the Japanese idea of the necessity for the most frequent bathing that can be had. It is only a dozen years ago that the great American city of New York began to erect public baths. In Japan such places have been supplied since before the time when the authentic history of that country began. Tokio, to-day, supplies nearly nine hundred public bathing-houses for the use of its people. While cleanliness is regarded as one of the cardinal virtues, it has an even higher standing as the first requisite to health. On the sultriest of summer days the foreign visitor may find himself in the most densely packed crowd imaginable. Every one about him will be perspiring freely, yet there will be not the faintest disagreeable body odour.
Though the surface health of the body is so well looked after, it is believed by the Japanese that complete health cannot exist unless the internal system is most effectively cleansed by the imbibing of very frequent draughts of water, cool—not ice-cold. The intestinal tract is likened, by our clever little neighbours of the Orient, to the sewer, that requires vigorous flushing.
