DUNCAN’S PATENT MANGLE

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2356, 5 October 1880, Page 3

DUNCAN’S PATENT MANGLE

We mentioned some time ago that among the exhibits from Timaru sent to the Melbourne Exhibition, was a patent mangle, invented by Mr P. J. Duugan. An exact copy of the mangle in question is now on view at Mr Dungan’s shop in Beswick street. The box mangle as many housewives know to their cost is one of the few things which has fairly defied the inventor Many attempts at modification and improvement have been made, but until Mr Duugan applied his ingenuity the instrument of torture, with its large cogs, _ heavy rollers, and huge stones resisted every effort at amelioration. Mr Duugan, however, lias solved the great labor problem of laundresses and washerwomen. The instrument he has invented is as elegant as a piano, takes up no more room than a small dining table, and can be freely worked by a child with a very slight expenditure of elbow grease. In shape and principle it is simply a modification of the patent box mangle. It is worked with a cog-wheel and rack, with sliding bushes on top, and a simple lever underneath, by pressing on which with the foot the box can bo elevated so that the rollers can be adjusted or the machine can bo thrown into or out of gear at pleasure. With the ordinary patent mangle fourteen revolutions are required to bring the box up, while with this only half a revolution is needed. As the box has to he passed along six times to do a mangling, it follows that instead of the 84 turns of

the heavy crank necessitated by the ordinary machine, only three turns is required. Tn short, the Dungan Mangle will do as much work in an hour as the patent box mangle in common use will accomplish in a day, and while the one instrument requires manual labor the other can be worked by a school girl. Added to the economy of time and labor, Mr Dungan expects to turn out his invention at little more than half the price of the patent mangles which now monopolise the market.