in the equipment, and each apartment is connected by telephone with the general kitchen, and also with the public telephone system. Meals are prepared in the general kitchen and sent up to each apartment by means of an electric dumb-waiter. Privacy is complete. The feature of the place is the centralisation and specialisation of every task of house-keeping—cleaning, ventilation, lighting, heating, and preparation of food—so that the tenants are entirely relieved of the burdens of marketing, making fires, cooking, sewing, dish-washing, etc. The meals are served in the tenants' apartments. The menu is so extensive and varied that monotony can be easily avoided, and the general kitchen has a list of the preferences, and particularly of the aversions, of every family, in which it is gravely set down that one family is never to be served with mushrooms, a second with cabbage, a third with rice pudding, etc. Individual, as well as family, preferences are respected. Dishes, plates, cups, etc., of the so-called "unbreakable" ware are furnished by the management, but each family may provide its two table ware and have it washed in the general kitchen, without, however, any guarantee against breakage. Laundry work, extra service and meals for occasional guests are furnished at low rates. Cheapness, indeed, is the guiding principle, and cheapness combined with excellence is attainable only with the aid of centralised housekeeping. The kitchens and other service rooms in the basement are equipped with the most approved apparatus, and the food and other supplies are abundant and of the best quality. The annual charges for rent, heat, baths, food, and service, including pneumatic "sweeping" window and boot cleaning, are about : For 2 adults occupying a 3-room apartment, £B4.

For 2 adults occupying a 4-room apartment, £llO. For 3 adults occupying a 4-room apartment, £147. For 4 adults occupying a 4-room apartment, £l7l. For 2 adults occupying a 5-room apartment, £l3l. For 3 adults occupying a 5-room apartment, £15!), For 4 adults occupying a 5-room apartment, £lB6. Small additional charges are made for children and servants. This first centralised apartment proved so successful that others are projected. Mr. Fick also purposes to erect a house with large general playrooms for school children and for small children. Nurses will also be provided so that mothers who have occupations away from home will be able to leave their little ones in sale keening. A feature of the Fick system is that it settles the servant question to both employer and employed. Much of the work of the centralised household is performed by machines and the rest is skilled labour with definite hours of work.—" Popular Science Sittings."