A COMMON KITCHEN.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9411, 3 April 1909, Page 3

A COMMON KITCHEN.

The servant problem seems be aont.e in most civilised, countries. Berlin thinks it has solved ic by the “EinkucDeuiiaus, ” or “One-kitchen-house” —an apartment house with a kitchen from which the meals are sent cut to the different flats. It is an old idea in America but a new idea in Berlin. A Berlin correspondent of the Daiy Mail gives an interesting and amusing account of the experiences of an English couple in one of these apartment houses. For £6O a year (the rent of a good six-roomed house in this part of the world) Jones gets the use of four well-lighted and well-heated rooms, hot and cold water without limit, vacuum cleaning, attendance and the use of a lift, a gymnasium, and a roof-garden. “If Jones knocks out his midnight pipe on the floor —there are no carpets—early next morning a little artificial tornado licks up the ashes—without, as did flaxen-haired Hedwig last July—licking up, also, Aunt Margaret’s amethyst brooch. Jones’s dinner hisses up a lift, which, if it breaks the plates, pays for them out of its own pocket. If Jones begins to shiver, all he has to do is to telephone complaints to the house-director, who immediately turns on more heat.” For all meals for himself and his wife, Jones pays £6 10s a month, so that rent, food, lighting, heating and attendance at first cost the couple cnly £l4O a year. And Jones, remember, is a person of some social position. But he has found it inadvisable to he absolutely servantless. One evening after dinner, for which, . like a good Briton, he religiously dresses, he went to the door in his short-sleeves in answer to what he thought was the postman's ring. But, instead of the postman, there was an elderly gentleman, who gazed blankly at him, and handed him a card hearing the name of a scientist ot note. “Give that to your master, good man,” said he, and departed. A repetition of snch a tragedy was not to be thought of, so Jones now has a small boy to open the door, theraby raising his annual expenses to £l7O.