American inventions and inventors . could always be found thesnuffers —a singular instrument, something like a pair of scissors, with a small semi-circular pocket in which tohold the snuff taken fromthe candle. Let us imagine an earlyNew England family on awinters evening sitting be-fore the blazing fire of theopen fireplace. They aregathered around a smalltable upon which is a soli-tary candle, giving a feeble,sickly flame. By its lightthe mother is sewing andthe father is reading fromthe Bible, The PilgrimsProgress, or it may beBacons Essays, or Lockeon the children are lis
American inventions and inventors . could always be found thesnuffers —a singular instrument, something like a pair of scissors, with a small semi-circular pocket in which tohold the snuff taken fromthe candle. Let us imagine an earlyNew England family on awinters evening sitting be-fore the blazing fire of theopen fireplace. They aregathered around a smalltable upon which is a soli-tary candle, giving a feeble,sickly flame. By its lightthe mother is sewing andthe father is reading fromthe Bible, The PilgrimsProgress, or it may beBacons Essays, or Lockeon the children are listeningand trying to get interestedin what is being read tothem, while occasionally one or another of them snuffsthe little candle. By and by the candle burns down tothe socket, and goes out. The mother rises and goes to thepantry to get another, but finds to her dismay that she hasused her last one. The family must therefore see by thelight of the fire or retire for the night, and to-morrow thegoodwife must dip some more READING BY CANDLELIGHT LIGHT—CANDLES. 71 When the children go to bed they have no brightly burn-ing lamp to light them to their several bedrooms, but theyclimb the ladder to the open, unfinished loft with no lightexcept what comes to them from the embers upon the the father covers up the coals with a great body of ashes,hoping to keep the fire till morning. What a marked con-trast between the life of those people and the customs ofto-day in the same country and among the grandchildrenand the great-grandchildren of those same pioneer settlers! In the colonial days for an evening service the churchesmust be lighted with candles. Occasionally you will findeven now in some ancient church the antique candelabra orchandelier. Sometimes in wealthy churches these weremade of glass, and were of beautiful construction. In the oldmeeting-house of the first Baptist church in Providence, RhodeIsland, which was founded by Roger Williams and others i
Size: 1215px × 2057px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpubli, booksubjectinventions
