"GO TO BATH!"

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 200, 3 May 1912, Page 4

"GO TO BATH!"

It is not exactly the weather to be talking about baths and bathing in the open, but there are still plenty of Spartans who believe in a cold water course, without any insidious concomitants, as a cure for many of the minor ills that flesh is heir to. This leads us to the subject of the municipal baths. It is very evident that the people locally do not appreciate the value of the excellent baths that are provided in New Plymouth, in a handy position on the seashore. They are probably as large and as well-equipped as any baths in the Dominion, yet after paying interest on the cost of construction and supplying the sinews of war for their maintenance the Council is annually met with a substantial deficit. Indeed, thj patronage is so poor that it is found necessary to close the baths during a portion of the winter months. It would be possible to understand this if the adjacent beachbathing conveniences were of a more attractive nature, but, as a matter of fact, surf-bathing, except at some distance from the town, can only be conducted at some personal inconvenience. The splendid and capacious swimming pool at the baths is just as fresh and invigorating as the open sea, and it is free from all the discomforts attaching to bathing from the beach and rocks. But by far a more valuable asset is the salt hot-water baths which are available at the building. Visitors to the town really make more use of these excellent tonics than the residents themselves, and. they are loud in their praises of the curative properties of the water in all cases of rheumatism and its allied foe of physical lassitude. We are, as a matter of fact, aware of one sufferer who comes regularly to New Plymouth to take a course of hot sea-water baths in preference to visiting the miraculous pools of Bethseda with which Rotorua and Hanmer abound. Probably the sea water at New Plymouth is very similar to the seawater in other open roadsteads, but there are very few places where it is served up piping hot for the convenience of those desiring to use it in this form. We do not know exactly what the Council can do to popularise the baths, be-yond-bringing them-more frequently under the notice of the people. Perhaps some reliable medical testimony as to the curative virtues of sea-water, both hot and cold, might he made impressive. It 'is, of course, possible to lead people to the water but not to make them bathe, .but New Plymouth is not so wedded to the extreme virtue of godliness as to be in a position to neglect the kin virtue of cleanliness. As things at present stand, the community is sadly neglecting a useful and attractive resort.