VALUE OF COLD WATER

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1927, Page 20

VALUE OF COLD WATER

DRINK SIX OR SEVEN GLASSES A DAY.

The American habit of drinking cold water frequently and regularly is an excellent one —so excellent indeed that it is a constant puzzle to know why English people do not adopt it also. Everyone knows the value of cold water; physicians and health experts have reiterated for years the fact that very few of ua drink enough water, and it is a well-known fact that we should benefit our general health greatly if we followed this advice. In the American household (writes M.T., in the "Manchester Guardian") one begins the day well by drinking a glass of water before breakfast. The breakfast table is always laid with a glass for each person, and these are filled with water just before the meal is served. It is the same at lunch time and at dinner. The glasses are ready filled before the meal is served, and are replenished as often as they are emptied. Whatever else one may have to drink the glass of water is there as well, and in a very short time the visitor to the country finds herself drinking six or seven glasses of water a day without realising it. A glass of water iB always drunk the last thing at night. Either a thermos carafe holding ice-cold.water is placed by the bedside,. with its attendant glass, or a maid carries round a tray of waterfilled glasses the last thing in the ovening, and places one beside each bed. In hotels and restaurants iced water is served because the average American demands it, whereas the English visitor usually fishes. out the ice and drinks the water au naturel. Go into any American restaurant and the waiter will bring you a glass of water and the menu simultaneously. It does not matter whether you want breakfast, lunch, tea, or dinner —the glass of water invariably precedes it. In a smart teashop glasses of water will be brought with the tea or chocolate, and a glass of water appears at

the same time as does an ice or ice cream soda. In the days before Prohibition a glass of water called a

"chaser" arrived with' the cocktail. In many hotels in America there is a tap of iced drinking water in each bedroom. If the hotel is an old one, a boy will bring up a carafe of water with the luggage. In every public place an ample supply of drinking water is included. In" large office buildings there are certain to be facilities for drinking water, and every individual office has its own supply, with a supply of small paper cups which are thrown away after-use. On the trains there is a supply of drinking water in every coach, and' in the theatres programme, sellers bring round little paper cups of water and give them to anybody who wants one. "