“WHAT! NO SOAP?”

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 126, 25 February 1928, Page 24

“WHAT! NO SOAP?”

Probably there are persons who think that soap came into common use many thousands of years ago. This is not so, however, for though, to be sure, Ka great many centuries have elapsed since China discovered the art of making soap, only a few decades have passed since England removed a tax on it, which several centuries before had been imposed, on the ground that it was a luxury (says the “Christian Science Monitor”). On the light of this there would seem to be little or no reason for serious complaints against some of the luxury taxes which various Governments have felt it necessary to impose since the world war. It is surprising to note that soap did not easily slip into the scheme of things as civilisation advanced. We have been wont to thing of our forefathers as enjoying all the pleasure and benefit which a cake of modern soap in conjunction with a basin of water can convey. And yet our earlier forefathers if traced back to ancient Greece and Rome, knew notigb of soap as it is understood to-day. They laved Hieui-

selves with oil and then rubbed themselves with ashes, as we are told. The Gauls mixed tallow and wood aslies and boiled the combination. But soap did not appear in England until late in the fourteenth century, when the utter foolishness of its use was immediately recognised by the Government, which promptly applied, not a common, ordinary little luxury tax, but a super-luxury tax. Like various other commodities, soap has advanced since then, not only in public estimation, but also in quality. Soap of a few generations ago would hardly be recognised by the most ardent disciple ot the article of to-day. Made in a deep pan and cut out in rough, oblong cakes, it often had the texture of pigiron, and presented about as much disinclination to lather. Few, if any, attempts were made to take away the not altogether pleasing scent which, I persisting as it did in hanging about | the person of the user long after applied, often brought the remark from-,, .grandmother, “.You needn’t turn up I your nose, it’s nuthin’ but clean soap!” |