THE HORRORS OF SEA BATHING.

Clutha Leader, Issue 221, 4 October 1878, Page 5

THE HORRORS OF SEA BATHING.

On this point the ; f New York .Times sayjj ;—• " In, .accordance with our false system of ethics, it sis held to be the duty of every one who ; visits the sea shore to bathe. r Of course,, np pne : ever really wanted ftp put on preposterous clothes^ and.to wade .out into .disgustingly turbu lent water in order to .be knocked ovet and half rdrpwn.ed, i Q the presence i of an unfeeling public. Were the diriing-room of a Long IslandihpteljtoibestrewnjWfihsand, pebbles, and" 1 sharp shells, and were the guests then -to be invited to_ put: on the most ridiculous; .of ; conceivable garments and walk barefooted over the floor to rireet a number of I athletic waiters, by whom they should be, knocked down and made to stand on their' hoads, and forced to- swallow. quantities of salt" water, rio sensible giiest would accept'the invitation. Yet' such an entertainment, would be rather safer, arid more pleasant than surfbathingj There is.riotning more delightful than : swimming: in :J a great pool or river ; but ;tp s]fcand up for a round with the Atlantic Ocean, with the moral ceriainty that every knock-down will It>e scored by the latterj betrays a painful degree of folly and bad taste. Women suffer even more thanmen from the tyranny of this atrocious custpm of surf • bathing. For a; woman to, enter the surf inyplvea a long and abstruse process o£ undressing and redressing, which isa terrible strain upon her strength arid temper] ! Moreover, the act of bathing ! makes pitiless : revelations' concerning the female form. It is, estimated that at least eleven thousand young men annually return from Long Branch with the conviction 'that woman is 1 wholly f false^ with the exception of a riide framework, ; intolerable to the " aesthetic eye. True, there are .exceptions.; Every summer there are seen at qur, Atlantic watering places two or. three ladies whose beauty even the surf .cannot wash' away, arid it ik credibly' asserted that a few yeiars ago there was a'^ Boston lady who entered the sum at Nahant,, and ; who, on emerging, could ,be. : distinctly seen,. even when ; her > edges were , ; presented •to the -spectator. „ Nevertheless, as' a rule, woman becomes not merely impossible, 'but absolutely unthinkablei when the sea has remorselessly analysed her, •-, Paradoxical? as jitirmay seem, it is this very i fact-which drives thoiwands, of. miserable ( w,pmen uxto f ;th e surf i. The woman! who does not bathe' isr instantiy credited 'with afe^ar or ' 'exciting -bomparisdns- between arid the'iwomen who" do bathe, and ris thereby suspected of unparalleled q exj cesses in point of bones. , When to ; the complex agonies, which surf-bathing inflicts.: upon, the sensitive female mind is added the struggle of deciding whether to leave/ off- tKe back hair, and thus confess . its- falseness," or to wear it in the water,' rarid/ so'; spoil;; it, it can be readily understood that the sea ia bitterly, though secretlyj hated by the fair, sex. were mankind only to~ agree that surf-bathing should ' be regarded as : a crime against faslrieny "the seashere wbuld lose, its horrors. ' ; , f , :