The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-30

From Our 0lsn Correspondent
NEW YORK, June 80, 1870.
The Public Baths

readers of THE EVENING TELEGRAPH, several
hundred of the laboring classes of New York
will have made q first use of the public baths.
These are two in number and have been erected
by the Board of Public Works. which entered
into contract with DR.. Bernard Kelly for that
purpose. They have been built at the foot of
Fifth street, East river, and at the foot of
Thirteenth street. North river. AS yet accom-
modation has been made for only two hundred
people, but by the time few weeks have
elapsed probably a dozen more houses will be
run up. It is almost unnecessary to say they
are great success. That may be taken for
granted. The poor man is not necessarily a
clean man, when great difficulties beset the way
of his becoming so. But the difficulties that he
has hitherto had to struggle with-if he strug-
gled at all-have vanished, and there is no
excuse for his not obtaining that propinquity to
godliness which soap and water are said to con-
fer To be sure we have not yet sattained the
perfection of Roman luxury, and it is scarcely
probable that the ruins of New York a thousand
years hence (when a series of earthquakes shall
have knocked the Battery up to Harlem) will
contain any such imposing architectural relics
as those which remain at the present day of the
baths of Caracala, Titus, or Diocletian. His
tory tells us that some of these old swimming
schools united the advantages of a library to
those of natatorium. Perhaps it is not too
much TO say that this might come to pass in
time with us, and that in process of another
season the champion working-man will be seen
n floating on his back and reading the
Herald, the loan of which, during
2 the period of the bath, shall be included
In the three cents charged for
towels. The baths are to be kept open until the
end of September. The time for men will be
from five in the morning until ten at night on
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and from
five in the morning until noon on Sundays. The
\ time for women will be from five in the morning
until nine at night on Mondays, Wednesdays,
and Fridays. Nobody is admitted without
ticket. and though tickets are free yet they may
be refused in certain cases for motives of health
Ind morality, according as circumstances may
dictate Feminine bathers expected to wear
bathing dresses masculine have the inestimable
privilege of maceratng themselves IN puris ndtu-
rdlibus. The other regulations strict without
being puerile. Visitors and lookers-on who do
not bathe are not admitted except by express
stipulation, and no bather is allowed to remain
/ in longer than twenty minutes. OF course some
things must at first be expected to go wrong,
and unless the police discipline is rigorous
various disorders will crop out which will have
tendency to make the better classes of work.
people, especially the women, sensitive about
! attending public lighthouses to which much
/ is Peeping Tom, for every SuSannah brace of
wicked Elders, and for every Madame Uriah
David upon the housetop.
Closing Quick.
change has taken place in the plans of
: almost every of the theatres which meant to
keep open all summer. Booths and the Olym-
pic-v hich solemnly persisted in announcing
that il defed the distractions of the solstice-
shut their doors on Saturday night, reopening
only upon Monday the Fourth. Wallack's is
the only first-class theatre that draws and that
\ therefore will not suspend until the autumn.
Even Mr. DAILY, who intended to run on until the
middle or last of July, is announcing the last
nights of Fernando. On Tuesday evening, for
distance, there were just two hundred and ff-
teen people visible in the house, including the
J actors, the ''supes," the orchestra, the door
keeper, and the audience. This kind of thing is
managerially depressing, you understand. When
the public goes back on itself, and refuses to
give countenance to what it has hitherto de-
lighted in, the only thing that remains to be
done is to shut ones door against it.
Rice and Chopsticks.
The importation of Chinese shoemakers into
Massachusetts, and the engagement in this city
! of few Chinese as servants, have stimulated
an interest in the daily habits of life of such of
the Celestias as live and move and have their
being in the midst of us. Those who are inte-
rested in the subject of Chinese domestic labor,
more especially will hear with pleasure that for
nearly year gratuitous instruction has been
given to as many eaters of rice and wielders OF
chopsticKs as desire to become acquainted with
English. Of the number thus instructed
several have already been hired out as
! servants at wages varying from $50 to
$25 per month. Before being thus rescued
so to speak, their industry was solely exerted
in the manufacture of cigars and their capacity
fol- pleasure in the smoking of opium and the
4 caresses of wives not remarkable for oneness
of conJugal sentiment Who knows but that
this American touch laid upon the Chinaman's
head has sufficient magic in it to raise him up
forever? When he cooks the food we eat and
manufactures the shoes we wear, and does both
satisfactorily, he has done good deal towards
rendering himself indispensable and immortal
and therefore towards putting himself upon q
higher plane than he has walked upon since the
days of Confucius
'Edwin DrOOd'' to be Completed by a New
If l chose could give the name of literary
gentleman, residing at present in this city, with
whom arrangements for the completion o.
''Edwin brood" are pending. The arrangement
are in contemplation by a we'll known American
Ffrm, who thus acknowledge the talented
litterateur's aptitude at initiating the style OF
the dead novelist. ALI BABA.