348 



Popular Science Monthly 



The food barrows of London serving meals ready prepared 

 and hot or cold to patrons of the community kitchen 



A Kitchen on Wheels — the School 

 Children Serve the Meals 



IN St. John's Wood, London, the com- 

 munity service idea has been worked 

 out to a nicety in relation to the kitchen 

 and the serving of meals. Not only are 

 housewives and others relieved of the duty 

 of cooking the meals, but 

 school children of the locality 

 are pressed into service as 

 cooks and waiters. 



Every day the food is sent 

 out from the community 

 kitchen in what are called 

 food barrows. These are 

 wheeled through the 

 streets and are stopped 

 upon demand at the 

 doors of prospective 

 customers or old pa-j 

 irons. The food is 

 carried in big alum- 

 inum pots and ves- 

 sels which fit into a 

 metal container 

 filled with water 

 which may be boiling 

 hot or ice-cold, ac- 

 cording to whether the 

 food is to be served hot 

 or cold. 



Soup, coffee, and vege- 

 tables of all kinds, meats 

 and desserts are served 

 in any desired amounts, 

 in individual portions, or 



enough for an entire The kerosene passes drop by drop 



family repast. into the pipes over the flames 



Change Your Coal Stove 

 Into a Gas Range 



WHEREVER kerosene oil 

 is to be had, it is possible 

 to convert your coal stove 

 quickly into the decidedly more 

 convenient gas range. A new 

 attachment put on the market 

 for this purpose is sufficiently 

 simple for the least initiated to 

 operate. A kerosene tank is 

 screwed to the wall and the 

 clamps on the burners are at- 

 tached in the stove's fire box. 

 From then on you will forever 

 be free of the bother of both 

 the coal bucket and its col- 

 league, the ash pan ! 



The attachment is in reality a 

 miniature gas plant. After fill- 

 ing the tank with kerosene oil, the valve 

 is opened until the oil begins to trickle 

 from the burners. The valve is then closed 

 and -the little oil previously placed in 

 the iron pan under the burners is lighted. 

 The heat from the burning of this oil 

 causes that in the pipes above it to 

 evaporate. As soon as this happens, the 

 gas issues from the burners and it is ignited 

 also. The intensely hot flames then given 

 out can be directed on to whatever parts 

 of the stove they are needed. 

 Having once started the 

 evaporation of the pipe 

 oil, the tank valve can 

 be again opened. What- 

 ever oil thereafter flows 

 from the tank will evap- 

 orate in the red-hot 

 :pipes over the burners 

 and be converted 

 into gas. One drop 

 of oil will produce 

 an immense amount 

 of gas; obviously, 

 then, the tank will 

 be exhausted very 

 slowly. The fact is 

 that not more than 

 two cents' worth of 

 oil need be used up 

 in an hour, according 

 to the inventor, who 

 also emphatically de- 

 clares that there is posi- 

 tively no element of 

 danger in the device. 

 "A little child can man- 

 age it," he says. 



