Domestic Helps

- Mr. Thomas Fletcher.of Warrington, England, wellknown for various improvements in the uso of gas as a fuel, has been delivering a lecture on vavious ways of reducing houschold drudgery, and doing ;ivay with the use of servants. Ho advocated the use of gas for cooking food, as cheaper and more rapid in its act ion. Tlie chespest niethod of warming a room, he said, was a coke fire made in a solid clay-lined "Abbotsford" grate, wliich niight be lighted by inserting a gas fire-lighter under thocoke, aud weuld only need rebuilding once a day ïhis fire was bright xnd hot. an.l made littlo dust in the room, and no einders. Mr. Fletcher exhibited an oven and a boiling burner whieli he had designed; and said that Witttheil' help an ordinary breakfast, consisting of colïee, toast and bacon, could be prepared in ten minutes. With an inBtantaneona water heater titted over the scnllery sink .and heated by ;;is, tlio breakfast crockery could be vrashed as faat as any woman could dry it witli a towel. If hot water were reijuircd for baths or for washing floors, it could be obtained trom a "bath lieiiter," which would boil from three to four gallons of water in an. hour. Ftt the preparation of dinner, the gas oven previously referred to, which ;ittained its full heat in one minute after the gas was lighted, would roast, grill bako; and its heat could be easily regulated. Mr. Fletcher cooked simuïtaneously in the oven üoine salt herrings, a fowl, and a fruit pie, and showed that the herrings did not affect the (lavor of the fowl and pie, although cooked beneath them.