The enduring debate over whether the toilet paper should go over or under the roll is at last settled with the emergence of an 1891 patent design of the modern toilet roll.
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As old as modernity, the argument known to tear couples asunder has been settled by 124-year-old visual evidence
The Toilet Paper Roll patent, registered by Seth Wheeler of New York in 1891, clearly shows that the paper should go over the roll, not under.
The picture was discovered by writer Owen WIlliams and posted on Twitter on March 17.
"Be it known that I, Seth Wheeler, of the city and county of Albany, and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Toilet-Paper Rolls," the patent begins.
With the toilet paper issue now settled, people will be able to concentrate on other important First World arrangement problems such as double-ply or triple, should the milk or the tea be poured first, or whether socks or pants should be put on first.
The patent for toilet paper should settle the over vs under debate
pic.twitter.com/arZl6l6ALn — Owen Williams (@ow)
March 17, 2015
Along with the roll itself, Wheeler also introduced another great convenience: perforations.
"My invention consists of a roll of connected sheets of paper for toilet use, said roll having incisions at intervals extending from the side of the web toward the center, but not meeting, and terminating in an angular out, whereby the slight connection left may be separated without injury to the connected sheets," the patent said.
Wheeler was chief of the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company. Originally the perforation was invented for what was euphemistically called "wrapping paper" and the concept was patented some 20 years before the modern roll, in 1871.
And it was not an easy development, confirmed by the patent letter.
"A difficulty with rolls of this character as heretofore manufactured has been due to the width of the bond uniting the sheets, which it has been necessary to make of considerable strength to Withstand the tension of winding, but which it is desirable should be as trail as may be [sic] when the roll is unwound, otherwise the sheets do not separate with certainty and many of them are torn."
But the advantages of the new invention were great.
"With this construction one sheet may be separated from the next without liability of the incisions turning in a direction parallel with the web and tearing off a considerable part of the contiguous sheet. At the same time I wind rolls containing any desired number of sheets," Mr Wheeler's patent said.
The rest, as they say, is history.
