BATHS AND WATER SUPPLY AT AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5384, 29 June 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

BATHS AND WATER SUPPLY AT AUCKLAND.

A writer on this subject in the N. Z. Herald of the 20th instant observes :—“ When the laws of the Christian religion were engrafted' on or took the place of those of the Mosaic dispensation, no alterations were made in respect to the regulations regiifcling personal cleanliness. These were all-sufficient, and were supposed to remain in full force. The Chinese and the Hindoo religions, which are the two oldest iu the world, and date back almost to the era of those Megalosauri, which wallowed about in the slush of a half-cooked world, and scratched their hides against ferntrees, and those overgrown reeds which philosophers suppose, without sufficient reason, melted down into coal, held, and continue to hold, the necessity of frequent ablutions to cleanliness. Mahomet , advocated the same thing. The old saw has it that “ cleanliness is next to godliness.” Physicians tell us that a pure mind cauncc exist iu an impure body. Old Oolsns said ( mens sana in covpore nano,' or, a * sane mind exists [or cau only exist] in a sound body.’ The body cannot exist in a healthy state unless the perpetually decaying particles, with the adherent abnormal matters, are periodically washed away. Hence the absolute necessity of frequently-recurring ablutions. A fellowcitizen, a few months ago, thought there was a good opening in this begrimed town, and, at a very large cost, converted his warehouse into an establishment v/here the { sons of labor ’ and others might purify, lubricate, and loosen their hides without the tedious operation of scratching against a post or plunging about in their search for cleanliness in a mixture of water, mud from the streets, and coal-tar from the gasworks. He labored under the delusion that the Corporation would assist him in lowering the death-rate. But, no ! They wsuld neither do this nor lower their own rates. The. laws of the City Corporation, like those of the Modes and Persians of old, are immutable. They are fixed as the ideas in the skulls of some of those who formed and continue them. The result of his applications was that be was told there was a fixed scale for water, and if he wanted the precious oxyhydrate he must pay the established price, or liis clients must remain unwashed ! Manufactories, bo it said, have the liquid supplied at a very considerable reduction on the scale of 2s. per 1000 gallons. Why, then, should not an establishment having for its object the purification of the sweltering hides of the ‘horny-handed sons of toil’ on their return from daily labor, be allowed tho use of liquid at tho bare cost of its supply ? The petition was shelved, and the consequence is that the promulgator or promoter, or whatever you maj call him, is obliged to charge a price which has almost tapued the establishment, and thus defeated the object that he had in view. Perhaps the idea of a cheap cleansing was too much for the consciences of our sapient Board of many by-laws, knowing, as they must, that purification is required there as elsewhere. * Charity begins at home/ and bodily purification, follows too naturally upon mental qualification for the subject to be entertained. Let the dog return to his vomit and the pig to his wallow. The moral and bodily functions of Auckland, the immaculate, need no purgations ; and an enlightened corporation, in a state of cleanliness and beatification, cannot: possibly imagine the necessity of less gifted working men for a cheap means of purification. Good for the physicians !”