The Amman Valley Chronicle and East Carmarthen News

THRIFT IN THE HOME. MORE CARE MEANS LESS COST. U Here is the, gas bill, dear." The gas bill? Let's have a look, then Great heavens! It's positively scandalous! Biest if I won't sue the Com- pany for gross swindling! Why, if I'd left the study gas fire on all night every night this quarter irsiead of only twice last week, it couldn't possibly come to so much And so on, and so forth. That is a typical bit of'dialogue, e\n to-day: the gas company and the gas meter are always to blame, never the consumer's carelessness. Yet it is an undoubted fact that the majority of people do not even yet understand how to use their gas apparatus in such a way as at once to pay smaller bills and get greater value for their money. Waste the Criminal. It is waste which is responsible for ex- cessive gas bi-lls; to waste gas is simply throwing money away, and householders will discover no more effective way of pro- secuting the national thrift campaign in their own homes than by checking such waste. The first rule is to have all ap- pliances of the best—the best is the cheap- est in the end-and to have them kept in good order. tClogged burners, broken radiants and mantles all waste heat, and therefore money; whereas, for a merely nominal sum the gas company will arrang e for periodir:;1 and r-gular visits of inspec- tion and repair i'fom experienced gas-fitters. The next rule is always to turn the gas out or down when it is not required; matches and tapers for relighting do not cost much. Cart In the Kitohen. The kitchen people are perhaps the great- est offenders in this respect, although even the master of the house himself is not infallible; cooks are apt to cling to the habit, learnt over a coal fire, of pulling the pot aside "—and leaving the gas flar- ing, bien entendu. Again, to use on a gas cooker vessels that have gathered a coating of soot from a coal fire-no better non- conductor of heat can be imagined-is equivalent to paying three halfpence for every pennyworth of gas consumed. A polished surface is a far better conductor of heat than a dirty one; for this reason it is money well spent, and saved in the end, to invest in polished block tin or aluminium vessels-and to keep them polished. It should not be forgotten that it is highly economical to make use of steamers," wnich, purchaseable with from three to six compartments, can cook the whole of a dinner over one gas burner. Oven Economy. I A thermometer to record the temperature of the gas oven would teach the cook many things she does not, usually, know, and chiefly, that when once the oven is suf- ficiently hot there is no need to keep the burners full on to maintain the tempera- ture, This is due to the fact that the modern gas oven is lined with heat ab- sorbent material, which takes in heat slowly and gives it out again when required. Custards and milk puddings, for instance, can be cooked in an oven that has just been used, with the gas turned very low indeed, or even quite out. When once the oven has been heated it should be well used; it is not economical to heat it for one or two small dishes. A joint and pastry can be cooked together, and shourd the former require ii hours to roast, the two upper shelves can be filled twice. The use of casseroles and fireproof china is greatly to be recommended from the point of view of economy; they have to be put into a cold oven to start with, and the gas never turned more than half on, while they preserve the flavour and nutriment of the food better than metal saucepans. Practical Science in the Home. When the grilling burner is used, more heat is deflected downwards, and better use made of the whole amount, if the top plate immediately above it is utilised. Shallow- kettles with square bases of the right size can be bought for this purpose, and boil very easily. It has, moreover, been found from actual experience that a metal ring an inch in depth and an inch or so smaller than the kettle, and provided with notches in its upper edge to allow the products of combustion to escape, if placed between a kettle and a boiling burner, adds materially to the latter's heating efficiency; by this means a quart of water will boil in from one to one-and-a-quarter minutes quicker than in the ordinary way. No less heat is imparted to a kettle by so lowering the flame that it covers the bottom only. Flame flaring up around the sides means money spent to waste. Comfort with Cheapness. All valid objections, from the point of view of hygiene and economy alike, to the use of a gas fire have been dissipated by the improvements effected during recent years in the burners and the fuel, and to- day 25 per cent. more heat together with 25 per cent. less cost is obtainable from a modern ifre. Who should grumble at the cost, seeing that a ten-inch fire consumes only a pennyworth of gas per hour ? This is as cheap as the gas water-heater, which provides a hot bath for the same sum. It is useless, however, to expect the best and most economical results from a gas fire which is started without attention after it has accumulated an idle season's dust. This causes loss 01 radiant heat and some- times objectionable smells. I Look to Yourself. I Gas properly used means economy with comfort, the minimum of expense with the maximum of result; and those who con- demn it should first look to themselves to discover whether they are beiftg careless or extravagant in its use. A fair trial is all that is necessary to vindicate it.

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Elementary Education. SUPPLY AND SALARIES OF TEACHERS. [By Sir JAMES YOXALL, M.P.] Unrest among teachers is becoming openly grave. The plain, blunt, eloquent letters £ s. d. express the situation; teachers are determined to demand arr.eiiora icn of the sufferings caused them through £ s. d. The war and its prolongation have brought wealth io rrany thousands in the com- munity, and better wages to many millions; to teachers nothing in that respect has come, but the contrary— anxiety, privation, poverty, and in some cases absolute want. Teachers live upon fixed incomes, always small and never adequate to their worth, work or position; during the war these incomes have remained fixed, while taxes, the claims of giving, and the prices of commodities have not. In primary and in secondary schools alike the teachers not called to the Colours have had to work harder in school, with scanty supplies of material, and under more un favourable conditions than ever before; to save taxes, the Education Estimates have been scraped and pared; to save rates, supplies of books, stationery and staff have been skimped and starved. The estimates have been kept down, and the rates have been actually lowered, in places by several d.' in the i., Yet only a few Local Authorities have improved the salary scale or granted an" s." in war bonus, and in some cases the bonus is illusory and mean. The war has hit the teachers' pockets and made their work more difficult, as well as more un- remunerative than before. This has been borne by teachers with patience and patriotic abnegation; but it has been borne quite long enough, and probably too long. The fire is catching the heather; the unrest is becoming grave. When the war began, the Executive sug- gested to the branches of the National Union of Teachers that the steps then afoot for procuring improvements in scales of salary should be sus- pended, and out of patriotic feeling that was done. The Executive has now resolved to re-open the campaign for improvement of salary for teachers, and to carry it on with all the energy and by all right means that can be used. It will now be seen whether it is practicable for the Board of Educa- tion to treat the supply of teachers as something quite apart from the pay of teachers, and whether a Local Educa- tion Authority here, there, and yonder can continue to put on that air of bland ignorance with which so many of them have watched the condition of the teachers in their schools; as a rule, they have done nothing to ease the disabilities and anxieties of the rren and women who do the work whch Education Authorities are charged to have done and carried on. At a period when women untrained for any avocation are earning money every- where for the first time, by default of available men, the pay of women teachers has stood at its former level. Among men teachers, 40 per cent. of the headmasters and 50 per cent. of the class masters are receiving less than £ 150 a year. Puddlers and mechanics are making as much in a week as these teachers do in a month; boys of 14 are earning as much as some certifi- cated teachers. Teachers are busy as honorary secretaries for War Savings Associations, garnering in for the nation the surplus of wages two or three times as much as the teachers' own pay. These discrepancies cannot rightly continue; they ought to come to an end; if teachers act collectively and energetically they will. I f the Board of Education and, the Local Education Authorities can con- template the depopulation of schools, the stripping of schools of staff, ap- pliances and material, and the depar- ture of boys of tender age into indus- trial occupations ignorant, it is hardly a duty for the teachers any longer to strive to fill up this great gap in the dyke themselves. If rates and taxes are so much more important than schools, teachers and education, why carry the schools on at all ? I f the Board of Education and the Local Authorities will not, or at any rate do not, act in a way which shews under- standing and consideration in the mat- ter, without pressure being brought upon them to understand and con- sider, then pressure must be brought. Railway servants have received, in two bonuses, relief from the present high cost of living to the extent of 8s. per week per servant. We know that this is said to come out of the national coffers, and not out of the share- holders' pockets, but that is immaterial; we know that railway servants could make the transport service of this country a ruin, and that teachers could net if they would. What we now ask, however, is that the Board of Education should shew as much solici- tude in this affair as the Board of Trade did in the other, and that if Local Education Authorities do not, not to say will not, ameliorate the teachers' hard lot, that the Board of Education should so act as to com- pellingly enable them to do so. The present state of things cannot go on. That the costs of war can be paid for by the cheeseparings of peace is one of the foolish dreams of large ratepayers; not even the total closing of schools could redress the balance perceptibly. It is a dream to suppose that the schools can be carried on on the cheap, and what can be said of the fitness of members of Education Committees who propose to save the country financially by skimping the country's schools? That way Jies national downfall. Out of the present national and Imperial crisis, the fifth in our long history, great national and Imperial good may come; but it is not the final crisis of the kind. and it may even not be the penult imate crisis. The sarre arts that did gain a power must it maintain." So Marvell warned his country, ancr-who will say that it is not the schools which had prepared this country to save itself, and the world, by the vast effort which began in August, 1914? Yet we are now well on the way to become a hooligan nation, for a whole generation of the populace. Starved schools are not the worst and most fateful element in the prospect; half-starved teachers are not the worst and most ill-boding element in it; the worst and most fatal feature in the prospect is that before very long there will be no supply of teachers for the schools. That the supply of men teachers has been dwindling has been known for years; now and henceforth the supply of women teachers will dwindle also. It is now no longer the case that teach- ing offers the best opportunity of em- ployment to certain classes of girls. The war has altered all that; girls can now choose between a dozen avoca- tions hitherto thought to be employ- ment for boys and men only; do not the Board and the Local Education Authorities perceive this? If they do, what are they planning to meet this great difficulty which impends? Hundreds of men who left their schools to fight in this war are dead; perhaps thousands of others will, be- cause they fall, or because they have learnt a more excellent way of livelihood, not return to their schools. What are the Board and-the Educa- tion Authorities going to do in this matter? There is but one remedy. They know that as well as we do. The only way to keep up a supply of teachers is to make the profession of teaching better worth while. It has ceased to be worth while. If no adequate quantity of teachers can be obtained, quality in teachers will be- come a thing that can no longer be taken into consideration. Standards of examination will be lowered, and the half-trained and makeshift will be- come the one stand-by. What of the schools then? What of the effect on the populace? There is but one remedy, or else the schools must close.

To Deaf People. FRENCH ORLENE absolutely cures deafness and noises in the head, no matter how severe or long-standing the case may be. Hundreds of per- sons whose cases were supposed to be incurable have been permanently cured by this new remedy. This wonderful preparation goes direct to the actual seat of the trouble, and one Box is ample to effectually cure any ordinary case. MRS. ROWE, of PORTLAND CRESENT. LEEDS, says; The Orlene has com- pletely cured me after 12 years' suffering." Miss. FRANCIS, of BRAD- FORD ST., BIRMINGHAM, says:- "Yournewremedy has been the means of cur- ing my mother's deafness after being a sufferer for nearly 26 years. It is indeed a splendid preparation. and she wishes me to convey to you her heartfelt thanks." MRS. WILDE, of Grosvenor ST., BELFAST, says:— "I am delighted 1 tried the new 'Orlene,' for the head- noises ceased almost at once, and the hearing has returned, enabl!ng me to hear ordinary conversation quite easily. MR. JOHN MAYNARD, of ROSE ST., GLASGOW. says: "After spending nearly;i 50 on various so-called 'cures, it is wonderful to find my- self completely cured at such a trifling cost The 'Orlene' is indeed a splen- did remedy." PW Every sufferer should try this new remedy, for there is nothing better at any price. PRICE 2/9 PER Box, post free, with full directions. Addresa:ORLENE' Co., 10, South View, Watlin Street, Dartford, Kent, England. Please mention this paper.

I Prohibition Campaign. TEMPERANCE COUNCIL FOR WALES. An important conference (convened by Sir J. Herbert Roberts, M.P.) of representatives of the leading temper- ance organisations in North and South Wales was held at Shrewsbury. The Bishop of Uandaff, in a general survey of the situation, pointed out the imperative necessity of making an effort to secure greater restrictions of the liquor traffic. He said, in his opinion, this was of vital importance towards winning a victory in the colossal struggle in which they were engaged. It was decided to request the chair- man and the Bishop of Llandaff to convey the views of the conference to the Control Board with reference to the necessity for the total closing of public-houses in Wales for all busi- ness during prohibited hours, and also with reference to the delivery of spirits and the flagon trade. It was also un- animously decided to press for a fur- ther restriction of hours under the Order. The question of prohibition for the duration of the war was carefully con- sidered, and evidence submitted as to the petition campaign. It was pointed out that four County Councils in North Wales had passed resolutions in favour of prohibition for the duration of the war, and that it was confidently ex- pected that other Welsh councils would follow their example. The unanimous opinion of the con- ference was in favour of taking steps to convince the Government of the necessity for prohibition for the period of the war, and the chairman and the Bishop of Llandaff were requested to convey this opmion to the Prime Minister. On the motion of Archdeacon Buckley, Llandaff, it was resolved that those present should constitute a Central Consultative Temperance Council for Wales, with power to add to their number.

National Fund for Welsh Troops. In consequence of the pressing need for adequate office accommodation for the staff of the Prime Minister's new departments at 10, Downing Street, it has been found necessary to remove the offices and depot of the National Fund for Welsh Troops to 57 & 58, CHANCERY LANE, W.C., to which address all correspondence and consignments of comforts should henceforth be sent. The Committee meetings will' con- tinue to be held at Downing Street. The Committee is much encouraged by the enthusiastic response to the recent appeal by the Countess of Plymouth and Mrs. Lloyd George that a special Flag Day effort should be made on behalf of Welsh Troops on next St. David's Day. Not only in Wales has this movement been taken up, but also by various English towns. The London effort, with the Lord Mayor at its head, is receiving the hearty co-operation and sympathy of the Mayors of the Metropolitan Boroughs, and a very successful issue is anticipated. In Manchester the Lord Mayor is President, and the Mayor of Sal ford is Vice-president of a similar effort, which promises equally well. The Tramways Committee at Manchester has been good enough to allow a week' s collection in all the tramcars under its control. It is ex- pected that official consent to the hold- ing of a Welsh Flag Day will be given in several other large towns in England. The demands upon the fund this winter have been much heavier than ever before, and the Committee is glad to be able to report that it has, through' the generous support of the public,; been able to meet every reasonable re- quisition received for comforts of every kind. Under the War Charities Act, 1916, the accounts of the fund have been audited by Messrs. Whinneyr Smith and Whinney, chartered accoun- tants, and have been approved of by the Registration Authority. As soon as practicable after the close of the 1917 Flag Day movement, a full statement of receipts and expenditure, together with a list of all subscriptions and donations, &c., will be issued.

Some of the ifnest salmon in the River Teify, one of the best salmon rivers in the Principality, are being washed up dead on the meadows, the victims of the icy water. Not for 30 years has a similar result of wintry; weather been recorded on the Teify,