The fault of most fires is that they do not warm the room, while they do drain the pocket. Modern science is seeking to provide a thin, vertical fire, about four or five inches from back to front, which presents in fact the smallest possible face to the chimney and the largest to the room, thus economising fuel and gaining heat. How to keep such a fire from going out, and how to make the surrounding machinery picturesque, is, I think, hardly yet a fait accompli. Most people are giving up the large circular burnished eyesores which drive a conscientious housemaid wild, and yet at present this kind of stove, well filled, throws out the most warmth. It does so, however, only at a cost repugnant to intelligence - the waste of two-thirds of the heat of the fuel. This waste is not innocuous either, it clogs the chimney with soot, it smothers the furniture with blacks, it burns down the house, and it sows death broadcast in the heavy brown fogs which exist upon the fatal union of damp with coal-smoke. It ought to be a stringent law that every household, like every factory in town, should consume its own smoke; but until we can get that law passed it is a duty owed to something else than our pocket, to diminish what goes up the chimney or utilise it for its proper purpose, warmth within-doors.

The new anthracite coal promises to help us, but is hardly yet sufficiently manageable or sufficiently cheap to be recommended.

The greater the draught through the fire, the less heat naturally passes into the room. Some stoves will roar themselves hoarse, and yet their much cry betokens little wool - they throw out no heat, and devour ceaseless scuttles of coal; others smoulder sulkily all day, though pampered with fuel, and will not even roar.

A certain basket-shaped stove -that used to be in vogue in fashionable houses certainly throws out a good deal of heat; it is shallow, and the surface presented to the room is broad, being mainly the summit of the fire; the draught is so managed as to carry the smoke up the chimney, although this is set considerably backward. The Norwich stove, which so many people have fled to a sure refuge, is moderately successful - not more.

It throws out heat fairly well when filled high, and it certainly economises fuel, because the bottom of the grate is solid. The 'Country Parson's Grate ' is better, because it is wider and less deep, and made otherwise on the same principle: thus the ideal of the thin vertical fire is more nearly realised.

Norwich stoves have a certain prim quaintness- of build, which accords prettily with some artistic rooms; but the fashions of bleak, level, precise Norwich, like all the fashions of the Empire time, are less to be recommended for beauty or pleasantness than for their temporary novelty, and the blessed release they offer from curves in convulsions. The flat sides of this class of stove, whether 'Parson's' or 'Norwich,' may be covered with tiles of any design or colour, modern or antique (Dutch blue seem to go very well with any kind of decoration), and if the stove itself is brazen, not black, the colouring is decidedly bright and pretty. But the brass, like all things modern, is not meant to last long, and the trouble of keeping it clean is ill-repaid by its surface giving way in a disagreeably short time. Black is, therefore, to be preferred, and costs less every way.

Were it not that the beauty of a burning fire is too valuable to get rid of, even from the aesthetic point of view, I would recommend gas stoves and hot pipes as far more comfortable, after the American fashion. A big fire is either so hot that you cannot sit beside it - and to sit anywhere else seems inconsistent when there is a fire - or else it has a way of toasting bits of you and leaving the other bits in the power of 'Jack Frost' It is horrible to have a cold nose and a burninghand; it is more horrible to have a burning nose and cold hands. Fried toes alone are small comfort, so is one hot ear, yet it is really not possible to be equally warm all round beside a fire.

The ideal condition of things would probably be a small fire whereby one can sit sociably, whilst the rest of the room is moderately warmed by pipes. Moderately, I say advisedly, since most people who use pipes accustom themselves to a temperature which is very apt to cause congestion of the lungs on entering it after a cold walk. In my opinion, a sitting-room over 550 Fahrenheit is unhealthy, and extremely likely to induce colds. .

Builders have very little regard to either comfort or health in their machinations (by-the-bye, how often the builder and plumber 'undertake funerals!'). In two things they are incorrigible - scamping the drains and making the door opposite the fire.

The economic similarity of London houses often makes this latter plan necessary, and in such cases screens and portibres ought to be largely used. People often wonder how it is that they catch cold while sitting by the fire, and they seldom consider that the door is either at right angles or opposite to the stove, so that a draught, always created by a fire, exactly catches them. Children, too, often escape colds for weeks in a nursery when a fire has not yet been admitted; directly fires are begun, colds are rampant; this is caused by the draught which is created by the fire. Here pipes again offer a solution of the mystery how to be warm.

Gas might be more used than it is for kitchens, as well as rooms where fires are only occasionally wanted; and probably when the electric light comes into popular use, such stoves will be the sole refuge of the gas companies.

I consider most of the asbestos fires a delusion and a snare, but it is not the fault of gas or asbestos, but of the purveyors who advertise them at a certain price but treble it in fitting, which renders such fires far more expensive than most ordinary ones; at least such is my experience.

They do not throw out heat correspondingly with their ill odour and propensity to get out of order, and undoubtedly they burn unlimited quantities of gas.

Properly fitted and managed, however, gas ought to be far more economic than coal, as the stove can take up less room and the entire heat may be more easily utilised. Soyer says he roasted a whole ox for the Royal Agricultural Society's banquet in 1850 at a cost of less than 5s. for gas, within a space of 6 ft. 6 in. in length by 3 ft. 3 in. wide, a few bricks and a few sheets of iron, with 216 small jets of gas coming through 1/2 inch pipes, representing the whole apparatus.

Close gas stoves are much used in France, where people are thrifty, and close stoves of every kind are of course more economical than our open fire-places. Kitchen stoves on the principle of the Leamington ranges are recommended in all books upon cheap and good cookery, as very little fuel is needed; the fuel may be of the cheapest kind, there is no fear of spoiling the provisions by falling soot, or smoke getting under the lids, and the cooking utensils required are not many.

The best stoves for warming rooms are George's Calo-rigen, which are made with a double pipe, for the purpose of (1) carrying the foul air up the chimney or elsewhere, and (2) admitting fresh air, which it warms during admission, the true secret of good ventilation.