AMERICAN LADY BATHERS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 955, 6 August 1880, Page 3

AMERICAN LADY BATHERS.

Audacity is not exactly a rare quality amongst tbn reporters for the American LVcss. A representative of the New York Herald, however, appears to have distanced the most daring exploits hy the members of that fraternity which we (Pall Mall Budget) have hitherto seen recorded. Alone and undisguised, this gentleman has visited, for purposes of description, a fashionable ladies’ bathing establishment in New York, and the account of his experiences appears in the Herald of May 2otb. Without any previous arrangement, the reporter simply presented himself at the reception-room and reeprestod to lie 'admitted, as though the request were the most natural one in the world. Some objection was raised by the lady manager, who, however, ultimately consented to submit the proposal to the bathers, and presently returned with the intimation that “considering the circumstances ” the young ladies had consented to receive their visitor. A little delay was requested for toilet preparations ; but, strange to say, only ten minutes was thus consumed. The adventiiious scribe acknowledges to having felt some embarrassment as he was ushered into a long corridor opening into a series of darkened dressing rooms. In a gallery running round the swimming-tank sat a number of ladies, and, as a proof of the

high-class character of the establishment, 1 it is recorded that they hid ten-dollar parasols beside them. The sight in the , bath was worth walking miles to see. Wu j read that “sirens from Fifth Avenue, naiads from Murray Hill, and mermaids from Washington Heights wore coquetting with the brine.” They strain around “as if they were vivified statuary ; they divot), they leaped out of the water, and played pranks with caeh other $ while some of the more agile performed most marvellous ‘stunts’ on the horizontal bar, and turned somersaults backward and forward, until the place became a sort of South Sea Island, blushing with modern improvements.” They linked themselves together into what they called a “ railroad train,” and the newly constructed figure “glided around the reservoir as gracefully as a seaserpent. The fair bathers, it appears, were encased in a species of modest hall room Costume, without trains, and in some instances the edges of the garments wore ornamented with lace ruffling, which, although moist, contrasted pleasingly with the snowy skin beneath.” The Herald’s reporter should remember the fate of Actseon,