How to reuse a connection across multiple HTTP requests using Net :: HTTP?

The documentation says:

If you want to reuse a connection across multiple HTTP requests without automatically closing it, you can use :: new instead of :: start. the request will automatically open a connection to the server if it is not open. You can manually close the connection and terminate.

But that ::start

sounds like a way to reuse a connection, right? Also, how can I check if the connection is open or still open?