The care of the beds is the next item on our list. The Roadtown
sleeping-room will in the daytime have the appearance of a sitting-room
or library. One essential piece of furniture will be a couch or divan
with good springs upholstered with fire proof material. Plush, leather
and linen divan and chair covers will be used alternately to suit the
seasons and varying requirements. The divan forms the foundation of the
bed. The bedding including a light pad or mattress will be made about
a foot longer than is customary. At the foot this bedding and pad will
be fastened together by a metal clasp, or “bedding hanger” on the order
of a trousers-hanger. In the morning instead of making up the bed--that
is, carefully folding up all the germs and foul odors, the bed will be
suspended by the hanger in an adjoining fresh air closet. By reversing
the action of the rod supporting the bedding, which describes an arc
over the unfolded divan, the bedding is spread neatly in place--the
bed is made. This closet in which the bedding hangs freely exposed
to the air has one side, or rather edge, against the outside wall of
the building. This wall space will be formed of shutters which admit
of free circulation of air, thus the bed is aired _every day_ and _all
day_. But there are certain species of “germs,” as every housekeeper
can testify, that will survive this fresh air device, for them another
provision will be made. This closet will be piped for a certain kind
of gas which will be selected by the Roadtown biologist. At stated
intervals the outside shutters will be tightly closed as well as door
of the closet and the bedding fumigated instead of aired. This method
can also be used to disinfect clothing.
There will be few rats or mice in the Roadtown home, for there will be
little food left around to attract them, and no places for them to gnaw
through or build their nests. In the average city building used for
factory purposes, the damage from rats and vermin, I am told, is often
over 10 per cent of the gross sales.
_Coöperative Cooking Practical._
Coöperative cooking, in spite of the first natural antipathy, has
gained considerable ground in city life. We find it in two forms, the
dining-out habit and the delicatessen habit. The first is expensive of
time and money, and destroys the most delightful hours of home life.
The second is likewise expensive and results in a diet consisting
chiefly of bread, cheese, cold meat and pickles. The weakness in both
systems is in the matter of imperfect transportation. In the first case
the people must be taken to the food, and hence out of the home. In the
second, the food must be brought into the home by a system of delivery
that greatly increases expense and limits the quality, quantity, and
variety of the available meal. The Roadtown, built in the one straight
horizontal line, will make possible the use of a mechanical delivery
system which is not now available even for hotel service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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