women as well as men in their membership, and in many of them fencing
and other sword exercises are also taught. In common with all the
gymnasiums are bath-houses. You will find them in every part of the
city of Stockholm and in other large towns. Some of them occupy entire
buildings. It is the habit of business men to go to their stores or
offices at nine o'clock in the morning and remain there until two or
three in the afternoon, when they go to their club or gymnasium and
take an hour's exercise and afterward a bath. These establishments in
the business quarter of Stockholm and other cities are considered just
as important as clubs, restaurants, or other places of resort, and
usually have connected with them reading and smoking rooms where
patrons can read the daily newspapers and current magazines and sip
coffee and smoke while they are cooling off. It would surprise a
visitor in New York or Chicago to be informed that his broker or his
lawyer or his banker or a contractor with whom he has business, had
gone to a bathhouse or gymnasium at three o'clock in the afternoon,
but in Stockholm it is a common reply to an inquiry. During winter
afternoons you can usually find anybody you want by going to his
favorite gymnasium or bathhouse, just as you would look for him at his
club in Chicago.

There is a distinctive dress for the exercise. The patrons take off
their street clothing and put on light woolen shirts and trousers, and
canvas shoes on their bare feet, and, standing in rows, go through a
series of motions under the command of their instructor to exercise
the arms, legs, neck, and every other part of the body, gently, not
violently. The idea is movement, not exertion, and the muscles are
restrained. The arm is raised slowly with self-resistance. No clubs
or dumb-bells are used, only a gentle motion like the exercise of the
children in the schools. After twenty minutes or half an hour of this
the class marches in a column, still going through the same movements;
then they run, following their leader, doing everything that he does,
until at the end of an hour the body is in a glow, the blood is
pulsating in every vein, the perspiration is oozing from every pore,
every muscle is limbered up and strengthened, and every nerve tingles.
There is regular gymnasium apparatus for those who like more violent
exercise. Then a bath is taken, followed by a cold plunge and violent
rubbing with massage, after which a man is in s