MODERN SWIMMING PARTIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 December 1938, Page 4

MODERN SWIMMING PARTIES

FIRST BATHTUB IN U.S.A. Loretta Young, Joel McCrea and David Niven were chatting between scenes during the filming of “Three Blind Mice.” the new 20th CenturyFox film which will come on Friday to the State Theatre. The warm California sun had brought up the subject of a swimming pool party. "You kids should have been around in my father’s day,” Director William A. Seiter observed. "Then they had a bathing party that was a pathing party. It made bathing a violation of the law for many years after.” Folks who know Seiter always crowd around and press for more details when he starts one of those legends. Stuart Erwin, Marjorie Weaver, Pauline Moore, Bin’nie Barnes and Jane Darwell joined the group and demanded the story. “Well,” began Seiter, "away back on December 20, 1842. Adam Thompson, a wealthy grain and cotton dealer from Cincinnati, brought the first bathtub to America. He had heard, while in London, that the Prime Minister had one of the newfangled gadgets. “So he ran a big dinner at his home that night—and all the gentlemen guests—one after the other —tried out the tub. The story got into the papers the next day and politicians and doctors raised the roof. Thompson was fined and a lot of restricting laws were passed almost immediately. Philadelphia considered an ordinance prohibiting the use of bathtubs between November and March; Virginia placed a 30 dollar tax and extra heavy water rates on each tub, and Boston passed an ordinance forbidding their use except on medical advice.” “Gee.” observed Loretta Young, “imagine a country where they first pass a law against water —and then pass a law against whiskey.” “That leaves us nothing but ginger ale,” observed Joel McCrea, “let's have some lo cool off with —before the cops break in.”