has been and always will be the favorite. The Greeks, Phoenicians, and Rhodians loved the sea on account of their maritime situation, and that wise old Roman, King Ancus Martius, built "that most pleasant city, Ostia," at the mouth of the Tiber, as a summer resort, where the turbulent nobles might cool their fiery tempers in the surf. In the time of Charles the Second the interior was the more fashionable, for the King and Court went to Bath on the Avon-as Mr. Pepys has informed us. That worthy did not seem greatly impressed with Bath, for he says: "We come before night to the Bath; where I presently stepped out with my landlord, and saw the baths, with the people in them. They are not so large as I expected, but yet pleasant, and the town most of stone, and clean, though the streets generally narrow. I home, and, being weary, went to bed without supper. Up at four o'clock, being by appointment called up to the Cross Bath, where we were carried one after another, myself and wife and

1

Betty Turner, Willett, and W Hewe

And is and by, though we designed to have done te

fore

company come, much company come, very fine ladies; and the manner pretty enough only methinks it cannot be clean to go so many bodies together in the same water." One can conjecture what Mr. Pepys would have said had he visited the baths in Pekin, where the bathers are one after another placed into a tank, the water whereof is changed but once daily. Early rising in such a case is rather more than a virtue. And thus it happens that although the mountains with their glades and gorges, their forests and flowers, and their field for pleasures of rod and gun, may attract us, yet our real summer love is

~The sea, the sea, the open sea,

The blue, the fresh, the ever free,"

with with its cooling breezes and the white sails

fering its bosom, continually

wooes one to its

OF BATHS AND BATHING.

The splendor of bath-rooms was dimmed when Rome went into decline; and, since her palmy days, bath-rooms are nowhere constructed with a tithe of their ancient splendor. The Roman baths were a sort of club houses, where poets read their compositions, statesmen met and discussed the tariff, perhaps, or other burning questions. Sweet strains of music pleased the ear, and the air was laden with rich perfume. Architects, seeking immortality, vied with each other in devising original plans for the public baths. None succeeded; even he who designed the "hanging baths" in the time of Sergius Orata, like the architect of the hanging gardens of Babylon, failed to send his name to posterity. A contrast of the strongest kind then exists between our custom at this day and that of the Romans in regard to the construction and use of public baths. Only a few of our cities recog

nize the necessity for them; when built, they are constructed of the cheapest materials, and their use is restricted to the poor. It is true that modern city houses all contain bath rooms, but they are usually the neglected part of the household.

Animals must get rid of the outer layer of skin in some way. In some species-certain reptilians, for example the outer skin is shed entire at certain seasons; birds cast their feathers and fishes their scales; and at each casting off of this kind, the vital processes are afterward carried on with more energy, because the drains and sluiceways of the surface are not blocked up at their mouths by broken-down epidermis; so, in man, the skin is renewed; only the process in a state of health is gradual and less startling in its visible signs. It is, however, just as necessary; the child that was gilded to represent an angel at the coronation festivities died in a few hours; and even horses have been killed by the application of an im

permeable coating. Whatever tends, then, to keep the skin soft and free from scaly debris of its outer layer, will aid in keeping the drains. open, and assist nature in getting rid of the structural waste.

*

Indiscriminate bathing is as hurtful in some circumstances as its reasonable use is in others. The aged, the feeble, and the invalided should use the bath only as directed by their physician, for in them the slightest change affecting the temperature of the surface has a bearing upon their vital power, and should be undertaken with care. The temperature of the bath is comparatively unimportant, provided it is not below 60° nor above 90° Fah. The ancients used the bath at three temperatures-first the hot bath, then the tepid, and finished with a plunge into or a shower of cold water. The bath was concluded by rubbing with a towel until the skin glowed with warmth; then slight annointing with perfumed oil