BATHING COSTUMES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 83, 2 January 1935, Page 8

BATHING COSTUMES

Between the excessive prudery that in Victorian days compelled bathers to cover- their bodies from the neck to the ankles, and the hygienic urge that in these more enlightened times carries some sunworshippers to bask in seclusion in a state of complete nudity, ano bathers in public to demand from their municipal rulers the widest possible freedom within tfic limits of decency, there have been degrees of change round which have raged countless controversies. Clothing, from time immemorial has been closely associated with public morals, but it is only in comparatively recent years that enlightened people have dared to suggest that it also has an important influence on health. Well-intentioned philanthropists, genuinely concerned about the heathen in his blindness, and convinced that one of the essential conditions of his reclamation from the pagan state was to covei his nakedness,' have spent much energy in the past in seeing to the requirements of his wardrobe, with the unanticipated result that he has become a prey to disease from which in his benighted period he was immune. \ . Incidentally the surprising and somewhat bewildering discoveiy was made that the scantily-attired heathen was in. many respects a more moral citizen than some of the fully-clad European contemporaries with whom, to his misfortune, he came in contact, lhat is not to suggest that the more people expose their skins the bettei their morals arc likely to be. Thdse depend on the public conscience. Public sentiment to-day is unquestionably ranged on the side of decency, but it is as indubitably set against prudery. Clothing fashions may be a reflection of either relaxed or stringent codes of conduct, but the present-day demand for greater freedom, and comfort in beach and sports attire is based on hygienic ideals which were unknown in previous generations. This demand appears to spring, not from a moral condition, but from a definite hygienic objective against.which there can be no reasonable complaint, and it should be the business of the municipalities to encourage it within limits obvious to people of common sense and in accord with general .sentiment. The cult of fresh air and sunshine has spread from the few to the many,, a fact which a seaside municipality in the south discovered when it set a stricter limit to beach costumes than its more tolerant neighbour. The result was an exodus from one watering-place to the other, and an embarrassing drop in revenue to the deserted borough. In the present controversy about bathing, costumes in Wellington there arc extremes of opinion, and the general puzzlement is aggravated by the fact that there is no by-law now in existence by which it can be satisfactorily determined. One should be provided.