COLD WATER BATHERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 36, 11 August 1937, Page 17

COLD WATER BATHERS

"MISERY LOVES COMPANY"

A good many hardy souls (though their number is decreasing year by year) may be found who 'will declare that they enjoy cold baths in ' winter says a writer in the "Cape Times." Well, it has often'been observed that it takes all kinds of people to make ud this old world of ours, and perhaps they really do like them. I have actually known one child who smacked his lips at the sight of a castor oil bottle, so you never know! It is said that misery loves company but that must be true of pleasure also, for almost invariably these devotees of the cold-bath cult, particularly if they be rugged, Spartan heads of families, demand that the rest of the household enjoy cold baths, too. Cold baths are healthy, they insist; they make one fit and strong; they fill one with the good old joie de vivre —so everyone in the house must have cold baths, willy-nilly. An ever-increasing majority of us, however, are unable to ascribe to cold bi. thing all the virtues claimed for it by its devotees. We shamelessly admit thai the prospect of having to face the ordeal of a cold tub on a winter's morning is sufficient to keep lus cowering under our warm bedclothes long after the alarm clock has warned us that it is time to be up and doing. But we are broadminded. We like our ho.t baths and we are glad that we had that electric water-heating system installed. , But if any member of our household or any chance weekend guest feels that his happiness is dependent upon his clambering out of a nice warm bed into a needle shower or bath of .ie'e water, that shall be his daily privilege.

We will even try to school ourselves to listen patiently to his enthusiastic ebullitions concerning the marvellous properties of that cold bath.

But if he has used all the hot water in th^ storage cylinder, let him beware! There are limits both to our hospitality and our good nature.