BATHING BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11950, 27 March 1894, Page 3

BATHING BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.

« Sydney, March 13. The Legislative Council last Thursday nii-lit handled the question of mixed bathing. The proposal was to legislate for the whole colony, and to prescribe the conditions under which bathing could be earned ron during either daylight or dusky nighttime. The Council sought to define what should be the length and breadth and width of a bathing costume, and the Bill provided that the garment should extend from neck to knee. A good two hours' discussion ensued as to whether these limits ought to be circumscribed or extended. One member asserted that when he was at Brighton half the clothing prescribed would have been nmple, while another, who bathed there a Year later, thought double the covering was pesded. Oae seatloman elicited upproyiug

smiles from even ladies in the gallery by remarking lhat so long us the men were decently olad she women could be relied on to appear in becoming costume in the sea or out of it. The neck to kaeo dress advocates eventually secured their own way and the Bill passed through the order of Committee with that provision untouched, though one opponent pathetically remarked that it would spoil swimming contests and that a man could not swim in comfort in full dress, no matter what a woman might do. The question of mixed bathing was incidentally introduced iv the debate and some strong objections were urged to it, as (in improper Continental custom, though its advocates strongly urged that impropriety wns unheard of at those resorts, either in England or other countries of Europe where the sexes hathed together. The Bill eventually got through Committee after a narrow escape of being counted out.