The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2350, 13 October 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1870.

reconciles ms to many things that knowledge condemns. Were it not for this fact, we should not be con- ; tent to be without those indispensable requisites to civic health and cleanliness —baths and wash-houses. An able writer on sanitary economy observes that “ proper bathing-rooms should “ exist in every well-constructed “ house.” Unfortunately, well-con-structed houses are the exception, and not the rule, in the Colonies. The extent to which health and comfort can be studied in house-building is measured by the pocket. If capitalists were to build houses with bath-rooms attached, tenants might find it beyond their means to pay the increased rent, and the additional water rate which the Water Works Company is so conscientious in enforcing, because their per-centage has to be partly paid out of the public revenue. By the way, this strikes one as rather an odd reason for refusing a supply of water to public baths and wash-houses gratis. We cannot, of course, comprehend the nice shades of conscientiousness that cause such twinges in the directorial mind of the Water Works Company. Ordi*

navy mortals would be apt to take another view of the matter, and to say—Since your revenue is supplemented out of the public revenue, in order that the guaranteed interest shall be paid to the shareholders, you aie pretty well paid beforehand for what water public baths and wash-houses may need. It cannot lessen your revenue to supply them. )lou have water enough and to spare, and the least icturn you can make for the money you draw from the public treasury is to devote a fraction of your surplus stock of water to the public benefit. We for our parts can hardly comprehend what answer could be given to such an aigu merit. It might be a question of right or wrong were it one of revenue or no revenue. But no such case is before them. Whether the Company supplies the water or not, they will not get paid. By giving it they lose nothing —by withholding it they gain nothing. Bv refusing a boon that costs them nothing, they remind one of the dog in the manger : they neither consume what they guard themselves, nor allow anyone else to have the benefit of it. The consequence of this cur-like practice has been that the Corporation, who seek to provide for the public what private enterprise cannot so well secure, are driven to the necessity of asking for ground for the erection of public baths in a situation less central, and consequently more inconvenient, than the one originally contemplated in the Octagon. We hope the Water Company will take the hint thrown out by the Superintendent, and review their reasons for refusing to comply with the request of the Corporation. We are, on the whole, somewhat surprised at the apathy displayed by the public on this subject, and at the symptoms of opposition to the construction of public baths that have peeped out in correspondents’ letters. Men have become so far acquainted with the laws of health as to appreciate the necessity fox- draining swamps and the removal of nuisances, although these, in one form or other, would accumulate pretty quickly were there not a vigilant supeivision. The truth that every disease is traceable to a cause which is in most cases removal or remediable, has not yet superseded the old unfounded notions that diseases ai’e sent for spiritual discipline. Men generally do xxot comprehend that the infraction of a physical law induces rapid and very often fatal punishment. Were this truth comprehended in its entii'ety, much of the prevalent neglect of frequent ablution would disappear, and the construction of baths and wash-houses would be regarded as axx inestimable boon. \y e mav therefore be pardoned fox quoting the followixxg passage from the , admirable work on physiology by the late Dr, Andrew Combe on this subject : The exhalation from the skin is composed of a large quantity of water which passes off in the form of invisible vapor or of fluid sweat and of various salts and animal matter, a’portion of which is absorbed and re - tained in the texture of the clothes, and another portion of which remains adherent to the skin, and forms on it a layer of impurities. Hence the frequent removal ot this residue by washing becomes an indispensable condition of health, the observance of which, particularly in early life, when waste and nutrition are both very active, prevents the appearance of the cutaneous diseases otherwise so common in infancy. -Not only, I therefore, is daily washing of the body re- ; n nired at that and indeed at every age, but frequent change of clothing is also essential; and for this reason it is much to be wished that a plan of washing the clothes of the poor at a cheap rate, similar to that so sue- ; cessfully in operation in Liverpool, were ; adopted in all our larger towns. . . . • But if the frequent change and washing of clothes are essential to the health of the skin by removing the saline and animal impurities deposited upon them by the perspiration, it is equally certain that frequent i bathing or washing of the skin is not less indispensable to remove the impurities adhering to its surface, and Which would otherwise tend in the long run to obstruct its pores, impede its functions, and disturb its health. It is apparently for this reason that, in the eastern and warmer countries, where i perspiration is very copious, ablution and bathing have assumed the rank and importance di -religious observances. Those who are in the habit of using the flesh-brush daily, are at first surprised at the quantity- ■ of white dry scurf which -it bungs off; and those who take a warm bath for half an hour at long intervals, cannot have failed to notice the great amount of impurities which it removes, and the grateful feeling of comfort which its use imparts. The warm, tepid, cold or shower bath, as a means of prescribe health, ought to be in as common use as a change of apparel, for it is equally a measure of necessary cleanliness. Many, no doubt, neglect this, and enjoy health notwithstanding ; but many, very many, suffer fiom its omission, and even the former would be benefited by employing it.