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Updated: October 28, 2025
It is not to the credit of the English nation that so little has been done in connection with Turkish bath building for the people. The attention given to the question of supplying bath-houses of any kind is of the most meagre character. The provisions of the Public Baths and Wash-houses Act are entirely inadequate. In these matters the German nation is far ahead of us.
For the moment haylofts and wash-houses are things of the dim past. We are living in real houses, sleeping in real beds, some with sheets. To this group enters unexpectedly Captain Wagstaffe. "Hallo, Wagger!" says Blaikie. "Back already?" "Your surmise is correct," replies Wagstaffe, who has been home on leave. "I got a wire yesterday at lunch-time in the Savoy, of all places!
Then a special tax is levied on their wash-houses, and a new regulation made, by which no one can carry baskets on poles across the sidewalks; that being the way they carry about vegetables to sell.
Happily, he was unaware, that, for two days after, Chinamen from the laundries, from the gulches, from the kitchens, looked in the front office-door, with faces beaming with sardonic delight; that three hundred extra copies of the "Star" were ordered for the wash-houses on the river.
He was wedded to his wash-houses; he had no taste for the rural life; and we must go to our mountain servantless. It must have been near half an hour before we reached that conclusion, standing in the midst of Calistoga high street under the stars, and the China-boy and Kong Sam Kee singing their pigeon English in the sweetest voices and with the most musical inflections.
Now, the richer and more enterprising manufacturers build large barracks for the workmen and their families, and provide them with common kitchens, wash-houses, steam-baths, schools, and similar requisites of civilised life. At the same time the Government appoints inspectors to superintend the sanitary arrangements and see that the health and comfort of the workers are properly attended to.
Everything spread out again: the bridges with their arches opening upon the sheeny water; the Cite, enveloped in shade, above which rose the flavescent towers of Notre-Dame; the great curve of the right bank flooded with sunlight, and ending in the indistinct silhouette of the Pavillon de Flore, together with the broad avenues, the monuments and edifices on both banks, and all the life of the river, the floating wash-houses, the baths, and the lighters.
The first Sunday that he was here, we told him that he could go out for a while, as all the Chinese do on that day. When he came back, I asked him where he had been. These little boys are all petted a good deal at the wash-houses, and I supposed he had been there enjoying himself.
There might have been some fun in showing even the back kitchens to his bride-elect, by herself; but there was none in wandering about those vast underground regions with a stout lady who was really interested with the cooking apparatus and the wash-houses. The bedrooms one after another became tedious to him when Mrs. Boncassen would make communications respecting each of them to her daughter.
The wash-houses were sunk. They lay under water, with their chimneys sticking out. The little river piers and all the row-boats had been smashed and most of them sunk. A few of them, drawn up on the bank, were splintered into kindling wood. This work of destruction had been done, most effectively, by the English. They had not left a stick anywhere that could have served the invaders.
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