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The swimming baths of London

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As a means of maintaining and even restoring health, then, swimming in the open air is of still greater importance to women than to men. But I have shown that even in the matter of tepid swimming baths the wants of the other sex have been almost totally ignored, for with the exception of the little bath in York Terrace and the Wednesday morning’s use of the smallest of the Marylebone baths, there is actually no provision in London for women’s swimming. As far as regards open-air swimming they have been left out of consideration altogether. Now, if open-air swimming baths are to be established in London, the interests of the softer sex should be considered as much as those of the rougher gender. With this view I would give up the Regent’s Park lake to the ladies, for which it is already adapted by its inferior depth—4 feet, I believe. For the same reason it may perhaps be thought best to make the proposed bath in St. James’s Park one for ladies only, and if the bath in the Serpentine be only made large enough, there is ample space there for all the wants of the male sex at that end of the town.[Footnote 9] The water in Victoria Park in its present condition is, of course, better adapted for a men’s bath, but in the event of a women’s bath being required there, which I doubt not will be the case, one of the other lakes might be given up for the purpose, or a new lake altogether constructed, for which there is room enough in the park.

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