The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-05-28
Curious Facts About Bath Tubs.

Curious Facts About Bath Tubs.
In America there are still millions of
people who regard the bathtub as a
luxury rather than as necessity.
The average well-to-do American
goes through his Tubing every day. 1t
is just as important as his breakfast,
or even more so, and it may astonish
many to learn that there are thousands
of wel-to-do men and women whose
Tubing is weekly or bi-monthly
event. And there are thousands of the
poor who average fewer baths each
year, than the number of months
Especially among the foreign ele
ment is this true There are no bath =
tubs in their tenement homes, and con-
sequently bathing is difficult Children
are sent to school sewn up for the
winter" When teachers have sent
their pupils home to change their
clothes that reason has been given by
their parents for not obeying the order.
There are in New York, for example,
many grown men and women who
have never had a bathtub bath. These
people are generally foreigners who
have not been brought up to it. In
many foreign lands bathing and bath
tubs are unknown. Even in one Of the
most modern cities of the world
Paris-the bathtub is a recent innova-
ton The peasant classes of France
rarely battle. A story is told CT a
beautiful peasant girl, who died from
the shock of her first bath, which was
taken at the request of an American
painter who wanted her to pose for
him.
That thousands of New Workers do
not know bathtubs when they see them
is evident from the following story
which is told as a fact by real estate
dealer He built tenement on the cast
side. It had some eighty suites and a
good enamelled bathtub was installed
in each of them. The suites were soor
rented, and the owner congratulated
himself that his expenditure for bath
tubs was justified by the rapidity with
which the suites were being taken. He
had a great disillusion, however when
he visited his tenement after it was
filled Not one of the bathtubs was be-
ing used for the purpose for which it
was intended. In several of the suites
the tubs had been turned into aquari-
ums. Rocks and seaWeed had been
put intot hem to make them attractive
Little gold fishes darted in and out
among the crags, and china swans
f1oated on the surface Of the water. In
some of the suites the tubs were used
to hold coal and ashes, and one tenant
had removed his tub to mix mortar in
it. Needless to say the owner of the
tenement lost faith in bathtub philan-
thropy.
Two New Workers, seeing a dirty
little street urchin, got into discus
sion about the boys age. Failing t.
agree on any figure, they decided to
ask the urchin. He promptly replied,
Eleven years"
1.-THE boy doesn't know his own age, )"
commented one of the men. why, he
couldn't collect all that dirt in eleven
years." 1
The bathtub is little referred to in
song or story Swift,s Tale of Tub"
did not consider bathtubs. Perhaps the
only well-known song in which direct
allusion appears is In 1.-The Same Old
Story" from 1.-THE Belle Of New York. T"
It Is referred to in the following way:
"same old get up. bath In tub:
Same old coffee, same old grub.
Same old soubrette, still twenty-five;
Same old story. nothing new"