If you are fond of sea bathing by all means go to Margate. There is no high-rolling surf, but if you are a swimmer you will be all the better pleased. There are no ropes to lay hold of, none are necessary; you bathe in perfect safety and comfort, and, as at all English resorts, you bathe from a “machine.”
In America bathing facilities consist of long rows of commodious wooden boxes placed on the beach at some distance from the surf. You purchase a bathing ticket for twenty-five or fifty cents, the price depending on whether you prefer a woolen to a cotton costume. You receive the suit and the key of your box. Then you put your valuables in an envelope sealed by yourself and hand them to the custodian, who places them in a separate box in an enormous safe, returning you a check tied to a rubber band, which latter you pass over your head and wear while bathing. You proceed to your “house,” as we call it, disrobe and don your scant suit, lock your door and walk out and down to the edge of the water, where, as fancy dictates, you loll around on the beach, talking to your friends, or you plunge immediately into the breakers only to come out, dry yourself in the sun, cut up capers on the sand, chat or smoke, repeating the process ad libitum. Of course men and women bathe together.
Not so in England. There you bathe from “machines,” small wooden houses, five feet square by ten feet high, mounted on four wheels. They have entrances back and front, each approached by a low flight of steps. You enter by one door in street costume, and having disrobed and donned your bathing garments, you give the signal, a horse is attached to the “machine” which is drawn a short distance into the water. You step down and out, disport yourself in the water as long as you please and reënter your box, to emerge therefrom once more in everyday habiliments. No lolling about the beach, no unseemly display of person; all is conducted in a proper, staid and exemplary manner—on the beach.
And in sooth, why should you walk around and smoke and chat with your friends on this occasion, in a costume, or lack of costume, which if worn at other times or places would land you in jail for exposure of person? This with reference to the American custom or costume.
In England it is worse in some respects, for while the women dress as they do here, the men bathe in a nude state, so to speak. They wear small trunks or loin cloths only, and men and women bathe together indiscriminately. Notices are posted in prominent places near the beach, boldly printed and bearing the English coat of arms, to the effect that in the water men and women must remain separate, and further that you will be fined forty shillings (of course forty shillings) if you are found nearer to a female than one hundred yards; but it is a dead letter law, and is entirely disregarded. I am not the most prudish man in the world, but I confess to having been shocked. Trunks did not suit me; I preferred and obtained a bathing costume which is to be had upon special application.
The beach is hard and smooth, broad and gently sloping. The bluff at Long Branch is not to be mentioned, scarcely, with the bold, beautiful white chalk cliffs that rise abruptly and picturesquely from the beach at Margate to a height of seventy-five feet. Along this bluff are miles of grassy, serpentine walks, gardens prettily laid out, dotted with summer houses and bounded by hedges and clover fields—a beautiful, natural landscape, artificially enhanced.
The favorite bathing place on the beach is managed by Charlotte Pettman. It is reached by a “coast guard” cutting in the cliff, an inclined passageway sloping from the road to the beach under the bridge. It is a sort of artificial cañon. Bathers are charged sixpence each, “six baths for two-and-six, twelve for four-and-six.”
Mrs. Pettman advertises her baths by a circular which contains the following touching verse, no doubt assisting trade materially.
“I pitied the dove, for my bosom was tender,
I pitied the sigh that she gave to the wind;
But I ne’er shall forget the superlative splendor
Of Charlotte’s sea baths, the pride of mankind.”
In his early days of struggle the great Charles Dickens, for a few shillings, penned these lines as a “puff” of Day & Martin’s blacking.