De Peyster Twins
The adoption of Locke's ideas about the use of cold water, or indeed of any frequent bathing, was perhaps the most radical innovation in modes of living. The English never bathed, in our sense of the word, a complete immersion, nor, I suppose, did our Puritan, Cavalier, or Quaker ancestors. Sewall makes not one reference to anything of the kind, but that is not strange; nor is his omission any proof, negative or positive, for he refers to no personal habits, and very shortly and infrequently to dress. Pepys, the courtier and dandy, tells of rare monumental occasions when he cleaned himself—far too rare, we may judge from side-lights thrown by other of his statements. The Youth's Behavior, an old-time book of etiquette, lays down an assertion that it is a point of wholesomeness to wash one's face and hands as soon as one is up and dressed, and "to comb one's head in time and season, yet not too curiously." Bathing the person in unaccustomed spots was a ticklish proceeding—a water ordeal, to be gravely considered. Mistress Alice Thornton, a Yorkshire dame, records in her account of her life one occasion when she washed her feet, but she was overbold. "Which my mother did believe it was the cause of that dangerous fitt the next day." In the Verney volumes we find that forlorn Verney boy, poor sickly "Mun," wearing a harness for his crooked back till his shirt was black, when the famous surgeon changed the harness, and Mun his shirt, with no thought on the part of either of a bath being a necessity.
Go-Cart
In 1630 a ship was sent from England to Massachusetts which was provisioned for three months. Among the stores for the passengers' use were two casks of Malaga and Canary; twenty gallons of aqua-vitæ; forty-five tuns of beer; and for drinking, washing, cooking, bathing, etc., but six tuns of water. The ships sent out to Georgia by Oglethorpe were so scantily supplied with water that it is positive no fresh water could have been used for bathing even in minute amount. The reputation of hidden malevolence which hung around water as a beverage seems to have extended to its use in any form. It was believed to be permeated with minute noxious particles, which in those ante-bacteriological days could not be explained, but which were distinctly appreciated and dreaded.
But these be parlous words. Let us rather show some sympathy for our ancestors. We bathe in well-warmed rooms, often in cold water, but with steaming hot water in ample command at a turn of the hand. Had we to carry all the water for our bathing use from a well whence we laboriously raised it in small amounts, and were we forced to bathe in an icy atmosphere, with cutting draughts striking us on every side, with the basins of water freezing on the hearth in front of a blazing fire, and the juices of the wood freezing at the ends of burning logs, we might not deem our daily bath such an indispensable necessity.
We have heard an advanced thinker like Locke suggest brown bread, cheese, and warm beer as food for young children. What, then, must have been the notions of less thoughtful folk? Doubtless in England such food would have been simple; but in the new world less beer was drank and more milk, which must have proved the salvation of American children. And the plentiful and varied cereal foods, many of them from Indian corn, were a suitable diet for young children. Samp, hominy, suppawn, pone, succotash,—all Indian foods and cooked in Indian ways,—were found in every home in every colony. Baked beans, another Indian dish, were also good food for children. Native and domestic fruits were plentiful, but, with the exception of apples and pears, were not very attractive. The succession of summer's and autumn's berries must have been eagerly welcomed. They were in the rich and spicy plenty offered by a virgin soil.