Septembir 1, 1912.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



O/D 



Rubber Floors in Churches. 



THE market for india rubber matting in colors to harmonize 

 with the decorative motifs of the walls and art windows 

 of churches is extending throughout North America. No- 

 tably fine effects are produced in Gothic and Romanesque designs, 

 and in the interlocking rubber tiling the artistic effect is strik- 

 ingly good in the reproduction of the motifs and the colors 

 of the beautiful French and German tiles of the XIV and XV 

 centuries. 



In a number of contracts for rubber matting for churches and 

 chapels in and about New York, the designs are after the geo- 

 metrical pattern tiles that are so much used in the aisles of Eng- 

 lish cathedrals and college chapels. For the past five years, six 

 churches a day have 

 been built in our 

 country. This con- 

 crete fact sets forth 

 the importance of 

 churches as buyers 

 of floor coverings. 



Rubber matting and 

 tiling are particular- 

 ly appreciated by 

 buyers of church and 

 chapel floor cover- 

 ings by reason of 

 their noiseless, sani- 

 tary and non-slip- 

 pery qualities. In 

 Roman Catholic and 

 Episcopal churches 

 rubber matting is 

 coming into general 

 use, not alone for 

 the covering of the 

 aisles and chancels, 

 but on the steps of 

 the altar and on the 

 platform of the altar, 

 on which the clergy 

 walk when cele- 

 brating the offices. 

 Many accidents have 

 befallen clergymen 

 through falling on 

 slippery marble altar 

 steps and platforms. 

 Before the art of 

 making rubber mat- 

 ting artistic as to 



colors became developed, a few old clergi,'men in the Catholic 

 church who were weak in the legs, to safeguard their feet when 

 at the altar, put upon the steps and platform plain rubber mat- 

 ting. But this was condemned by the Vatican, because in theory, 

 the floor of the sanctuary and the approaches to the altar are 

 held by the Roman and the High Anglican Church to be a part 

 of the field of Calvary, and none but green floor and step-covering 

 is canonically correct. The proper shade of green is now obtain- 

 able from all makers and distributors of rubber matting. 



Only a few years ago, the floors of the majority of the domestic 

 churches and chapels were bare wood. Then came the general 

 use of cocoa matting, and that was followed by the use of clay 

 tiles and mosaic pavements for aisles in churches with large in- 

 comes. Now the movement is for the discarding of cocoa mat- 

 ting and carpets and clay tiles, and the substitution of rubber 



matting and rubber tiles in colors. When the present Cardinal 

 Archbishop of Boston became a bishop at Portland, Maine, the 

 pounding of the feet of thousands of his people on the hard- 

 wood and clay tile floors and stairways of his cathedral made 

 such unendurable noises that he sent for a friend in the rubber 

 trade and asked him what he could do. At that time rubber 

 matting and tiles in colors to match ecclesiastical decorations 

 were not made. But the bishop decided to put down ordinary 

 rubber matting, and the noise ceased.' That led to the general 

 introduction of rubber matting in many churches in New Eng- 

 land. Today, much of that drab-colored matting is being dis- 

 placed for matting and tiling in right ecclesiastical colors. A 



number of clergy- 

 men and ecclesias- 

 tical architects with 

 whom the writer has 

 talked concerning 

 this matter say that 

 where rubber mat- 

 ting is used on 

 floors and stairways 

 neither the preach- 

 ers nor the singers 

 or organists are dis- 

 turbed by late com- 

 ers, as was the case 

 when the flooring 

 and treads of stairs 

 were wood or stone. 

 One of the large 

 churches in New 

 York is about to 

 discard carpeting 

 and woolen rugs in 

 its church, chapels, 

 guild house, hospital 

 and dispensary, and 

 substitute rubber 

 matting and tiling, 

 not only because of 

 the noiselessness of 

 rubber, but because 

 the chief physician 

 of the parish hos- 

 pital ascertained that 

 after the carpets are 

 thoroughly cleansed, 

 which occupies eight 

 men for a day, he 

 has found billions of disease germs in a square foot of the car- 

 pet. An architect is planning changes in the flooring of one of 

 the largest of the metropolitan churches, so as to have the floor 

 slope at such an incline as will permit of the washing of the 

 aisles and under each pew with hose when the flooring shall 

 be of decorated rubber matting. The rector of the parish got 

 the idea from watching men on the Lackawanna railroad's ferry- 

 boats cleanse the floors that are laid with decorated rubber m.at- 

 ting and tiling. When the railroad used wooden or mosaic floor- 

 ing for the smoking cabins of its boats, the deck hands could 

 not keep the floors clean. Since rubber matting has been used, 

 the smoking cabins are kept scrupulously clean, and at no more 

 than the cost of cleansing the cabin for women. 



All librarians give the preference to rubber flooring, and have 

 brought about its use in almost one-fourth of the public libra- 



RuBBER Tiling in a Church Aisle. 



