_The_ temperature of the warm water with the soap application may vary from 75 to 95, or even 100°; it ought to be hot enough for the bather to feel it thoroughly grateful and comforting. The cold may vary from 30 to 70°, and it may be borne in mind that as great a shock will be produced with the higher temperature on an enfeebled or weakly constitution, as with the lower on a strong and robust: the bather must be guided by his own feelings. As a rough guide for those in moderate health, 90° for the warm and 60° for the cold may be taken as convenient. [Illustration: Cyprus—ware sharks.] _The_ necessity of getting quickly over the second or cold application must be strongly urged: in and out again must be the rule and not the exception. Any one may observe what takes place when the body is immersed in cold water: first comes the sharp, half-pleasing, half-painful sensation of cold, almost immediately followed by a consciousness of internal warmth, the duration of which will be in proportion to the power of the organization to keep up this counteraction. The cold water slowly but surely absorbs and extracts the vital heat; if the bath be unduly prolonged, chilliness, shivering, numbness, and exhaustion follow, and although the unpleasant symptoms will probably shortly disappear, the bather will have lost rather than gained in point of health. _No_ notion of “getting used to it,” or of cultivating hardiness and endurance, should induce one to venture near the stage commencing with chilliness; by so doing the stock of health is wasted instead of increased: the mere patient endurance of cold cannot possibly do good, although it may unquestionably do a great deal of harm. _Many_ persons suffer severely in winter from cold feet, with the attendant penalties of chilblains, colds, sore throat, and personal discomfort. It is well known to medical men that, when the feet are cold, the system is far more readily accessible to the attacks of disease, and to keep them warm, more especially during the early hours of the morning and after the bath, is, with some persons, almost an impossibility. Singers—both amateur and professional—suffer, certainly in this climate, more or less severely from affections—difficult to guard against—of the throat, induced in the majority of cases by cold, which first attacks the extremities. In lately consulting Dr. Llewelyn Thomas, he suggested as a future safeguard the wearing of shoes or slippers (made by Whiteley, of Westbourne Grove) of a description calculated not only to retain the natural heat of the body but to absolutely exclude cold and draughts. The material is a dark felt, lined with thick white fur; the shoes are open down the sides, but the openings are heavily covered with a dark fur, effectually excluding draughts. There are no laces or fastenings of any kind, and the shoes are slipped on or off in a moment.