Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1861-01-12
THE TURKISH BATH IN ENGLAND.

The London Critic, in mentioning the opening
of a Turkish bath in Pimlico, gives the following
account of the operations and sensations connec-
ted therowith:-When you enter you are requested
to take off your boots, and are furnished with a
pair Of slippers-a precaution necessary to keep
the matted floor Of the saloon, or ''cooling-room,"
perfectly clean. You are conducted to a dressing
room, where you diVest yourself of your clothes,
and an apron is handed you, which you straight
way grid about your loins then a sheet, with
which you drape yourself; and straightway you
are conducted down stairs to the bath. Your con-
ductors are, like yourself, dressed in an apron.
They are stalwart fellows, and looked as if they
never had been dressed in their lives for ''they
are naked, and are not ashamed" These lead you
into the bath, which is a sombre chamber lit up
with colored windows, and admitting what the
French call a mi jour it is well ventilated, and
the air is quite dry, but the tenn perature is one
hundred and thirty degrees of Fahrenheit. AS
you enter you lay aside the sheet, and when you
have been seated some seconds, every part of your
skin begins to cover itself with a profuse p%erspira-
ton. At first, breathing is a little oppressed; but
that wears off rapidly, and in a short time you re.
spire with perfect freedom. Presently you are
aware that you are 10 a bath of your own making.
In drops, 10 streams, in rivers, it runs over you
your hair is full Of it your face is bathed your
limbs are inundated, The seven millions Of pores
said to be in the human body are busily engaged
in freeing themselves from the bonds of q long, if
unconcious, Imprisonment. sin fact, you are in
the most p%rofuse perspiration you ever experienced
in your life. What was the ten-mile walk on an
Auuusk Aau m tbis ? What tho n,llop or,n ,bo
Downs, or the spult to Ifiey, or even the training
walk under Heaven knows how many peajackets?
All these made the shirt stick to my back but
this would soak a whole weeks washing of shirts.
And 30 you sit quietly communing with yourself
on these matters, until one of the bathmen tells
you that it is time to go into the hot room. Tie
hot room! Why, you have been sitting for half
an hour in a temperature of one hundred and
thirty degrees, and now you are to go into the hot
room I! Great is the power Of human endurance ;
your body is now seasoned, and you walk into a
room toheye the temperature is one hundred and sev-
enty degrees, without feeling in any way oppressed;
and now the streams pour out afrssh. All around
is dry, but you are like Gideon's fleece. The heat
is great, but you do not care for it. The seven
millions Of pores are now all free, and are reioic-
ing in their freedom. You thought yourself a
cleanly person, because you have taken a sponge
bath every morning all your life, and an occasion.
al warm dip. Clea n why you were quite other
wise. So, at least, the bathmen prove to YOU
presently. For they take you bach to the former
room they extend you upon a slab they knead
your muscles and your flesh and then they roll
off you such o mass of dead skin, used-up epiderm-
is, that, but for the evidence Of your senses, YOU
n ever could have believed had once belonged to
you. However cloanly you may have fancied
yourself to be, that is what the Turkish bath will
take from you, not only on yOnr first visit, but ey-
cry week after. The sensation of relief which fol.
lows this disencumbrance is amazing, But what
~follows is the GROWING JOY of all. The Tritons.
having sham pooed you, lead you into a cool room;
they anoint you with soap, and turn upon YOU a
shower of cold water, following it with a douche
Oh, the enjoyment. the delicious enioymentof that
sensation There is no pleasure Of the sense, 10
compare with it. The reaction calls the blood
back to the surface, and your newly polished skin
glows with health and vitality. You court the
cool water and embrace it: you revel in il. and
cannot have TOO much of it; the Tritons have some
difficulty in leading you forth and sheetei once
ASASJ " "boAh W II COUIlug-rOgm ~
where, lying on a couch, you expose your BODY TO
the fresh and cooling air, giving itas much oxygen
as you can 10 exchange for the carbon of which
you have been purified. In this stage of the pro-
coedings a good cigar is not to be despised, After
this you quit Paradise you resume your clothes
the consequences and memorials of our degrade.
ton, and you walk forth q regenerated man.
What a difference between yourself as you walked
in, and yourself as you walk out of this magic
palace You almost doubt whether you have not
changed your limbs for those of some one else.
leaving the weary old oues behind, aud taking
some of a very superior construction, bran-new,
muscular, untiring. You could walk twenty miles
without w~earying those w~ellOiled joints. You
could fly If you had wings. As you have not, YOU
content yourself with turning into st. James,
Park, where you apuse yourself las King Charles