Let us suppose the case of a household of ten persons, but which in the ordinary course of English hospitality _sometimes_ entertains twice that number. What do we find in the kitchen arrangements? Simply that there is one fireplace suited for the maximum requirements, _i.e._, sufficient for twenty, even though that number may not be entertained more than half a dozen times in the course of a year. To cook a few rashers of bacon, boil a few eggs, and boil a kettle of water for breakfast, a fire sufficient to cook for a dinner party of twenty is at work. This is kept on all day long, because it is just possible that the master of the house may require a glass of grog at bedtime. There may be dampers and other devices for regulating this fire, but such regulation, even if applied, does very little so long as the capacity of the grate remains, and as a matter of ordinary fact the dampers and other regulating devices are neglected altogether; the kitchen fire is blazing and roaring to waste from 6 or 7 A.M. to about midnight, in order to do about three hours and a half work, _i.e._, the dinner for ten, and a nominal trifle for the other meals. In Rumford’s kitchens, such as those he built for the Baron de Lerchenfeld and for the House of Industry at Munich, the kitchener is a solid block of masonry of work-bench height at top, and with a deep bay in the middle, wherein the cook stands surrounded by his boilers, steamers, roasters, ovens, etc., all within easy reach, each one supplied by its own separate fire of very small dimensions, and carefully closed with non-conducting doors. Each fire is lighted when required, charged with only the quantity of fuel necessary for the work to be done, and then extinguished or allowed to die out. It is true that Rumford used wood, which is more easily managed in this way than coal. If we worked as he did, we might use wood likewise, and in spite of its very much higher price do our cooking at half its present cost. This would effect not merely “smoke abatement” but “smoke extinction” so far as cooking is concerned. But the lighting of fires is no longer a troublesome and costly process as in the days of halfpenny bundles of firewood. To say nothing of the improved fire-lighters, we have gas everywhere, and nothing is easier than to fix or place a suitable Bunsen or solid flame burner under each of the fireplaces (an iron gaspipe, perforated _below_ to avoid clogging, will do), and in two or three minutes the coals are in full blaze; then the gas may be turned off. The writer has used such an arrangement in his study for some years past, and starts his fire in full blaze in three minutes quite independent of all female interference.