Connecticut western news., 1872-05-24
SALISBURY, CONN.
 Friday Morning, May "A, 1872.
A Turkish Bath.
By the Hon. Wm. G. Bates.


 are apt to be worse than the original injury. am ready to make much abatement for your publishing my late letter in part. in -yonr columns. You probably supposed that - felt theretQ authorized; but nei- ther he nor you contemplated the difficulty you were to get me into. The air-bath con- tains, as I wrote, number of persons; and when spoke of the subjects of conversa- tion and discussion,-for example, theolo- gy, epitaphs and conundrums, ,-I ought to have disclaimed, on the part of some of the inmates, any unseemly levity. When for instance one of the most serious of us re peated an inscription, which is engraved upon solemn tombstone in the Farming ton Valley, in Connecticut,-
 .. 1" Tho little hero who lies here
 Was conquered by the diarrhea.''-
 I "agi,i to !, we sad! thai the sober part of iJ,- ',uilis.n. ,}l'l n.t ildd se $ Ii''rr 'han au invn,un'ary la'igh, -N0 p:,.sic,.. com plulnt ilas heen mude of the publication j; but have observed, that there ism sort of feeling expressed in the lines.
 A chiefs amang ye taking notes.
 s,-r.y An faith, he'll print it, r.4r -r which created constrained reserve, in the habitues of the bath. In fact, one of them has not been in since the publication, tho I cannot affirm that thIs was the reasom of his absence. Well; as l. have begun to write, and you have published the perform ances of one day, I may as well describe to you for your readers, another scene, which may be new to some of them. I refer to Turkish Baths Before l begin my descrp- ton, let us give credit to those old heathens, who certainly surpassed the sagacity of the - Pilgrims or their descendants, in providing one comfort, of which many of us, even now, are ignorant do not refer to the subject of health, merely, but of comfort , and say that no one: who, for the first time emerges from Turkish bath, does not feel in his innermost soul the sensation of gratitude to the inventor; and, like hon. est Mir. Sancho Panza, who said, s'Blessed be the man who first invented sleep. a readiness to acknowledge, that he has fur nished one of the most comfortable and healthful eonyeniences of society. e
 But to the bath, which is open semi-daily, at 10 and o'clock, for folks that need ab- lution. Maxwell, who has formerly opened the porous hides of the men of Boston, is the administrator of the men; and in the other department, there are a competent corps of maids, to cleanse and purify the softer skins of those who have an "equal right" to such cleansing. know nothing of the modus in the upper sphere, and so confine myself to Maxwell and the stout- handed Patrick, who is equal to every emergency in his absence. At 10 o'clock, then, I repair to hall in the rear of the office, on either side of which are small dressing rooms, in one of which I discard my clothes, and gird my Joins with 8 long towel, after the manner of our great ances- l. tor in Eden. Then enter small room of 10 by l2 feet, in which are several rocking chairs, with split-ao0od backs and bottoms. recognize the reason of this, when I sit down; for feel at once, when come ID contact with soOod at the temperature of from l400 to 230e Fahrenheit, that solid seat would be little more than reasonably comfortable to that portion of my body, < which by the disciplinary efforts of an early scheol-marm," had been rendered pecu- liarly sensitive. Seating myself in one chair, and putting up my feet in another. l sit and read, talk or muse in an atmos- phere of about 140o for half an hour, or until the precipitation begins to trickle down freely, Then l walk into the next apart ment or into what would be called an up per grade, the thermometer indicating l7Oo.
 feel my brains beginning to sympathize with the increasing heat. and call for a wet towel of cold water But this is bad medical practice, as I am told, and my Mentor applies, instead hot one, which certainly does afford sort of relief. be- gin to think from the large drops which ooze out of my skin, and at times combine and run down the wrinkles in my hide, in 8 small river that 1 am not destined for long inhabitancy here; and while I am wonder ing what sort of comfort shall find in the upper degree, where the mercury scars to 237e, Maxwell places me in lot seat with a cold newspaper in the bottom of the chair to tempt the heat. in the last room. go, that my head were waters p is use less wish. Not only my head, but my eotOle bodyis a fountain of tears. In few moments, am removed to the champoo- ing room, and am laid on broad slab of marble. with stone pillow. Many time have sighed, when sat on a hard plank, for an apology for pillow, or a cushion but now craved even psa1ak. How hard is the cruel stone! and as the faithful and unfiinching Maxwell pulls and twists my muscles, this way, that way, and the other, now applying the strigil, after the manner of the ancients, now rubbing with his strong and brawny hand. and again, with the Tampico grass, securing off the deposit which the heat had brought up from the subsoil, could not but wish that all that kind of marble had been used up in con- structing Cardiff giants, instead of being formed into bed, more cruel than that of Procrustes, for me to lie on. But all things must have an end. Baked in an oven of 237o, when heat of 1909 is fatal to the trichins in pork (according to the report of our health commissioners), strigilized, rubbed, scrubbed, champooed, secured with dried Tampico grass, as Bridget SCOUTS her knives with rushes, am at last placed upright against wal, when To! stream of water, at times hot, and then again icy cold, is squirted upon me, exciting in my mind g heartfelt pity for those old giants, whose exposure to sudden changes of temperature is said to have produced the irregularities at Mount Etna. Now am finished up. Maxwell carefully folds me up in my sheet,