"One Hardly Knows Anyone"

"Beau" Nash, a sort of combination of Elsa Maxwell and Ward McAllister in his day, "made" Bath. In 1705 he found the town squalid and cramped, the famous mineral baths (started by the Romans) badly run. Worst of all, there was no place for the fashionable to dance except the bowling green, and it was frequented by swaggering armed swells who unsheathed their swords at the slightest affront to honor.

New 'Rules. Beau Nash changed all that. He made himself master of ceremonies, raised money for buildings, started the Pump Room Orchestra, organized balls and assemblies in a stately new hall, laid down and enforced a code of manners (sword-wearing and smoking in front of ladies were banned), ordered all the old ladies to sit in the back rows and all the shyest maidens to dance. The plump, dandiacal "King of Bath," whose crown was an enormous cream-colored beaver hat, ruled society like an autocrat.* Graceful new Georgian buildings transformed Bath into the handsomest of English towns.

Britain's literary great flocked to Bath. So did every social climber. Eighteenth Century Author Tobias Smollett, for one, sometimes looked with bilious eye at "what is called the fashionable company at Bath . . ./- The number of people, and the number of houses continue to increase; and this will ever be the case, till the streams that swell this irresistible torrent of folly and extravagance shall either be exhausted or turned into other channels, by incidents and events which I do not pretend to foresee."

New Patients. Two events (unforeseen by Smollett) changed Bath. One was a series of German "Baedeker" air raids, aimed at Britain's historical landmarks, which damaged or destroyed 19,000 buildings in Bath, and made the town overcrowded again. The other was the advent of Britain's Labor government. Minister of Health Aneurin ("Nye") Bevan decided that suitable hospital cases could get free spa treatment under his National Health scheme. The Health Ministry found that it was not going to be easy to decide who was "suitable." A mere yen to go down to a spa like the rich folk would not make a patient eligible. "If Mrs. Jones of Clerkenwell wants to take the water," explained the Ministry carefully, "she does not have the right to demand this treatment under the National Health Service Act. She will be sent to the nearest hospital which meets her case . . ." But there were some fine distinctions in socialized medicine. "If, however, Mrs. Jones shows a decided personal desire for this kind of treatment," the Ministry continued, "the specialist may decide for psychological reasons that she should be transferred to a . . . spa."

Mrs. Jones, it seemed, had a decided personal desire, all right. By last week, 71 patients had received treatment in Bath. From now on, free of charge, more & more of Britain's arthritic and rheumatic poor would share the tile-lined baths and rubbing rooms with the hypochondriacal and over-indulged rich.

Said one elegant oldtime spatient last week: "There used to be a time when one was sure to meet one's friends in Bath. But now one hardly knows anyone." Echoed a Bath specialist: "In a few years Bath will become so crowded and impossible that any person of quality will naturally go abroad for treatment." Was Beau Nash turning in his grave? Probably not; he used to pass his six-quart beaver among the swells to collect money for a mineral-water hospital available to all comers.

* Once the Duchess of Queensbury came to a Nash-managed dance wearing a white apron (contrary to the Nash rules). He untied the offending garment and flung it to a group of maids in waiting--with profound protestations of respect for Her Grace.

/- "Even the wives and daughters of low tradesmen," said one Smollett character, "who, like shovel-nosed sharks, prey upon the blubber of those uncouth whales of fortune, are infected -with the same rage of displaying their importance; and the slightest indisposition serves them for a pretext to insist upon being conveyed to Bath, where they may hobble country-dances and cotillons among lordlings, squires, counselors, and clergy."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.