The St. Johns herald., 1896-07-04
A BATH IN FINLAND.
AN IMPORTANT AFFAIR THAT TAKES
 PLACE ONCE A MONTH.

In @ Public Bathhouse an old Woman
 Turns on the Steam, and the Whole
 Village Population Is Cleaned - Then
 Comes siesta In the Cold Air.
 If you lived in as cold and uncomfort- able country as Finland, it is highly rrobable that you would never take a bath. Therefore you will appreciate this remarkable story, which proves the great virtue and bravery of the Films. There are Films no doubt who bathe every day ; but, like the most of the real heroes of this world, they live and die in obscur- ity, unhonored and unsung.
 There are, on the other hand, no Films who do not take at least one bath a month. And this is a pretty high aver age when you consider that for all France the average is one bath a year for every Frenchman, and in Germany the average is seven-tenths of bath a year for every German, and in England the average is one-haR bath year for every Englishman. These are thin and poor averages when compared with the Finnish average of 12 baths year a person.
 But it is not the number of baths that is so interesting as the Finlander's meth cd of taking those baths. Of course, even in such centers of civilization as Keitele, the people have long ceased to be quaint. But take village like Tras- borg, which is tucked away in an ob- scure corner of the banks of Ulea Trask, and you find the ancient and honorable Finnish bathing custom in full force.
 On the banks of the lake about quarter of a mile from the huddle of huts called Trasborg you will see a small log house with no windows and apparently with no door. All around the outside of this queer hut runs bench, the back of which is the wall of the hut and the seat single board SUD- ported by uprights.
 There is no chimney. There is box like a sentry shelter at little distance from the hut, and it is from this box that an underground passage leads to the interior of the cabin.
 On certain day you will see huge fire blazing near this cabin, and after it has been going for several hours you will observe that the old woman who has been watching the fire will reach into it with a huge pair of tongs and lift out powder The powder is red hot.
 She will drag this into the box and so through the underground passage. She will lay it finally in the center of the earthen floor of the cabin, and so she will go on, dragging redhot bowl ders out of the fire and piling them up in mound in the center of the cabin floor. When she has brought the last bowider, she has a large mound, and the cabin is beginning to warm up.
 In @ corner of the cabin stands a huge barrel of water. She dips bucket into the barrel and throws the water on the mound of rocks. Steam bursts from it. When she has thrown on half doz- en buckets, the cabin is choked with steam.
 The joyous bathers begin to arrive. While the old woman has been making the steam the villagers have been get ting ready. In every family there has been @ grand disrobing.
 And now from every hut burst the inhabitants, clad only in the simple tight fitting and innocent garments with which nature has provided all her children. The weather is cold, bitter cold. But the hardy Finnish men. wom- en and children are not disturbed.
 They leap over the frozen ground, shouting with laughter and going at full | speed to keep their blood circulating. 1 The Films are far from lovely to look i upon, even when swathed in their win ter garments of fur. In state of nature | they would never attract offers from painters or sculptors seeking models.
 But they are so frank and so cheerful | and so happy that one does not mind their squat bodies, their rolls of fat, their coarse and greasy skins. So they | go bounding to the common bathhouse of the village, running races, tripping one another. jostling one another aside. All are in the merriest possible mood.
 There is quite scramble at the door of the sentry box, as so many arrive at the same time. But gradually they dis appear until the whole village popula- tion is lying or sitting about on the shelves that line the interior walls of the cabin. The mothers have brought the babies. Not soul is left in the viii lage huts. It is a deserted village.
 There are lively times in the bath house, as you may imagine. The women Ire all on one side, the men on the oth- sr, and forms can just be dimly made put by the dim tallow dip that sheds laint, smoky light. The place is full of ;team, and the temperature is away up oward blood heat. Hour after hour the ngenuous Films lounge or sleep or gos- lip. They stay until they are thoroughly ,oiled out and the room begins to get hilly.
 Then they sit outside the house on the 'ench. They do not mind the freezing ir. They lounge about as if it were ummer time, smoking, drinking, feel ng clean and light hearted.
 They do not destroy this pleasure by ndulging too often. Once month is ften enough. Thirty days of quiet and hen one day of the full, round joy of erfect cleanliness is just about right for coping the balance adjusted. Boston 'ost
 Surprises of Travel.
 A noble English lady who was over