BY J. B. in-.NDERSOX, F.I.C. Xvii. 



turning on of a few switches. Xo coal, no wood, no ashes 

 to clear away, no smoke, no dust, and no waste heat making 

 the kitchen an oven of itself. When any cooking operation 

 was finished, a switch would be turned off, and heating 

 would cease. In the most recent ovens the temperatures 

 to be obtained are marked on the switch, and so cooking, 

 which depends so much on correct heating, becomes one 

 of the exact sciences. A plentiful supply of hot water 

 would easily be made available for washing or bathing. 



When dusting and sweeping had to be done, exhaust 

 sweepers, electrically driven with the exhaust hose dis- 

 charging on the lee side of the house, would drive dust 

 out into the sterilising sunshine where it would cease to 

 be " dirt," cease to be " matter in the wrong place." 



The sewing machines would be driven electrically, 

 as I understand they are now in nearly every home in 

 manj^ American towns — -San Francisco for instance. 

 Ironing would be done with an electrically heated iron, 

 and burning with a too- hot iron and waste work with a 

 too-cold iron would be things of the past. With all our 

 8-hours days and wages boards and arbitration courts, 

 and partly because of them, there seems to be one 

 individual who is getting longer hours, whose money does 

 not go so far as before, and who has no right of appeal 

 to any wages board or arbitration court — I refer to the 

 mother. Help in the housework is getting more and more 

 beyond her reach as its cost rises, the general increased 

 cost of living affects her nearly as the buyer for the 

 family, and, help or no help, the work must be done, starting 

 at daybreak and finishing long after dark. There is no one 

 who would be more relieved and helped by " electrifying " 

 our energy supply than the mother, and there are none 

 who stand more in need of help or are more deserving. 



Another result of cheap electrical supply would be the 

 establishment of home industries. The principal reason 

 for gathering hundreds of workers into factories in many 

 industries, is the fact that power is provided more cheaply 

 there, enabling work to be produced at a lower cost than 

 before. But if the power is supplied just as cheaply to run 

 a sewing machine or a loom, or a vv^ood-turning lathe at 

 home, as to run suburban trains and factories, the main 

 reason for congregating sewing machines, looms, or wood- 



