She Bathed for Parliament!

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 20

She Bathed for Parliament!

Woman M.P. in “Test Case”

- AljLi MALL, clubrooms NUawP™®*)'/'] buzze d recently with the : i li./ffw story that a woman, with the full consent of the Labour Government. vJ had taken a bath in the House of Commons.

Buzzing was louder when it was learned that a prominent Cabinet Minister had practically demanded that the bath be taken. The facts:

Beside libraries, restaurants, cocktail bars and royal robing rooms, there exist in the mazes of the Houses of Parliament a number of bathrooms, says "Time’s” London correspondent, complete with tubs and towels, for the benefit of statesmen who wish to purify themselves between debates. Several months ago white-haired George Lansbury, total abstainer. First Commissioner of public Works, suddenly decided that it was only right and proper for women M.P.’s to have the privilege of bathing iu Parliament also. With some difficulty and no little expense he set aside one of the Parliamentary bathrooms, tastefully shrouded it in cretonne, appointed a respectable, middle-aged bathmistress The lady M.P.’s did not respond. While the bathmistress, with soap and towels at hand, received her salary in idleness, Commissioner Lansbury protested loudly that he had been deceived. He had spent the people’s money under the Impression that the ladies of Parliment wished to take baths. Was this an effort to cheat the British public? If not, when.

if ever would the ladies of Parliament wash?

At this juncture up rose Miss Edith Picton-Turbervill, Labour M.P., accomplished swimmer, author of “Christ and Woman’s Power.” She not only approved heartily of white-haired Mr. Lansbury’s ladies’ bath, said she, but she would take a bath there and then and report on it to the House of Commons.

While Tories and Labourites cheered gallantly she left the Chamber, dc-

livered herself to the bathmistress. Fialf an hour later, rosy and refreshed, she returned, announced that the ladies’ bath was a credit to the House of Commons.