pluto lamps (13. 867)

Via fellow internet caretaker, Messy Nessy’s Cabinet, we learn that for the 1897 Great Exhibition of London an inventor by the name of H M Robinson installed a number of gas street lights with a vending machine built into the base of them—dispensing everything from a hot cup of tea, beef broth, hot cocoa to cigarettes and postcards—the company variously known about town as the “Hot Water Supply Syndicate” or the “Refreshment Lamp Syndicate.” Some models further contained a telegraph relay connected to Scotland Yard for police use. Within the space of three years, however, locals got wise to the fact that a slug could be substituted for half-pennies and the innovative concessionaires were unceremoniously dismantled and nearly forgotten about with such conveniences uncommon for decades afterwards.