If they were fortunate enough to live in a natural-gas boomtown like Muncie in the 1890s, where it was thought that the supply of the stuff was inexhaustible, subscribers had only to pay for the installation of the fixture; there was no attempt to meter the gas and charge for the amount used. it was considered cheaper to have the gas on all the time - opening windows and doors when it became too hot - than to waste a match relighting it.

---Richard Lingeman, Small Town America: a Narrative History