The record-union., 1891-11-02
SOAP AND WATER.
Shall We Dispense With Our Daily
Additions?


Though we must express a personal
prediction for soap and water, we are
willing to admit that, if we all give. up
washing except when it is absolutely
necessary to remove foreign substances,
there will be one or two signal advant-
ages. For example, there will be ma
tlonal saving of many millions. The
soap bill is an important item in many
households, and its virtual suppression
would probably allow many little extra
luxuries. When the reaction has taken
steady hold of us, this no doubt will be
worked out in detail by the Anti Wash
ing League" or by the Society for the
without the Use of Ablution." We shall
be told how the money now annually
spent in soap would build twenty lunatic
asyiums, hundred orphanages, five
hundred public halls, and give bath
bun to every other child educated in
schools receiving a Government grant.
Again, the ceasing of all ceremonial
and luxurious ablution would save an
enormous amount of time. Persons with
boards sometimes calculate that in the
time employed in shaving, their bare
chinned friends, might learn Spanish.
Dutch, or Portuguese, or instruct their
offspring in the elements of geometry.
In the same way, the time we have spent
in wooing, in watching, and pursuinp''
the soap round the washing basin NAV
be protitably employed sin benefiting
our fellow-creatures, in carrying on our
business, or, as far as the morning wash
is concerned, in obtaining a few more
moments of repose.
Then, too. we cannot help thinking
that the Punishment from the national
conscience of the idea that washing is of
supreme Importance will be exceedingly
beneficial. Up till now the washing mo-
tive has too deeply dominated our race.
We have come to look upon water as
meant primarily to wash in, as an aid to
ablution rather than a thing of beauty.
A story of SomerSetshire peasant will
illustrate what we mean. The individual
in question had never seen the sea till he
was taken to Weston-superMare on
choir treat excursion. Naturally the
Vicar. the curate and the rest of the ten
ors, trebles and basses, as soon as the eS-
planade was reached, gathered round to
see how the first sight of the ocean would
strike the natural man. Will it be be-
lieved that the words struck from him
by the view of ''the unturrowed deep''
lying in vast eXpanse before his ewes
were these: IF pd known what her were
like, I'd have brought down a bit of soap
and had a good wash -? The iron-or
rather the soap-had entered SO deeply
into his soul that he could only conceive
the sea as huge washing place.
Again, the reaction against washing, if
it comes, will help to bring us and foreign
nations more into sympathy. At present
their scorn of washing and our love of
soap''-the shade of the bard of Twicken-
ham, of whom it was said that all his
enemies wished him was "a little denti-
frice and SOAP will pardon our travesty-
prevents anything like real community
OF feeling. 1t may be remembered how
the French lover sadly refused the at
tempt of winning the hand of the young
English lady Of whom he had become
enamored. He dared not marry her, for
were they to be united, ''she would wash
me, and then / should die" When
Britain thinks like the rest of Europe on
the soap question, such heartrending sit
uations will not be ereated.-The Spec
tator