June 15.
Soap is usually held to be the mark of modern civilisation. From that notion springs the curious belief that clean lin la - virtue peculiar to civilised races. Young England prides itself on its daily bath and speaks in hushed horror of its grandparents who made Satur-Jday night a bath night and never thought of equipping their country mansions on the one bed bath principle but, while stocking those mansions with double-figured families, considered one bath-room the height of elegant sufficiency for' any ordinary Victorian household, But that daily bath habit was learnt by young England from its uncles and aunts who travelled in "furrin parts" among—the mysteries of the East and West. There was Uncle George, for} instance, who was terribly boring about his tigers and his treks in the jungle. Yet he insisted on his bath as well a his early morning tea (which he probably called chhota hazri), Aunt Mary, who had numerous /good stories of her adventures in China and used to contradict Uncle George flatly on most points, was as firm as he on the need for that bath. Father had to think of driving over IShiretown to discuss possi extensions to the family mansi for it was wise to keep in with Uncle George who, as a bachelor, might be useful—even after death-—to various young nephews jand nieces. And, of course, 'Aunt Mary, the widow- of Father's old' schoolfellow who thad given the headmaster many Janxious moments but had somehow made a fortune in Shanghai, commanded—much respectful attention. So gradually all over England there spread a greater demand for plumbers and. a nourishing industry was found-jed on the craze for ablution, To-day it has reached magnificent proportions.. The hot and jeeld tub has found:. its way. to Imilitary mobilisation lists. - It does not appear only in one item "officers for the use of" but also. jas "Mark 1V_ troops sodied pattern." And it is supplement-jed by the swiniming bath. Doctors who' look askance at such amenities and draw horrible: diagrams of malaria epidemics iMustiated-with close-ups of anopheles mosquitoes, have to be heard with respect. Somehow they "have been won lover. So, wherever troops gather in Obedience td the persuasively dulcet "notes "of the Sergeant-Major's. voice,.they are provided with those places of resort:
which the only way of di lance-corporal te is by observ jing. on whose" countenance in S: ithe much disturbed water the jeares of authority most hearty ie. The swimming - bath, in fact; is taken to be "the symbol civilisation—even Yet, again, it has origin it the ~elenicntal Jemotion which makes the Sout Sea Islander spend long hours disporting himself in the sun
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.