"THE NON-BATHER AND NONSWIMMER,"

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 29 December 1923, Page 4

"THE NON-BATHER AND NONSWIMMER,"

"By common consent (says the writer of Current Events in the Ota go Times), the rain which began to fall gently on Monday morning and continued

throughout the day was a blessing and a boon. The country had been crying out for it. Very beneficial, my farmer friends say, but not nearly enough of it. The town needed it < Hie gardens were thirsting for a soak- : ing And people in St. Kilda and Koslyn, who perforce have had to deny themselves the domestic tub, hu^ed themselves with satisfaction over°the prospect of the replenishing of the water supply. Some of them, anyhow. For there arc queer people everywhere, and there may be some residents of Dunedin who would hail as a man and a brother the member of tke House of Commons (whether reelected or not, I am unable to say) ■who, in the course last session of a debate on the housing problem, declared that he had not a bath in his house and he got on all right! The bathless legislator may, as he claims, have got on all ught. Bui there was no reason why he should put on airs about it. lie is oot a pioneer. 'Ike vroPrietov of a newlyerected bungalow was showing a friend over his property. The frk-nd was one of tho^e ultra-refined, fastidious people who are apt to get on the nerves of the less finicky type —the i type, you know, that constitutes the backbone of the Empire and all that. Inquisitive, too. He wanted to know where the bathroom was. He was promptly and effectively rebuffed. "Bath!" snapped the proprietor of the = bungalow. "We haven't any children ■ You see, there is only me and the wife." . i And why have a. bathroom if there is no use for' it? Expensive excrescences are not desirable even in a modern bungalow, with latest labour- j saving appliances, steel ceilings, sleep- ; ing balconies, etc. (vide advertise- j ments). A lady inspector, called) upon to visit a house in which there was a case of infectious disease, inquired if there was a. bath on the premises. "Yes, miss," replied the patient's mother; "but although we have been in the house nearly three years, thank Gawd we haven't, had to use it until this 'ere illness came along."