Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-28
new YORK NOT CLEAN?
DOCTORS SAY THE CITY NEEDS
MORE BATH TUBS.
1,ooo, 900 People Do Not Battle,
While Entire City Has Only
100000 Baths.

Seven hundred thousand bathtubs. It is
estimated. are used daily by Father
knickerbocker in his morning tub. If
they were placed together. end to end
without passengers. Of course. they would
make a water wagon Of tin, enamel, china
or marble lined cars 795 miles long. II
each of these tubs Is filled to a death of
one foot by each batfer. and on the aver
age each tub is used four times a day, 1t
takes stream of water one foot Deep
two feet wide and $3.50 miles long, a sort
Of narrow Mississippi OF pure water, to
satisfy the New Workers. desire for clean
illness.
And yet the doctors are saying that New
York Is not clean. For 1t Is estimated
also that there are probably 100000 peo-
pie who have no bathtubs in their homes
or who do not use them for bathing II
they have them.
City's Public Baths.
To help these tubless people, Father
knickerbocker operates twenty public
bathing places with a summer capacity OF
probably 15.COo people every hour, scrubs
In year in twelve elementary schools
over $4,000 children, and also sees that
bathing facilities are provided in sixteen
high schools
Many Of New York's 100000 tubs are
ca the public sort-that is, in hotels. clubs
or gymn asiums-where they are used by
many different people. The hotel dis
trict is probably the most tubbed part of
New York, as single hotel building may
nave from 100 to $50 tubs under its roof.
And these public tubs are coming to he
regarded by physicians with a GOOD deal
or suspicion as possible source Of con-
tagion. AS they point out a bather in O.
PUBIC tub cannot be certain as to its
previous occupant. So strong has this
had eight public tubs for its members, the
West Side Y. NJ. c. A., in West 57th
street. the medical director and a physi-
cian on the board Of manaRement cauAed
elgnt TUBS worth $500 to be put on the
scrap heap, and twenty-five shower Ia tins
costing $l,60O. to be installed. MANY
notels and apartments are now nrttine
In showers as we'll as tubs, and there are
some people who are beginning to wonder
!, LII; NeW YORK IN the interest Of hygiene,
VIII eventually become tubless town. J
AT the West Side Y. M. c. A.. DR. .ou,s
Il. Welzmiller the director OF the rvn-
nasium, said: 1T has cost us s.. 400 to he
aosoiutely sure on the hygiene side. and
| are possible source of contaeion uuhsre
used publicly, but at any rate a tub hath
is not clean. The tub bather really CON
tinues to wash in water which he him
sen mas mage dirty. Every tub bather
ought to take a shower to clean himself
after tub bath. For In the shower
the pather gets clean water all the time.
ana the used water flows away. More.
over, the shower bath does not cool the
whole body at once and the drops of
water act as sort Of massage"
Bathtub Is Not a Bed.
The New York health department has
not as yet condemned the public tub. But
| the department has found it necessary Ia
make 1t a misdemeanor to use any bath
tub for bed. In one of the three Sec
lions of the sanitary code which deal
with bathing at all one section, No. Is,
| solemnly declares that it is an offense un-
der the laws of the state of New York
to sleep in a bathtub, or a bathroom.
and that it Is equally illegal to rent a
bathroom for bedroom. The sanitary
code also requires that bathtub plumb
ing be all right, and that seaside board
ing house keepers provide two-inch
sound, serviceable and strong" ropes for
| the safety of bathers in any sea tub they
may control. The law against tubbeds
York's high rents and large families, the
people of the East Side find an extra
bedroom far more necessary than bath
Ing place. An owner Of a tenement block
once put bathtubs as an experiment in
one house. At the end Of six months he
found that one family used its tub for
COAL a second for live geese, q third to
raise onions and a fourth as a crib for
the baby.