>I have seen in the basements of other peoples' houses the remains of the
>original electrical system: two cloth-covered wires about a foot apart
>running on ceramic insulators. No earth ground...

I remember seeing wiring like this in a historical house in (I think) South
Dakota. Ceramic insulators about every foot which clamped wires with about a
2 to 3 inch spacing. Almost a safer wiring system than some modern stuff.

A guy I know went to India to rewire a school where his sister worked. He
said the wiring there was shocking. A wire would start from the fuseboard as
one colour, get extended at some point with a different colour, another
extension with whatever else happened to be around, possibly of yet another
colour, so by the time the connection reached its destination there could be
almost every possible colour of wire used, and you could not count on the
destination colour being correct. He also tested every cut-out He was
getting from the local store, and each day was doing a trip to replace the
next failed batch.

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