ELECTRIC POWER FOR THE HOUSE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1166, 27 October 1883, Page 3

ELECTRIC POWER FOR THE HOUSE.

In the course of a lecture on ' The Near Future of Electric Power,' Professor Ayrton said :—At present much household work was done by hand, simply because there were no easily-worked machines for doing it. The old knifeboard had given way to the rotary knifecleaner, but even that required a certain amount of grinding to give the knives a polish, so that for large establishments a knife-cleaner boy was still necessary. The blackening of boots, the blacking of grates, the cleaning of doorsteps, etc,, were all done in a most laborious way by hand, judging from the smutty appearance of Sarah Anne after the process. Now there could be no doubt that very shortly electricity would be supplied, as gas was now to houses |for lighting purposes, and when this had been accomplished, the same ways that conveyed tho electricity for lighting would be employed to convey the power to work electric motors, to turn rotary knife cleaners, to turn a wheel for the blacking of boots, and a small motor carrying a brush would simply be pissed by a servant all over the grate for the purpose of giving it a good black polish. The blacklead brush would then be taken off, and replaced by the blacking brush for the boots, and later on in the day a rotary flannel would officiate for the doorsteps.