BATHS AND WASH–HOUSES, Purmic. The last few years have witnessed the erection of a number of public establishments. at which the masses may enjoy a bath for the merest trifle of their weekly earnings. Where steam-engines are employed in con nection 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. We are aware of one instance where seven baths were comfortably fitted up at the small expense of £80, in which the men and women bathe on alternate days, to the number of from 30 to 80 a week—paving a mere trifle to the keeper, who attends an hour and a half each evening, and finds towels, soap, etc., nothing being charged by the proprietors for the original outlay. But this is only a small part of the cure for a great evil. Where the masses are densely packed in lanes and alleys, where house-accommodation is dear and limited, where the necessaries of life have to be continually struggled for, and these conventional evils increased, in too many instances, by improvidence—the house is hut a night-shelter, affording little or no convenience for the necessary operations of the housewife. Independent of this, a public wash-house is, in point of economy, prefer able to any number of isolated efforts. By co-operation, superior accommodation, 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-operative arrangements which characterize the social features of the age.
Mrs. Catherine Wilkinson of Liverpool, in a year of cholera, bravely offered the use of her small house, and the value of her personal superintendence, to her poorer neigh bors, to facilitate the washing of their clothes at a dine when cleanliness was more than usually important. The success attending the exertions of a single individual led to the formation of a benevolent society, and ultimately to important municipal arrangements.
In 1844, a public meeting was held at the Mansion House, attended by many persons of wealth and influence, to encourage the formation of B. and W. in London; hence resulted an " Association for Proinoting Cleanliness amongst the Poor." Independently
of this movement, a reform had already been commenced by a " Committee for the Houseless Poor," %rho, among other things, purchased or rented an old roomy buildingiu Glasshouse yard, surrounded" by the poor and dense population of the Loudon Docks district. A bathhouse and a wash-house were fitted up; baths, cisterns, boilers, cold and hot water, towels, soap. soda, were provided; and the poor were invited to come in, and wa4t and bathe without expense to themselves. There were also provided pails, brushes. and whitewash, to those who would take the trouble to give a little cleanliness to their poor dwellings. This wits effected mainly through the benevolent exertions of Mr. 13owie, a surgeon, who applied liims?If with earnestness to the subject. The associ ation, founded at the city meeting, sought two objects—to induce a wish for cleanliness among the poor; and to render public B. and W. self-paying, as at guarantee for their permanency. Having obtained plans and estimates from architects, the associa tion built a model establishment in Goulstou square, Whitechapel; but the outlay unfortu uatelv reached :E26,000. In the mean time, another society had succeeded in establishing 13. and W, in George street, Hampstead road, favored by a liberal arrange ment on the part of the New River company in the supply of water: this establishment was opened in Aug., 1846. In the same year, parliament passed an act to enable borough-councils and parish vestries to establish public B. and W., supported by borough and parish rates, if the householders should SaUCtiOD such a proceeding. In 1547, another net strengthened the former; and the two together contain the necessary clauses for defining the d•ails of the plan (see the following article). The parish of St. Martin's in•the-Pields was the first to take advantage of the new act; and before the close of 1852, six parishes had erected public 13. and W. At the beginning of 1836, the list had nearly doubled. The original free but humble building in Glasshouse yard has been abandoned; and so likewise has the establishment in the Hampstead road; but the model building in Guulston square still remains. There were, in 1877, more than 20 of these public and parochial B. and W. in the metropolis.