80 
($y. 
ANTIQUES 
FURNITURE 
REPRODUCTIONS 
yj floor COTeKS 
decorative objects 
FACTORY 
18th TO 19th ST. AVE. C. 
INTERIOR* DECORATIONS 
PARIS 
18 FAUB? 
POISSONNIERE 
Entrance Hall Treatment 
House & Garden 
The Limpid Loveliness of Rock Crystal 
(Continued from page 78) 
composition called tenax,” he wrote, 
“and applying it to the fire until it 
liquifies, you will fasten the crystal to 
a long wood, which must be similar to 
it in thickness. When this has become 
cold, you will rub it with both hands 
upon a hard sandstone, water being 
added, until it takes the form which 
you wish to give it, then upon another 
stone of the same kind which must be 
finer and smoother, until it be made 
quite smooth. And taking a flat leaden 
tablet, place moistened tile upon it, 
which you will rub with saliva upon a 
hard hone, and you will polish this crys¬ 
tal upon it until it takes lustre. But 
at last, place the rubbing of tile, made 
moist with saliva, upon a goat’s skin, 
neither blackened nor oiled, but 
stretched upon wood and fixed below 
with nails, and rub carefully upon it 
until it becomes quite bright. But 
should you wish to sculp crystal, taking 
a goat of the age of two or three years 
and binding his feet, cut an opening be¬ 
tween his breast and stomach, in the 
position of the heart, and lay in the 
crystal, so that it may lie in its blood 
until it grow warm. Taking it out 
directly, cut what you please in it, as 
long as the heat lasts, and when it had 
begun to grow cold and to harden, re¬ 
place it again in the blood of the goat, 
and being made warm anew, take it 
out and cut it, and do this until you 
complete the sculpture; at the last, be¬ 
ing made warm and taken out you will 
rub it with a linen cloth so that with 
the same blood you can procure a 
lustre for it.” 
Then Theophilus goes on to instruct 
us how to “sculp” knobs from crystal 
“which can be placed upon the staves 
of bishops.” Let us hope the bishops 
were not aware of the sacrifice to their 
ornament! 
The Renaissance workers both in 
Italy and in the north devised more 
humane accessories for their lapidarian 
excursions. Marvellous indeed were the 
gem-like tazze and other objects they 
cut from rock crystal of purest water 
and “sculpted.” Many of their mas¬ 
terpieces introduced the process of 
undercutting the engraving of the de¬ 
sign at a more deep and acute angle to 
the surface than would be practical 
with, say, the cutting of a seal, as under¬ 
cutting a seal would not enable it to 
leave the wax. 
The designs viewed through the crys¬ 
tal in finely undercut work are wonder¬ 
ful indeed. Renton and other engrav¬ 
ers of our own time have proved their 
skill at this sort of cutting but I do not 
think they have produced works com¬ 
parable with those of the early masters. 
American Collections 
American private collections and mu¬ 
seum collections are rich in fine ex¬ 
amples of cut and engraved rock crys¬ 
tal, and frequently of late the great 
public sales in New York have offered 
opportunities to collectors to obtain 
crystal objects of unusual importance. 
In the course of a few years even 
the moderate purse may make possible 
the assembling of a small collection of 
great interest, even though it may not 
contain a single “supreme” crystal. Such 
a small collection will find a wide field 
for acquisition in the crystal objects of 
China and of Japan, and perhaps a col¬ 
lection devoted to the crystals of these 
two countries or to one of them will 
prove an absorbing and entertaining 
hobby. But with myself, I should never 
have felt that my own few crystal bits 
afforded complete joy without the little 
crystal ball I added to them in memory 
of poor old Miss Abestemia Nuggett! 
Beautify your grounds 
A HOUSE situated on beautiful 
grounds, amid ornamental trees and 
shrubs, is a real home—a home that 
increases in attractiveness and value year 
after year. 
Our Landscape Experts will make sug¬ 
gestions and submit plans for plantings, 
without cost; or, when requested, we will 
send a man to lay out and plant. 
Get started early on your landscape problem. 
Write for our igig catalogue — ",Dependable 
Trees and Plants”■—illustrated in color. 
The Electrocution of Laundry Day 
(Continued from page 49) 
which you must use to win over Stan¬ 
ley. YVhen you broach the subject the 
very first thing he will say is, ‘I can’t 
afford it!’ Then you must say, ‘I’ve 
been going over this problem and find 
that it has been costing us so much per 
week for our laundry and if we had 
some of the mechanical devices we not 
only would have better laundry work, 
done under better conditions, but we 
could save half the money and do the 
work four times as rapidly.’ ” 
“But he may not believe it,” sug¬ 
gested Mrs. Webb. 
“Then take him to the dealers and 
they will demonstrate everything to 
him; they will almost give him a mov¬ 
ing picture of himself buying his laundry 
equipment on the spot 1 Seeing things 
is what makes us buy.” 
“But Shirley, Stanley says if we have 
a laundry and just loves to say it, ‘You 
can lead a servant to the electric washer, 
but you can’t make her wash!’ ” 
“Delicious 1” laughed Mrs. Slater, “but 
you might just as well say you can 
lead a cook to the soup pot and you 
can’t make her stir.” 
“Before I describe some of the equip¬ 
ment I shall tell you what I have in 
my laundry, then what you might start 
on. First my walls, ceiling and floors 
are tiled. I have blue tile on the floor, 
but white is more usual and there are 
other floorings just as good. Here is 
the list of machinery: 
Washer, 1/3 h. p.; solid copper lined 
with planished tin to prevent corrosion, 
with motor on a swinging base; white 
enamel ironing machine, two rolls; 
clothes dryer with four heating units; 
clothes boiler solid copper lined with 
planished tin with screen for holding 
clothes off the bottom of boiler; com¬ 
bination sleeve and skirt board; two 
metal tables; overhead clothes dryer, 
copper clothes extractor; four stationary 
tubs; electric irons for valeting and 
fine work. 
“Don’t get frightened, Gwen, just 
continue to think of this as an invest¬ 
ment and not as an expenditure. Don’t 
you think the fact that twenty-five 
million dollars’ worth of washers have 
been sold by the manufacturers this last 
year proves anything?” 
“Now tell me about the different ma¬ 
chines, Shirley.” 
“I’ll start off with the electric iron¬ 
ing machine as it is one of the things 
women are afraid of. Here beginneth,” 
she said, reading from her notes: 
Electric Ironing Machines 
A practical tool used 52 times a year 
and its saving power. 
1. The electric ironer differs from the 
mangle and the steam laundry press 
in that the mangle only folds, is 
not heated, so doesn’t give the 
gloss and finish. 
2. Hand ironing takes at least a half 
day. Machine work one hour for 
about eight pieces, including every¬ 
thing from an average family of 
five from table linen to handker¬ 
chiefs. By hand this would take 
five hours. This costs from $50 
to $100 a year (with rapidly in¬ 
creasing costs for this work) or 
$500 to $1,000 for ten years’ use, 
3. The fuel consumed from the aver- 
fContinued on page 82) 
