BATHS WASH-HOUSES. 



BATHS OF THE ANCIENTS. 



The use of the bath, natural or artificial, has 

 existed, in all probability, from the beginning of 

 the world, since it is founded in the most natural 

 wants of man. The Greeks knew the use of warm 

 baths in the time of Homer. At a later period, 

 they had public baths attached to the gymnasia, 

 and the richer families also had baths in their 

 private houses. 



The Romans were late in introducing artificial 

 baths. But in the reign of Augustus, they began 

 to give to their warm baths that air of grandeur 

 and magnificence yet to be observed in the ruins 

 which remain. Bathing among the Romans was 

 not a mere dip. It embraced a variety of opera- 

 tions, including gymnastic exercises, performed in 

 a succession of apartments, and with water of all 

 temperatures, accompanied also with the use of 

 unguents and perfumes. The baths were fre- 

 quented indiscriminately by individuals of all 

 ranks ; the noblest and richest persons there 

 finding themselves mingled with the poorest 

 plebeians. 



It was not only the Roman metropolis which 

 contained public and private baths ; they existed 

 in all the towns of Italy, and in the palaces of 

 nobles and freedmen ; they were found also in all 

 the Roman provinces. The greater number of 

 these magnificent edifices, which, during the most 

 illustrious period of the empire, had constituted 

 the pride and delight of Rome, were destroyed by 

 the vandalism of the barbarian hordes. Those 

 which were not pulled down, were otherwise 

 employed, or, being no longer repaired, gradually 

 fell into ruin. In the middle ages, baths on a 

 more moderate scale were introduced as the 

 ancient structures disappeared. The vapour and 

 public baths were, for a long period, as much 

 frequented in Europe as they are at the present 

 day in the Levant 



MODERN BATHS AND WASH-HOUSES. 



Although the increasing use of linen has much 

 diminished the hygienic necessity of the bath, and 

 has occasioned the ruin and neglect of the estab- 

 lishments of the middle ages, yet public attention 

 has not ceased to be directed to the advantages 

 of such establishments. The more expensive class 

 of houses are now generally fitted up with accom- 

 modation for hot and cold bathing ; portable baths 

 on the sponge, shower, or plunge principle, are com- 

 mon in the dwellings of the middle classes ; and 

 deficient as we yet are, the last few years have 

 witnessed the erection of a number of private and 

 public establishments, at which the masses may 

 enjoy a bath for the merest trifle of their weekly 

 earnings. Bathing should be deemed a necessity, 

 not a luxury. The great majority of our artisans 

 and factory-workers are engaged in labour of a 

 kind by no means cleanly; and without daily 

 ablution of some sort or other, disease and injured 

 constitutions are certain, sooner or later, to be 

 engendered ; to say nothing of the refinement of 

 feeling associated with cleanliness. 



We shall speak presently in detail of public 

 baths ; but where steam-engines are employed in 

 connection with cotton-factories or other works, 

 there is usually a certain quantity of waste steam 

 or waste hot water at disposal, which could, at an 



insignificant cost, be directed into baths for the 

 use of the workmen of the establishment The 

 improved health ~and cheerfulness of the parties 

 benefited will more than compensate the necessary 

 outlay. 



Another modern improvement, the public wash- 

 house, calls for mention. The very limited house 

 accommodation of the poorer classes in towns 

 affords little or no convenience for washing. In- 

 dependent of this, in point of economy, a public 

 wash-house is preferable to any number of isolated 

 efforts. By co-operation, superior accommoda- 

 tion, better apparatus, and a cheaper and more 

 satisfactory result, can be obtained ; and thus the 

 public wash-house, where self-paying and self- 

 supported; may be classed among the co-opera- 

 tive arrangements which characterise the age. 

 When we consider the amount of fuel required 

 for a kitchen-fire on a washing-day, the time 

 wasted by imperfect arrangements, the incon- 

 venience experienced where the housewife has 

 to wash, dry, and iron her clothes in the one sole 

 room where she has to cook the family meals, 

 and where that family has perhaps to eat, sleep, 

 dress and undress, and perform all the minor 

 offices of life, we can then appreciate the boon 

 which a public wash-house is calculated to confer. 



So far as concerns wash-houses in England, the 

 credit of a reformer is due to Mrs Catherine 

 Wilkinson of Liverpool, who, in a year of cholera, 

 bravely offered the use of her small house, and 

 the value of her personal superintendence, to her 

 poorer neighbours, to facilitate the washing of 

 their clothes at a time when cleanliness was more 

 than usually important The success attending 

 the exertions of a single individual led to the 

 formation of a benevolent society to carry out the 

 object on a large scale. 



In 1844, a public meeting was held at the 

 Mansion House, to encourage the formation of 

 baths and wash-houses in London ; hence resulted 

 an 'Association for Promoting Cleanliness amongst 

 the Poor.' A reform had already been commenced 

 by a ' Committee for the Houseless Poor,' who 

 rented an old roomy building in Glasshouse Yard, 

 surrounded by the poor and dense population of 

 the London Docks district. A bath-house and a 

 wash-house were fitted up ; baths, cisterns, boilers, 

 cold and hot water, towels, soap, soda, were pro- 

 vided ; and the poor were invited to come in, and 

 wash and bathe without expense to themselves. 

 The Association, afterwards founded at the city 

 meeting, sought two objects to induce a wish for 

 cleanliness among the poor ; and to render public 

 baths and wash-houses self-paying, as a guarantee 

 for their permanency. The Association built a 

 model establishment in Goulston Square, White- 

 chapel ; and in the meantime, another society had 

 succeeded in establishing baths and wash-houses 

 in George Street, Hampstead Road, favoured by 

 a liberal arrangement on the. part of the New 

 River Company in the supply of water: this 

 establishment was opened in August 1846. 



But we have now to speak of rate-supported 

 baths and wash-houses. In 1846, parliament 

 passed an act to enable borough-councils and 

 parish vestries to establish public baths and wash- 

 houses, supported by borough and parish rates, 

 if the householders should sanction such a pro- 

 ceeding. The chief of these clauses are : that the 

 requisite funds may be raised on the security of the 



