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THE FALL OF THE KITCHEN

Mrs. Peattie Writes of the Mournful Decay of That Household Feature.

The Change in Home Life Has Revolutionized One of the Sweet Visions of the Past.

From time to time one reads elegant but pessimistic articles in the magazines concerning the decay of the drawing rooms. There is a unanimous opinion among the writers of these articles that the "grande dames" are all dead -- like the doges -- that conversation is a lost art and that "society" has perished, and given place to a mere aggregation of well dressed persons who bore each other.

All this may be so, but it has never impressed me so much as the indubitable fact of the decay of the kitchens. There are in our houses, to be sure, certain rooms that we call kitchens. They have there the improved conveniences for [?] in domestic work. They are equipped with coal stove or gas range. They have a zink, with faucets of hot and cold water. They have stationary tubs, drains, ventilators, they are lit by gas or electricity, and they have in them electric bells, speaking tubs, [solled?] clothes shafts, dumb waiters, and patent appliances for adjusting the furnace dampers without moving from the room.

Now and then some of us venture to go into them. We do not have a cordial welcome. The neat Swede looks at us suspiciously, and seems to put herself on the aggressive. We are smiling and more or less apologetic, and we get out as soon as consistent with dignity and the well being of the menu for the day's dinner. These kitchens are usually very clean. The Swede women keep them well scrubbed. They face the insidious cockroach, and the vivacious red ant with indignant courage and drive them from the field. They consume our art journals for paper for the shelves, and wash and iron like angels of the third heaven. We are grateful, and let them off every night of the week and two afternoons out of seven. But the kitchen, all the same, has come to seem like a foreign country, where another language than the one we know is spoken, and where foreign manners obtain.