Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-07-21
THE PROPOSED BATHS.

Two of the leading papers of San Fran
cisco yesterday devoted number of col
umns, freely illustrated, to the art of
swimming, its advantages as an accom-
plishment, its desIrability as healthful
exercise, its necessity as life-saver, its
worth as developer of the physical frame,
Its adaptability alike to old and young,
and its immeasureable benefits to COM
munity as sanitary measure where gen.
orally engaged in. These articles are very
timely, in view of the present agitation in
this city concerning the establishment of
swimming baths. A paper in the SUNDAY
UNION on the free river baths in New
York was also appropriate to the current
discussion.
1t is simply amazing that SO large
population as this, living in hot valley,
provided with an abundance of water and
having land in plenty for conversion to
the uses of swimming bath, should be
without such blessing. There ought to
be no great difficulty experienced in secur-
ing the necessary subscriptions to insure
the setting up os the baths. We learn
that it is not infrequently said to the soli-
citors that Sacramento has had swimming
baths in the past, and that they have
proved failures. 1t is not true, however.
The only bath entitled to the designation
of swimming bath was small affair,
dark, ill-itted, ill attended and ill-managed
for the most part, and inadequate to the
needs of the community. Yet we are as
sured that even that ffteen-foot concern
paid handsome profit, and that the rea-
son for its decline was the stigma that
finally attached to it by its use by disrep-
utable characters. Many years ago there
was neat swimming bath on Front street,
erected by a wealthy German citizen, and
it paid well, but great fire early swept it
away.
The truth is that in a population of
nearly 10000 people fully 5000 can be re-
lied upon to use swimming baths, and if
they do so, as infrequently as once month,
on the average for the year, the attend
ance will exceed by nearly 500 the aggre-
gate admissions required, according to an
intelligent correspondents estimates, to
pay Z per cent. upon the capital required
to erect proper, spacious and well-ordered
baths. If, therefore, to carry out our cor
respondents argument, in which it ap-
pears to us he has stopped short, it re-
quires the patronage of but about $500
people out of population of 100000 to
say nothing of visitors, to pay per cent
profit, the company now organized, if it
succeeds in getting together the necessary
capital, will be certain to make 3 or per
cent. in excess of that earning. For the
$500 are considered as using the bath
but once in thirty days, where human ex-
perience teaches us that for at least six
months in the year, if not nine months,
two-thirds of the $500 will visit the bath
weekly, or oftener. So that the invest
ment will be safe one on the basis that
the baths will have the support of only
900 or 1000 out of the entire large popu.
lation of this city. 1t is to be hoped.
therefore, that the subscriptions to stock
will come in more rapidly than on the
first day of solicitation, and in very much
larger sums, that the work may begin this
summer of erecting the baths.