Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1890 — Evils of Promiscuous Bathing. [ARTICLE]

Evils of Promiscuous Bathing.

Go. d Houikceping. A few years ago stockings were not worn; now they may be silk or'Cotton, and the latest advices tell us of stockings cut so as to expose the toes, which some newspaper correspondent describes as “ten tiny pink shells.” As I see them thus arrayed—or disarrayed to speak correctly—l fear the girl will soon begin to calculate the effect of what some one lately called “artistic bareness’* on the mind of masculinity, and the man to be too conscious of the value of muscle and calf which he exposes. , As the mouthpiece of the crowds who come to these exeibitions, let me quote the little girl who, in the innocence of her heart, asked her mother * ‘lf she might take off her dresß and play in her undercloth like the ladies did on the beach.” After the bath these young people settle themselves on the sand for perhaps an hour or so, rarely having any chaperon or older person with them. Is it right that an innocent and childish creature should be thrown into such close and utterly unguarded companionship with one of the opposite sex? A girls purity and perfect unconsciousness are her greatest charms, and] can we expect her to retain these graces in such an atmosphere? You may say bare legs are no tabre

demoralizing than bare shoulders, v which we have a surfeitj in every ballroom. Granted; hut because we condone one indelicacy are we to smile on all? Round dances have been the subject of pulpit oralory; let the moralist and preacher now turn their attention to this rapidly increasing evil.