HOW THE WORLD WASHES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10628, 3 December 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOW THE WORLD WASHES.

The Monday wash-day is purely mi Anglo-Saxon institution. One does not. I have to travel long or far in Europe to iiiid that this homely custom differentiates him from the, civilisations there, as well as frbm the older and stranger ones of ithe Orient. To judge by the appearance of the streets of Naples, ; every day is washday there, though, from the appearance of "the Neapolitans, one might conclude that there was not such a day at all in their calendar. In every narrow alley" the lines are criss-crossed -and liun'g with vari-colored garments until they give the passer-by a sense of streets decorated' for some gala occasion. And in any doorway, at any hour of any day,"-a dark-eyed woman may be bending over a small tub, partly filled with water, rubbing on a boardor a smooth stone a few garments,'which look but little cleaner when she is through with them in spite., of the evidence left behind-' in the water., -r ■

And all through Italy, wherever the railroad crosses a stream, there are'the Italian women busy washing, adding more to the picturesqueness of the landscape, perhaps, than to the cause of cleanliness, if one' may judge by the looks of the clothes lying about on the rocks, to dry. Just over the Alps lies Switezrland, where wash-day comes but twice a year. The Alpine peasant woman will, tell you that she is too busy in summer, working in the fields and caring for the cattle, to -do her -familv washing, and in winter it is too cold. So twice a year, ill the spring and' the autumn, she takes a few days off and attends to the accumulated washing of the months between. . If you are foolish enough and fortunate enough to ; put off going to Switzerland until October, when you will have the Alps quite, to yourself—and such-wonderful Alps they are in their autumn dress!—you Ayill here and there come upon groups of peasant women at their semi-annual washing. Each one lias lier turn at th<ei village waslitub, . a big sort of trough, always brimming with water piped from some glacier, 'and which, through the summer, months, is used only now and then by some young girl who wants a clean kerchief "for her head when going to some festival of the village church.

Onthe semi-annual wash days a big fire is built on the ground near the trough, and water is heated in a huge copper tank to help loosen; the dirt that has become-well-nigh a-fast color. Here for several" days each- woman must work from dawn till dark before she can be ready ito- start afresh on the housed-in months of winter. -In the spring, before she-leads her flower-decked cattle out of the valley to the pastures on the mountainside, every peasant woman takes her turn- again at the village wash-trough and does her six rpontbs of winter washing. - This same custom of the semi-annual washday obtains in many places throughout Germany. In those great country houses in which the horses and cattle occupy the ground floor, and the people have a floor or two, and the winter supply of fuel and feed for. the animals is on still another floor above, there 'is generally a room set aside as a clothes-hamper for the • accumulation during the months when it "is too cold to wash., or those other months of- fair weather when the housewives have too much fleldwork to do to give time to any but the necessary house tasks: cooking', making and bleaching linen; making butter and cheese, with knitting for recreation in between.

Here in Germany, as in most other places in the world, washing is done in primitive fashion. As surely as the trees were God's first temples, so surely were the streams and rivers woman's first wash-tub. With many millions of women, as it was in the beginning, it is now and probably ever shall be. In those lands where, so far as we know, life in the world began, customs change vei-v slowly, and, as you saunter tip the- Nile ' in a trim little modern steamer, you can see the fellah women on their knees along the banks washing out a few pieces as they have done since the days of Thothme&. Long before it was prescribed in the laws of the Hindu faith that the faithful must bathe in the sacred rivers, these same rivers were the public washtubs of India. And it is quite possible that those who wrote the Vedas took their hint from the common practices of the people, and made a part of the religious ritual the washing of bodies and clothing, which is so essential to health and well-being, both physical and moral. The law-givers of the Jews and other Oriental religions displayed their wisdom in the incorporation of sanitary principles as part of the religious observances, knowing t-liis to bo the surest way of having them obeyed. And to-dav, as /or thousands of years, when the Hindu devotee plunges into tbe Oan in the hope of achieving salvation? after he has washed his body, his 1 i:;s and -his tongue, with the sacred water, he washes his scant garments and put'i the'v tin again while wet to preserve hi long an possible 1 their purity. not onlr in "the Ganges, but m th» Jump-.' and oilier rivers of varying (Krrcre of sanctity, a great majority of the laundry-work of the natives of India is done. , . - ;n China, too, the rivers are the public laundries. The thousands of _ sam-pan-dwellers of the i ang-tse-lviang know no other water supply for any. purpose whatsoever, than the turbid element which surrounds their houseboat. And the Chinese housewife can certainly give a lesson in household economics with tlie number of uses to which she can put a single pail ol water, beginning with'the laundering of the family wardrobe and ending with the prenaratiori of vegetables for dinner. And as the sampan moves slowly up and down the stream the woman v,-ashing upon its tiny deck can pass the time of day and exchange the latest bits of gossip with other women at their washing along the hanks. , . The American Indian has not always had an ugly calico dress to wash, but as-soon as this insignia of civilisation wps thrust upon lier, : she made her way to nature's washtub with it. .The river b'nk has always been the Indians kitchen. There the squaw made her acorn bread, r.nd cooked on hot rocks the fish or '--rai:- brought in by the bucks. In the good old days the garments of deer and boar skins and of woven grasses.cnd not have to go often to the washtub '»s does the garb decreed by the Great White Father; but in these sad,, new ii;r»os of in aii v clothes and complex methods, that squaw is pleased who fin'ds Her home on a reservation near a stream, which she can use instead of a zinc or wooden tub. ... The European peasants of to-day still clihf to this nrimitivc Custom or tlie Oriental peoples and our own Indians. Wherever there is a stream of water, there you will see, any day of the week, women kneeling at the shnne or that next to the most holy of virtues Imoss. And. the picture you glimpse as your train or your coach or your automobile whizzes by, of a red skirt and strong, brown arms and wet, white clothes against a sunlit wall, beyoncl which a clustered rookery of houses climbs toward a burning, blue sky this picture will cling to your memory lon<_: "after those on the gallery walis have become r. confused jumble. ■ The nicturesquo contadini : of Italyare alwavs washing,. -sometimes in the rivers, sometimes up among the rocks -where water spouts from . spring, sometimes in great cement vatsi by the roadside. Tlie Dutch housewife, in her 'tarchy lace cap has but to kneel on the step of the boat-landing at her back door, and dip her clothes, wto the canal: wh'rh is her kitchen sink and station- | I jtrv wl'Vlitub, and you have-a Mieture., that will chase Jan Steen and 'lcniers from your mind. " . , , r -, T . And it is one of the sights of Nice to pee the broad, nebblv bed of the River Paillon with its army-of washerwomen encamped there, chattering like magpies as tliey -wash- their clothes in the shallow water. There is .not near enough drying space on the white pebbles," so yards and yards of rope arc stretched between poles for drying ;>and. if you fail to recognise- the face of your own blanchisseuse among the squatting women, you may recognise your linen flapping on-:the line, for. the chances are' that this is where your washing is done while you stop in Nice;. And now you will no longer wonder why youi- linen is no whiter when it comes hack t-o you than when it went away; or, if by "chance you find it whiter, you can guess why your finger goes through it at every "touch. The cold-water laundresses are beginning to learn that foreigners want their clothes white, and 1

:;o they are taking to the use of strong soaps and acids; and these, added to the native method of rubbing on stones or pounding with stones, do not form a, good guaranty for long wear. One of the conspicuous features of the continental landscape nowadays is a flaring sign of a popular soap, the brand name is English consorting strangely with the words seife,'zeep, and savon. In some of the European cities where man has robbed woman of her natural wash-tub by walling in the rivers or legislating against their use for sanitary reasons, a substitute lias been offered, copied as nearly as possible after nature's own design. In . Rome, in i Florence, and inVthe villages..: of the I Italian Riviera,, one may see the Italian women at the -public basins,; skirts tucked up;", arms bared, and all chattering'like; chickens. Sometimes an awning protects them rom the sun, but as likely as'not they are entirely unpro- i tected save by the kerchief tied tinder, their chins or laid'on in their own picturesque square. These open-air -.communal . wash-' houses' are also 'found in Mexico, when the Mexican women wash their-..clothes anywhere but in some pool or . river. And what'a school for gossip it is! And how the women linger over their work, loath to leave the go<*l company !" To these peasants the public - wash-house serves the social purposes of the pink tea and the afternoon reception. And somehow work takes- on a fairer seeming when done in a. neighborly company than when - performed in the solitary, confinment of the kitchen.

In the very heart of Paris there are public wash-houses* built along the banks of the Seine., They are but rude sheds, but women come here and gladly pay a ; few centimes "for the privilege of the Seine's unlimited supply and the company of other women, rather than do their washing? alone in the cramped kitchen of their own tenements.

In England, practical always and as unpicturesque as ive ourselves, one misses the sight of. women at their laun-. dry in tlie open. There are public wash-liouses, it is true, but they are hidden away in the poorer districts andare usually connected with the public batlis. Most of thein are equipped with : 'all the- time-saving modern .appliances, and there is an eiidless supply of hot water and soap and bluing. Each, woman is allotted a separate cubicle, and the high _ partitions give little chance for chatting. /Besides, there is the noise of drawing'water,, of rubbing on washboards, of the hydro-extractors in which the clothes are wrung dry, or the moving in and out of racks from the steam dryingTch ambers, and the ticking of a clock that; is telling off the hours', each one ,of which costs "threeha'pence" .or "tuppence." And so, in this practical land where time is money, the washerwoman at work is a rather sordid picture as compared with her sister of the sunny southlands. But that the public wash-houses of Great Britain j arc a boon to the tenement dwellers: may be guessed by the fact that in London in a single year they are used by a million women.

It was in Dublin, in a model, modern wash-house, that an Irishwoman was led to talk of tlie man who gave the washhouse to the city. "He's the grandest man aloive," she exclaimed. "I say three Hail Mary's for 'im every day o' me loifc, and may God keep 'is soul as white as 'is washtubs keep me sheets!" Inasmuch as this Irish lord is better known as the maker of a popular brand of stout than as a- philanthropist, it is possible that two of the Hail Mary's at least are to help him go on making stout, as the Irish poor are not notorious for their love of water, and -there is no better way for him to give back to them a small tithe of what he takes from them than in providing public baths and wash-houses.