Year: 1869

Free Baths-A Disgracefai Neglect.
Without entering into the question Of the
necessity of bathing and washing the multi
tude, free Of cost, in q great city like
ours, we may state that the Legislature
has legalized the principle Of plentiful
washing, and that the Common Council
has appropriated fifty thousand dollars for
the construction of two free bathing houses,
one on the East and another on the North river
side of the metropolis. 1t appears that moth
ing has been done in the matter up to this
time. Neither the Street Commissioner nor
the Mayor has had leisure to devote to the
subject all summer. The Mayor says that as
far as he knows no sites have been selected,
nor have any plans been prepared for these
public free baths. But he thinks that some
thing will certainly be done by next summer.
Meantime the mass of the people who cannot
afford bathrooms in their domiciles must
either 60 unwashed or brave the vigilance of
the police if they should be tempted to take a
surreptitious bath at or near any of our piers.
1t is suggestive fact that in one police pre-
cinct last summer the captain had to report
thirteen hundred arrests Of poor people,
men and boys, who endeavored to
clean MISUNDERSTANDING to law-by dip
in the river. And yet there was not then, nor
is there now, any place where they can take
legal wash after their hard days labor In
factories and workshops. The Board Of
Health insists, and very properly, that the
domiciles Of the poor, which are mainly
located in tenement houses, shall be kept clean
and pure; but how can this be done In tho
heated summer season II the occupants have
no facilities for keeping their own persons
clean?


II Is evident, then, that this city, like almost
every other all over the world, must provide
free bathing places for its population. They
are more needed here than in Albany, Phila-
dslphia or Boston, where the system of free
baths has been found to work with astonish-
ing benefit, not only to public health, but to
public morals, because as cleanliness Is
next to godliness, so are the lowest and most
debasing vices always found to be the part
ners of filth and uncleanliness. There Ia no
city on the Continent which affords more faoili-
ties for public baths than New York; hence 1t
is disgraceful neglect that We are left so
long without them, especially as provision has
been made for their construction both by the
Legislature and the Common Council.


As to the proper location for these baths we
should suppose there can be very little diff
Guilty. Of course they should be erected in
the vicinity Of the most crowded parts of the
city, where they are most needed. In the
thinly populated wards up town they are not a
necessity, because the masses Of working
people who require them reside In the crowded
lower wards.


The fit place for the bath on the East river,
for instance, would be somewhere within
reach Of the inhabitants Of the Fourth, Seventh,
Sixth and Tenth wards, the two first of which
front on the river and the other two having
direct access to 1t through Roosevelt, James,
Catharine, Market, Pike, Rutgers, jefferson,
Clinton and Montgomery streets. The bath
on the North river might be located somo-
where within the precincts of the Fifth, Eighth
and Ninth wards. These are the most popu-
lous parts Of the city and are inhabited by
just the class Of people who most need the
luxury Of bath and Of whom just now that
comfort and necessity is entirely out Of reach.


The river line on either side Of this crowded
portion Of the city Is not so very long that
some point on any Of the many wharves and
piers could not be easily decided upon. We
see no reason, therefore, why there should be
any difficulty on the part Of the authorities as
to the locations for the free baths. If thoy
desire to accommodate the public in this re-
spect there il no obstruction in the way.