THE NEW TURKISH BATHS.

Press, Volume XL, Issue 5904, 15 August 1884, Page 3

THE NEW TURKISH BATHS.

Cleanliness, we are told, is next in the rank of virtues to godliness, and if this be bo, all should welcome any addition to the means of practising bo estimable a virtue. Thus,, no doubt, the fact that Messrs Fisher and Wallis are about to start the Oriental Turkish Baths on what the playbills would call a scale of unexampled magnificence, will be highly appreciated by the general public. The site of the proposed baths is a well chosen one, being in Cashel street, aeit the Kaiapoi Woollen Factory. They extend back. 60ft into Bedford Bow, with a frontage of 33ft to Cashel street, and will be built of brick. On the Cashel street frontage is a hairdresser's shop, 20 x 9. The entrance is from Cashel street, leading into a spacious hall, on one side of which is the ticket office. From tke hall a passage 3ft 9in wide runs the depth of the building. The visitor, after having gone through a little necessary formality at the pay-office will then proceed to the dressing rooms, which ara situate at the far end of the passage on the left hand side. These are eight in number. Having been duly invested with the order of the bath, the visitor next enters the first hot room, 12ft x 9ft 6in, in which the heat is kept, at 125 deg. An archway/with red curtains, divides this room from one still hotter, where the heat is 150deg. and upwards. This room is of the same size as the one jast spoken of. The floors of these rooms will be of red and white tiles, the heat being supplied by hot-air flues running round the walls of the room and under the floors. Next beyond these two rootcs is the shampooing room, 12 ft x 9ft 6in, where the visitor undergoes the mysterious processes knewn only to the initiated. The floor of this room is of cement «fith compo over to form a smooth surface. In this room are a needle spray bath, a sulphur I>atb, and a vapor bath, and the temperature is about HOdeg. Passi»g through a door the visitor, now thoroughly conversant with the mode cf taking a bath a Iα Turqite, enters the haven of rest known as the cooling room. This is 86ft 6in by 20ft 6in, •ottjwill be a very elegantly furnished JWttß, ?*ovided with Oriental divans, A*. The hatha, it may be utated, will be well jeatUated 6ymeans of disc ventilators is the oetaade walte. From the

cooling-room the visitor can pace, if he require stiU further adornment, to the near dressing-saloon already spoken of. On the opposite side of the passage are mxbath-roomsfitted withenamelledbaths, hot and cold water and ahower. The baths throughout the building, it may be noted, are all lighted from the roof, there being no side lights whatever. The subscription to the baths has been fixed at a very low »te per annum, and they will be under toe management of Mr and Mrs Fisher. Mr Fisher ia a perfect adept in the art of giving a Turkish bath, as those who underwent his manipulations whilst in charge of those established by Mr Ayers can well testify, and no doubt Mrs Fisher is equally bo in her department. Therefore, it is probable that when the venture is fairly started the public will patronise the spirited proprietors as they deserve to be. The coat of the building will be over £1000, and Mr W. B. Scott has been entrusted with the work.