Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-05-07
| Baths IN France and America

~ F the dearth of baths in beautiful
| { France, members of the A. E. F.
brought home many a droll story.
but none more diverting than this, related
in the Echo De Paris as the experience of
NJ Defert president Of the French Touring
Club. Dusty with half a days motoring, he
arrived at place of note in the Rhone val
ley, and saw painted upon door in large
letters the word Baths" Getting out of his
car, he knocked.
What do you want?"
"a BATH
For which day."
"At once"
ooh! But that is impossiblc!"
''Why?"
You have to order it at least two days
before hand"
Whereupon the window was shut, not to be
opened again.
Something must be done, the writer in
the Echo De Paris insists, to meet the alb
utionary requirements of American visitors,
of whom there are likely to be ever increas-
numbers. Rich or poor" he writes,
"the American takes his bath daily, some
times several in the day. The Englishman
who believes in the virtue of water, invent
ed the tub This is the bath of the colonial.
If taken cold it cleanses less, and besides it
is not quite certain that this way of plung-
ing the body into cold water is suitable for
all temperaments" Wherefore, the keen
water and plenty O. it. "In France he
points out very particular people wash
themselves bit by bit, and that is unending
can assure you it is pleasure to jump
o the bath for an instant when dressing
of an evening, especially when it is ready in
three minutes" But French plumbing and
French gas are very unpropitious for hot
baths Glow long?" the Echo De Paris writ
err asks his countrymen, chow LONG does
it take you to get bath at temperature
l. nf to m
chitis?" The plumber says: Tin answer to
complaints) "The gas has not enough pres
sure" The gas-man says: Its your heater
that's no good" Now, in the United States
this hot water, perpctually flowing from the
taps, comes simply from the furnace In the
tchen. One bathes just as one eats, at GER
tain hours" The conclusion is that French
cooks should be married to American plumb
ers, for thus lin quarter OF century we
should obtain a generation which would
make the fortune Of French hotels"
Marat, ablest Of the terrible trio, is said
to have been under the necessity, during his
last years, of sitting in hot bath to COM
pose his mind for -~riting, SO tortured was
he by maddening skin disease which he
contracted while once hiding in the sewers
Paris. Thus immersed it was, with pen
and paper at hand, that he was stabbed, on
a Hateful thirteenth of July, by Charlotte
Corday. Whether or no the incident be re-
sponsible for the popular French antipathy
to hot baths, we shall not pause to argue.
But Americans, when advertng to the diff
fcuIty with which baths are to be had in
refined France should remember that Marat
DID obtain his. Moreover they will do we'll
to reflect upon certain pride-chastening fig
ures published the other day, concerning
the paucity of bath convenences in their
own nations rural districts; not as many
as twenty per cent of the farm houses in
New York State itself, the curious statsti-
clans have discovered, are provided with
cold baths, let alone hot ones. Seneca, they
say when he far in years used to
hasten out and battle in spring water on
midwnter mornings. But then Seneca was
a philosopher, and a Stole at that. We doubt
that he has a great many American imitatOrs