KEEPING WARM

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 24

KEEPING WARM

Keeping out the cold—a troublesome job—is a business which engages the attention of all save' the natives, of the tropics, and some savage or semicivilised races have hit upon curious methods, says the "Manchester Guardian." Tlje commonest protection, apart from wearing thick clothing or furs, is to grease the body. All the Arctic tribes do that, and the Tibetans go further and smother themselves from head to foot in a black, oily pigment. Another Tibetan method of keepiug warm is to wear a kind of steel basket round the waist filled with live coals, but. anyone tempted to follow suit should take warning that some of the terrible diseases common in the Forbidden Land have been attributed to that practice. A very different system is favoured,.by some of the Canadian Indians, who make their youngsters swim in half-frozen 1-ivefcs—first whipping them to make the blood circulate —and lie out of doors at night without covering. Those who survive can go naked in any weather without discomfort.