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

Turning Night Into Day

The problem of some better fuel for illumination was still unsolved. But instead of looking for something new they tried to improve what they had. They found out that, in place of the soft, greasy tallow candles, they could make nice hard candles, candles that wouldn't soil one's hands, wouldn't sputter when they burned, and wouldn't smoke. All that was necessary was to purify the tallow, or rather to separate out its best and firmest part, stearine.

Tallow consists of several things: glycerine and fatty acids. And the fatty acids are not all the same! Some of them are hard, this is stearine. Some of them are soft, this is olein. To extract the stearine from the tallow one must first of all get out the glycerine. To do this the tallow is boiled in water and sulphuric acid. The fatty acids float to the top, leaving the glycerine at the bottom. The stearine is then squeezed out from the olein in presses. Hard cakes of stearine are obtained, and this is melted and molded into candles.

Stearine candles were invented in France. Soon stearine factories sprang up all over Europe. Here in Russia a stearine factory was started in St. Petersburg, the Nevski Stearine Works. It is still in operation.

People were delighted with the new candles. And no wonder. Just compare them with the old tallow and wax candles. Hear what V. L. Petrovski, brother of the famous revolutionist, Sophie Perovskaya, has to say about the new stearine candles:

In those days rooms were lighted in the evening by tallow candles. Even on card-tables lights of this kind were placed. To snuff off the charred ends of the wicks there were special snuffers, lying on a tray. Often the snuffers and the tray were both of silver. We also sat and worked in our rooms by such lights.

Once my father went to Petersburg on official business and brought home with him a novelty, a whole box of stearine candles. On our next holiday, the fourth of December, mother's name-day, we gave a ball. The dancing-hall and all the other rooms were lighted by these stearine candles, placed in candelabra and wall brackets. The effect was tremendous and our party was crowded with people eager to see the new kind of illumination.

There is a picture in an old magazine representing two stearine candles as an elegantly dressed couple, standing proudly in the center of the scene, with big candles on their heads. At the right stands an untidy-looking shoemaker with a tallow candle on his head. The tallow is dripping on his ragged clothes and hanging like icicles from his nose. At the left is a liveried servant with a wax candle. Both the wax and the tallow candles are smoking horribly, while the stearine ones are burning bright and clear.