Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-06-27
When NeaD York Takes q Bath
From the New York Post.

There were enough baths to go around Sat-
urday, for wonder. Saturday was the hottest
day this summer-each Saturday always is, you
know. The Patello baby in Jones Street almos,
didn't get any, through the conductor on the
trains falling foul of the salt bath that Patsy
Patello was bringing home to her from Coney
in milk bottle. For few minutes it was quite
question as to whom was going to get the bath
and where. Patsy won out, however, and was
| able to deliver the bath to the baby in person
on the fire escape later in the evening.
Yes, baths were certainly in order-and in
evidence. The town was determined on baths
They pushed and showed and used fists and
had words and about ten thousand went through
the municipal lighthouses at Coney Island
which is very small proportion compared with
those who were of size that could conveniently
make shift behind mothers umbrella
And the trails to all the beach resorts were
clogged with the various forms of that mysteri-
GUS bundle known to contain the bathing suit,
but still mysterious by reason of its powers of
compression and the diversity of its manifesto
tons. Sometimes it is knitting bag, sometimes
a corset box, often merely fat shopping bag,
just once it a lawyers brief case Some
men think they can conceal it in collar box;
and how,it swells and forces it uncouth identity
on the pretty girl sitting next on the trip home.
No one need bother again this summer about
getting the right trains for the beach, Just fol-
low the bags.
In town the line formed early for tub baths
at the public bath houses, which were worked
to capacity Up to noon they poured in by the
family. and great was the noise and splash in
those neighborhoods. Children, an average of
protest, into the cubices, while mothers and at
tendants enjoyed all the results of Turkish
bath. After noon the grownups had things to
themselves, and at II o'clock Saturday night one
attendant, mopping up the floor for the hun
dredth time declared it to have been the most
useful day of her life.
But those are all the more or less conven-
tional baths. Ladies of Victorian delicacy,
finding themselves off the beaten track, must
have thought they were being punished for this
indiscreton ty a Kiplingesque sending" this
time of small naked boys Every East Side
street. from Brooklyn Bridge up, emptied a .,-.rt
OF its population into the river while policemen,
headachy from counting and recounting each
group, and weighed down by responsibilities and
clothes, whisted vainy from the bank.
In the park lakes there were hooks that only
half concealed the almost nude bathers and the
policemen that slept peacefully while they
waited for someone to drown himself. At the
little Round Pond where model little girls
and boys sail model little boats one bold, bad
red headed adventurer was seen up to the neck
among the goldfish, while group of more
conservative sympathizers took care of his
clothes and watched for the cop.
The street sprinkers helped some, too, but
the real treat of the day was when the white
wings" came along, about 10 at night and turned
on the water plugs, whether to clean the streets
and cool them or to do the same for the left
over bathless ones is immaterial, for both prof
tied.
East Side and West Side were, in the main,
ready and dressed for it By that time most of
the babies were in something resembling the
scorned one-piece bathing suit and, uncensored,
they raced to the corners where the older chill
dren were already casting off anything that mat
tered in the way of shirts and conventions.
Those who were in bed rose and went some "as
is, others showing fine regard for the proprie-
ties in mothers old sweater or an old coat of
fathers.
Shades of those deep, cool swimming holes
that must be necessity of the small boys ma
ture, for where they do not exist he invents
them.