THE BATHING HABIT

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 142, 24 August 1938, Page 3

THE BATHING HABIT

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CUSTOM. Queen Elizabeth’s custom of bathing may have been the subject of admiring comment, but to some of her contemporaries baths smacked of heretical opinion, says the “Manchester Guardian.” In Foxe’s

“Book of Martyrs” George Wishart’s habit of taking cold baths is mentioned as a peculiar novelty, Foxe says the Scottish reformer ‘ ‘ had commonly by his bedside a tub of water in which, his people being in bed, the candle put out, and all quiet, he used to bathe himself.” Wishart was apparently afraid of being misunderstood, and misunderstood he was by one commentator who regarded clean martyrs with suspicion. Father Parsons noted against this passage: “If you weigh the same well, you will think that he was as fit for madness as martyrdom, and all his continual having a tub of water by -him may smell of some Jewish or Moorish superstition.” In the eighteenth century, even among the aristocracy, taking a bath was an event, and, moreover, it called for a becoming modesty. Mrs Montagu, “the Queen of the Blue-stock-ings,” complained when visiting the Duchess of Portland that she had the greatest difficulty in procuring a bath-tub “capable of holding water.” After much trouble she Tvas able to announce triumphantly, “My bathtub is ready for me, so to-morrow I shall go in.” Alas! there was still one difficulty to overcome. “Pray look for my bathing-dress,” she begged. ‘ 1 Till then I must go in chemise and jupon.” Her friend, Miss Dorothea Gregory, also found it embarrassing to come in a too immodestly close contact with lvater. From Edinburgh she -wrote: “I find there is a cold bath in the house. Miss Gordon thinks I shall do well to make use of it, but as I was not aware of such a thing being in the house I did not bring my bathingdress with me.” The university authorities of Bangor by insisting that in future all licensed students’ lodgings should contain a bathroom show a better pedagogic attitude towards baths than was common in Victorian times. As late as 1886 an archdeacon, giving evidence before a Royal Commission on residential training colleges for teachers, complained that an inspector had ‘ ‘ ordered complete sets of baths for all the students. Now, these girls will never see a bath when they leave their training' college in their future life. It is accustoming them to luxuries and creating a taste which they will not be able to gratify afterwards. ’ ’