BATHING

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 5

BATHING

CHANGING FASHIONS

ANCIENT AND MODERN

USE OF BIRCH RODS

I was reading recently a description fey Mrs. Eosita Forbes, the woman traveller, of the house that she is "recreating" in London for her home, writes M. V. Trait in the Melbourne"Argus." It was all very fascinating ana wonderful, but I felt certain that I would want to escape frequently for peace and quietness, to a room with four bar© walls, a wide open window, end just essentials in furniture.

In that house there is to be a bathroom of black marble and amber furnish -with a chair in the shape of a shell, and a table with a frieze of fat capering fishes. The washing basin will be held within the tails of two dolphins, and the pole which supports the Btriped curtains (orange, amber, and queer yellow greens) will be carved at either end into the appearance of a sea beast's head. The batii will bo sunk in an alcove, with an approach by two marble steps, and it will be filled through the mouth of a. huge stone dolphin obtained from Italy. The room will be lighted from bulbs hidden within the thickness of the walls and gleaming through carved lattices above the bath, the door, and a cupboard. For her guests Mrs. Forbes has provided a bathroom with an "amusing floor of 12in squares of glass, painted underneath in sea-green and blue." The ceiling is clouded, and iv the window stands an aquamarine lamp with fish swimming round the shade and all sorts of strange submarine creatures inside the bowl. How many ordinary people would have thought of using the fish as the motif for bathroom decoration? From another source, however, comes the statement that an undersea scheme of decoration is particularly appropriate to a bathroom. This opinion accompanies the description of a bathroom in which the walls arc painted with coral and seaweed arbours and fantastic submarine creatures of all kinds, the colours being coral, gold, silver, and green. There is another bathroom in one of London's modern mansions which, instead of the usual tiles, has squares of gold and silver mirrored glass set alternately to form a dado around the room. Above this sheets of antique ■mirrored glass have been painted with designs of creeping plants, such as ■wistaria, while, as if fluttering over thesurface, are representations cf myriads of yellow butterflies and a few black" or white moths. Tho lloor, which is of black rubber, is finished with a border of gold mirrored glass. FINLAND'S HEROIC METHODS. These two bathrooms were recalled to my mind receutly when talking with a Finnish woman writer and traveller who visited Australia to investigate the conditions under which her follow-coun-try men and women aro settled here. \Vo woro discussing the fact that the Finn seemed to be able to live as comfortably and as happily in (lie extreme heat of tho sugar-growing areas of JCorth Queensland as in the extreme cold of his native land. The explanation was suggested by the visitor in her statement that, "Wherever you find Finns you will find a Finnish bathhouse."- .She described the Finnish method of batii ing. The bathhouse is a largo room lifted with a series of wooden platforms rising in steps nearly to tho roof. Tho room is tilled with steam which, iv the more primitive typo of bathhouse, is created by throwing water oh to a collection of pebbles or stones piled on top of a furnace- or stove in- a .■corner of the room. Tho ■bathers lie down first on ono of the lower benches, and gradually ascend to the higher and hotter ones. When a certain temperature has been reached the bathers either flog themselves or are flogged by attendants with switches of silver birch. The body in time bocomes bright red and hot. Some bathers can remain in that atmosphere for two or three hours. If they are in Finland perhaps they will roll in the snow afterwards, or in the summer jump into a lake. Both the men and tho women indulge in this strenuous form of cleansing the body, which probably accounts for their extraordinary- powers of physical endurance.

Baths and bathing are closely associated with the history of civilisation. We may regard increased facilities for public bathing, both at the seaside and elsewhere as a sign of modern progress. Yet there is nothing about even the most well-equipped of the dressing pavilions at the seaside or the freshwater swimming baths to compare with the elaborate and luxurious buildings of which we read in the history of the early Roman Empire. One of tlie methods by -which various emperors sought to ingratiate themselves with the people was to spend vast sums of money in the construction of magnificent buildings containing not only suites of bathing apartments, with hot and cold swimming baths, but also gymnasiums, and sometimes even theatres and libraries. First, the bather enjoyed a little gentle sweating with his clothes on in the tepidarium, a room moderately heated for the purpose. Then he was anointed with oils and unguents, and he passed to the calidarium, or heating-room, which was buili over a furnace. After he had sweated freely there the bath attendant poured an abundance of ■warm, tßcn tepid, then cola. If he was & poor man he scraped himself, and if rich he was scraped by the bath attendants, with a curved metal instrument called a strigil. Finally he was rubbed and anointed again with oils and ointments, and he went out feeling thoroughly fit. EXTRA CHARGE FOR CLEANLINESS. Australians who travel almost invariably return with stories of the difficulties and expense of indulging their habit of ;a daily bath. One Melbourne woman, whose suite in a leading Continental hotel included a private bathroom, expressed indignation when she was asked on paying her bill how many baths sbe had had. Sho refused to answer the impertinent inquiry. I have enjoyed also the story of a friend ■who was staying with another Australian at a small hotel in Antwerp, and who created a vast amount of excitement when she ordered a hot bath, which took an hour to prepare. Travelling through rural England, a daily bath seems to be a most expensive luxury, as in practically every hotel, whether in town or village, a special charge is made. A good story is told by a party of Australian girls who were travelling in England, and spent a few days at one place. Becoming gradually more resentful of what was regarded as an unwarrantable imposition, one of the girls, who had been attending to the motor-car, found it desirable to have a hot bath before dressing for dinner. She had already paid Is for the morning bath, and she disliked the idea of paying again. The bathroom is usually locked in these hotels, and it is necessary to obtain the key from one of the maids. On this occasion, however, the visitor found the bathroom unlocked. She entered, had her l>ath in the dark, and fled back to her room feeling thor.oughly happy at having "done" the proprietor for at least one bath. To her dismay, when she received her bill next day she found that it included a

charge for the surreptitious bath as well as the others.

While we may consider the custom of taking a plunge bath as quite a cleau method, it is regarded by the Japanese as the reverse. First of all the Japanese will soap^himsolf thoroughly outside the bath, then he will wash the soap off with warm water from a series of little wooden bowls. Then he gets into the bath with the certainty of being clean. The Japanese bath is a wooden tub filled with water, which is barely lukewarm when you get into it, and is gradually heated by a charcoal fire- underneath.