The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Turning Night Into Day

At the time of the appearance of gas light, oil lamps had reached such a state of perfection that all the inventors of gas burners had to do was to adapt them to the new uses.

Gas made as much of an impression on people in those days as the invention of radio and aero plane did in our day. It was the talk of the time. They wrote in the newspapers: "Day and night one can keep a fire burning in the room without having to give it the least attention. It can be suspended from the ceiling and lights up the whole room and doesn't have to have a candlestick to cast a big shadow, and it doesn't smoke at all."

In the humorous periodicals of the day one finds many verses, cartoons, and caricatures about gas lighting. In one of these caricatures there is a fashionable lady with a dirty beggar woman standing beside her. In place of a head, the lady has on her shoulders a brilliant gas light—the beggar woman has an oil lamp. In another picture there is a gas lamp dancing about on slender legs near an ugly sputtering tallow candle. Under this candle, as if under a tree, there are two figures seated: an old man with a book in his hand and an old lady knitting a sock. They are evidently making a great effort to do their work by the dim candle light. Melted tallow is dripping down on their heads.

Now all large cities have gas works. The gas is taken along the streets through underground pipes, like water pipes. The only difference is that a water tank is always placed as high up as possible so that the water will have pressure enough to reach the upper stories of the houses; while the gas plants are always built in the lowest part of the city. Gas is very light and goes up more easily than it goes down.

Illumination is not the only thing for which gas is used. Gas cook-stoves are in common use both in foreign countries and here (in Russia).

A Swell, a Shoemaker, and a Lackey

For some time after gas lamps were burned in the streets, houses were still as dark as ever. It was too expensive to light houses with gas. And the oil lamps and tallow candles burned wretchedly. They say that the writer Belinski used to have an oil lamp standing on his work-table but that he never lighted it, because he couldn't bear the smell of the burning oil. He always worked by the light of two candles.