VIENNESE BATHS.

Evening Star, Issue 3426, 13 February 1874, Page 3

VIENNESE BATHS.

The travelling correspondent of the San Francisco * Bulletin ’ writes from Vienna : “I have been testing a ba’h house. I explored the establishment, asking everyone I met ‘fur ein warmes bad.’ Some pointed in one direction, and some in another. At last I found myself before the woman who sold the tickets. I paid fifty kveutzera. She called * Marie !' Marie, a bright, black-eyed German maiden, came. She went to a shelf and burthened herself with a quantity of linen.' Then she signed for me to follow. I went in an expectant, wondering, and rather anxious frame of mind. Marie went into a neatly-furnished bath-room. Mane spreads a linen sheet in the tub, Marie then turns on the water. Marie waits for the tub to fill, and I wait for Marie to depart, that I may commence disrobing. Marie seems in no hurry. I ponder over the possibilities involved in a German warm bath. At last Marie leaves. Then I modestly remove my collar. Suddenly Marie returns. It is only to bring another towel. Great Scott! there is no lock on the door, and supposing I had been- . I get into my bath in fear and trembling. These people are so queer in their ways Marie may return with two or three of those great, strapping German women to scrub me ! 1 know nothing of their bathing customs. M arie no longer disturbs me. On emerging 1 examine the pile of linen she has left. There is a small towel, and two seemingly large aprons, long enough to reach from the shoulders to the heels; I can’t imagine what they are for unless to throw on and dry oneself in. I put them ,t® such use. I would so use forty were they left, for I am resolved to have my fity kreutzere’ worth in some way. When I inquired the use of the two aprons I discovered that they were to be worn while Marie came in, and turning off the hob water, lets on the cold.”