But I Did Not Notice In The Appended
Descriptions Any Extended Notice Of Heating Arrangements; Most Of
The Advertisements Seemed To Slur Over That Point Altogether.
And, as regards bathing facilities in their relation to the
capacities of these country places, I quote at random from the
figures given:
Eighteen rooms and one bath; sixteen rooms and two
baths; fourteen rooms and one bath; twenty-one rooms and two baths;
eleven rooms and one bath; thirty-four rooms and two baths.
Remember that by rooms bedrooms were meant; the reception rooms
and parlors and dining halls and offices, and the like, were listed
separately.
I asked a well-informed Englishman how he could reconcile this
discrepancy between bedrooms and bathrooms with the current belief
that the English had a practical monopoly of the habit of bathing.
After considering the proposition at some length he said I should
understand there was a difference in England between taking a bath
and taking a tub - that, though an Englishman might not be particularly
addicted to a bath, he must have his tub every morning. But I
submit that the facts prove this explanation to have been but a
feeble subterfuge.
Let us, for an especially conspicuous example, take the house that
has thirty-four sleeping chambers and only two baths. Let us
imagine the house to be full of guests, with every bedroom occupied;
and, if it is possible to do so without blushing, let us further
imagine a couple of pink-and-white English gentlemen in the two
baths.
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