Suck, Don't Blow | 
“He patented his vacuum cleaner in 1901 and launched the British Vacuum Cleaner Company to market Puffing Billy, as it was called. It was an impressive horse-drawn red box on wheels, like a fire engine, tended by uniformed men who did the cleaning. The petrol-powered engine sucked dust through several hundred feet of flexible tubes, which could be passed through high windows.”
