SUNBASKING CULT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2515, 17 December 1927, Page 3

SUNBASKING CULT.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR : SKINS. With the advent of Summer, and, as a local resident remarked the other day “half the town going? to spend the Christmas holidays at Kawhia” — the following published in an English newspaper will be interesting:— The bronzed young man has always been the envy of his fellows, and the admiration of the ladies. In countries like England, where the sight of the sun is as rare and refreshing as a flapper’s blush, skin lotions warranted to produce the admired bronze tint in one Dottle, only have been placed at the disposal of the young manhood of tfcjp country by chemists jealous of their nation’s reputation for looks. The young Australian, more fortunate in the matter of sunshine, has no need of such adventitious aids. He need only hie him to the beaches and invoke the aid of the actinic rays that are so abundant during the summer months. Towards the end of summer his metamorphosis is complete. His skin is dark, shiny, and tough enough to turn a spear. In eolpur he could match the inhabitants of those fortunate South Seas Isles where really well-dressed men never wear more than a, doormat, a hibiscus flower, and a nose ring (says a writer in the Age). The same strange, yearning for a darker skin manifests itself in other countries of Northern Europe. The Germans are throwing clothes and convention to the winds. Wrapped in deep Teutonic thought, and little else, they are acquiring health and muscles by numbers. The Letts of Lithuania, and the Latts of Latvia are likewise helping to create a slump in underwear and overcoats. Stripped to the huff, athletic Swedes and Norwegians are doing Swedish drill, in definac© of winds that blow chill from the Poles. Finnish laundries are crying “finish,,” for in the summer months there is nothing to launder. High in the snows of the Swiss Alps there is a. large school where deformed and diseased children play around almost nude, and so win back to health and strength. Even from Russia, that paradise of the paras'te, comes a report that during tlio last floods of the Nova many Russians took cold baths. But as these would seem to have been involuntary we must not assume that the moujik lias yet decided to air, or even irrigate, liis skin. Although woman lias been in the forefront of the revolt against clothes, she has never let the ultra-violet rays have their way with her. She still contrives to hide a powder puff in her abreViatcd garments. The tint she aims at achieving in her firm cheek appears to be a healthy glow, such as one associates with. Diana Manners, and of tlio Ephesians, Grace Nightingale, Queen Eniazbeth, and Gertrude Ed-erle. There have been no bloodless faces and blue-veined hands since swooning failed to achieve a martial interest in the arms of the young man swooned into, and it was found simpler to ask for a spot than to get it by the more roundabout way of throwing a fit of hysterics. Discretion is now the better part of pallor. In complexions, as in clothes, woman is swayed by the fashions. Since the publication of a. certain book there has been a perceptible trend in some quarters towards blondness. Heavy sales of H 202 are reported from America, FortuluatejlyJ our girls use hydrogen peroxide- exclusively for cleaning teeth. On the whole it cannot be gainsaid that woman is doing her bit to add to the increasing! browiv-ness of the race. The number of girls who go down to the sea in ships and stay there for hours prove that. While this is going on, the American negro- is frantically buying up nostrums that claim to bleach his skin, and lotions that are supposed to take the kink out of his hair. He hates to be jet black more than the white mail hates to be dead white. At the same time it would not be correct to say that he would sooner be a dead white than a live black. In countries like Egypt the well-to-do merchant is carrying on the battle against sunburn as wagved by liis ancestors since the time of Tut. He refuses to walk a step in the heat of the sun unless seated on the back of a donkey and protected

by an umbrella as big as a bell-tent. The Indian nabob has no use at all for the ultra-violet rays. It would be a vain thing to ask him to go out in heat that would fairly make your eyebrows crawl, and start chucking dcub'e somersaults for the sake of his health. The joy of running five miles at noontide on the halls of the feet, and taking deep breaths in a bazaar rendered fragrant by a multitude of coollies, camels and cesspools, would not touch his heathen soul. ll© prefers a localised corpulence, 40 winks, and a punkah to health and vigour bought at such a price .. Once it was the Oriental who was the sun. worsh’pper. Now it is the German who reverently discards his Oxford hags and makes his obeisance to the sun god by means of two dozen doubleknee bends, followed by sideways twisting, with arm raising and deep breathing. What does it all mean? Is it an effort of Nature to achieve a levelling up of colour among the races of the world ? Shall we end by all being yellow or piebald It is not likely, Tli© movement in North Europe is not exactly widespread, but- is confined largely to athletics, school children, and physical culturists. It may prove to be only a passing craze—part of the gVeat physical culture, sport and out-of-doors movement that has spiling up since the armistice, and that would appear to be a natural swing back after the nerve-rack and debilitating Great War.. Moreover, the sun in those latitudes is weak and vacillating ; its kiss no more than a gentle brushing of the, lips. But what of Australia, where it is a playful bit© that will tear strips of skin a foot long from the body of the incautious basker? The immunity conferred by a coffee-coloured pelt is only obtained by many hours of exposure. The interesting point about it is that a- trace of pronounced sunburn will linger years after sun bathing has been discontinued. After 10 or 15 years of continuous summer sea bathing a- person acquires a definitely (darker colour, 'with -'correspondingly increased powers of resistance to light and heat. The children of such persons will inherit this acquired' resistance and this darker tint. It will only be slight, of course, hut that it is going on cannot he doubted. We are already browner of skin, darker of hair and eye, than the native, sof Great Britain. We stand the heat better. Much seems to depend on clothes. Races which completely clothe the body are never “coloured.” Races which do not, even in temperate zones like North America, have dark-pig-mented skins. Many a Persian is pale, many a Tibetan, living! amongst almost perpetual snows, is black. The Persian wears voluminous clothes, and the Tibetan two or thre© overlays of natural dirt, to keep out the cold. It makes one wonder, though, what changes the years will bring to the inhabitants of Queensland, where men work in strong light and sunshine clad above the waist only in singlets, which often are penetrable by the sun’s rays.