THE SUSPECT BATHROOM

Evening Star, Issue 20633, 5 November 1930, Page 13

THE SUSPECT BATHROOM

We may poke fun at the Polish. Bill to make people have a bath at least once a month, but (writes a correspondent of the ‘ Manchester Guardian ’) xt is of some historical interest to note how views on the virtues of washing have been brought round to the full circle. The Oxford don’s “ Baths? Baths? You’re only up hero eight weeks!” was a fair expression of current opinion seventy or eighty years ago. Loudon had not a single private bathroom in 1800, and when tho Lord Mayor in 1812 asked for a shower bath his’request was turned down sharply on the ground that “ tho need of same has not been heretofore complained of.’’

It is said that tho first bathroom in a private house in the United States was one installed by Adam Thompson at Cincinatti in 1842, and it was violently denounced by doctors because the indulgence it invited would cause “ phthisis, rheumatic fevers, inflammation of tV lungs, and the whole category of zymotic diseases.” lu 1843 Philadelphia considered' an ordinance forbidding baths between November 1 and March 15, and the cause of cleanliness was won by only two votes. Virginia’s opinion of bath tubs is shown by tire 30dol tax she clapped on them; and Boston, determined to stand no nonsense, forbade anybody to have a bath except on the advice of a doctor.

WIFE AT TKE AHViL HUSBAND’S “BEST STRIKER.” “Hard work harms no one,” remarked Mrs Mary Laud when she was seen striking at tho anvil in her husband’s smithy at Mabgatc, Leeds, recently. Mrs Land is the only blacksmith’s striker in England, and is to bo seen hard at work most days from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Her husband is proud of her. “Mary is tho best striker I have ever had,” he said. “She never misses, and T am never afraid of my fingers with her behind the hammer.” Mrs Land, who is forty-eight, hails from Accrington, where she was employed as a weaver.