Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 5, May 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 5, May 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
A kindred improvement is about to be inaugurated in the more extended
and diversified employment of Gas. A hundred models of Gas Stoves, Gas
Burners, Gas Cooking Ranges, etc., were exhibited at the Fair, each
warranted, (as usual,) to save half the fuel and render treble the
service of any other; yet I was not able to designate any one of them as
particularly meritorious, nor did the Jury on this department award a
premium to any. All seems yet crude and infantile in this field of
invention. Yet the study of the various models and contrivances for
Gas-burning there presented, fixed me in the novel faith that Gas is
ultimately to be not only the main agent of illumination but the chief
fuel also of all cities and villages; that the time is at hand when the
head of a family, the solitary lodger, requiring either heat or light,
will simply touch a bell in his own room and be supplied with the
indicated quantity of Gas, whether for culinary purposes, for warmth,
for light, or altogether; and that thus the cost, the trouble, the dust,
of making fires in all parts of a building, carrying fuel thither and
removing ashes therefrom, will be obviated; and a single fire,
constantly maintained, subserve admirably the purpose of them all,
saving the labor and cost of five hundred wasteful kindlings and
clearings, beside affording heat at the moment it is wanted, and
stopping its consumption the instant the want is satisfied.
This is but one among a thousand noiseless agencies constantly preaching
the advantages and economies of Combination, and indicating the
certainty that through Coöperation lies the way whereby Labor is to
emerge from bondage, anxiety and need into liberty and assured
competence. This truth, long apparent to the eye of Reason, threatens to
be made palpable even to stolidity and stagnation by the sharp spur of
Necessity. Rude, rugged Labor must organize itself for its appointed
task of production, or it will soon have nothing to do. It must
concentrate its energies for the creation of commodious and economical
homes, or it will have no home but the Union Work-house. It must save
and combine its earnings, for the purchase and command of Machinery; or
Machinery, owned by and working for Capital alone, will reduce it to
insignificance, want, and despair.
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