SUN-BATHING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16178, 15 March 1916, Page 11

SUN-BATHING.

_ Sir,— letters under the above beading have recently appeared in the Herald. May I hope for space for reply? Last year the beaches were made practically unusable for -family parties and young children by the behaviour of numbers of sun-bathers, both male and female, who apparently did not come to bathe, but to lie about half-clad for hours in a way that the strongest supporters of "mixed bathing "—and I am one myself —could only view with disgust. The ordinary bathing garment of the beachfrequenter of to-day is undoubtedly for the water, npt for the sand. If "sunbathing is the desideratum, let the Grange Road Harriers and others of like inclination indulge it nearer home. How would the worthy Mayors and councillors of Mount Eden or Epsom, taking their Sunday afternoon stroll care to find the grassy slopes of One-tree Hill or Mount Eden spread with the half-naked athletes of the neighbourhood, " recuperating their health " after their strenuous summer enjoyments, in this fashion? Yet to tho Sunday promenader on our beaches the effect is just the same; it is an offence against one's sense of decency and a blot on the landscape. Whether " the human body is the most perfect, work of God" or not is beside the question. There arc many beautiful things both in literature and art which, in tho interests of the public good, are, to use the German term, " verboten." _ The contention of " Honi Soifc" in this connection, carried to its legitimate conclusion, is the less clothes the higher the standard of morals. Instead of which the evidence of all experience is to the contrar" and Bibles and flannel petticoats are usually donated together when the gathering in of the unregenerate heathen is contemplated. It has been said, You cannot make people virtuous by Act of Parliament, or moral by passing by-laws," which, considering that the whole community is kept virtuous and moral and honest and sober by the power of the t law, and by " law " only, seems to require no answer. Take off our clothes and leave us in our skins and what should we all be but naked barbarians again! Surely we are not "the heirs of all the ages" for that! Law, restriction, convention, are simply the pressure of civilisation on the primitive. Directly men leave the wilderness and herd in communities they begin to make laws in the interests>of the majority, and, as Buskin puts it in "Liberty and Government," "Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation, hot chains, but chain-mail." March 11, 1616. La.