The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-10-06
OYERWORK.

Alexander 7. Stewart, of New York,
has just suffered physical prostratiou,
from which it will take him some time
to recover. Mr.. Stewart is yet COM
paratiYelY young. But for many years,
and especially of late years, he has been
intensity devoting his physical and men
tai powers to his immense business,
and, at last, unable to bear the persist
ent strain, his system gave way and he
lies helpless, and such wreck that his
physicians cannot give assurance that
his health will be re-established.
We published yesterday an account of
the departure for Europe of Mr.. John
f. Tracy, SO long known to the public
from his connection with railroad af-
fairs. He, too, has been subjected to
such mental and bodily strain for the
last six years that the wonder is that he
has not broken down long ago. He
goes to Europe accompanied by ply
sycian, and it is uncertain, so greatly is
he Frustrated in mind and body, wheth-
er he will ever resume his active lead
ership in railroad affairs again.
There are other men engaged in rail-
roads, in banking, in all branches of
commerce, and in all the learned pro-
LESSONS, who are also fastening to q
like sudden, and perhaps more over
whelming termination. Every day we
read of men, seemingly in good health,
suddenly failing in death, or perishing
by protracted paralysis, or rapidly fall
ing into mental decay. So numerous
people have wondered that "heart dis
ease" to which these things are attrib-
uted, had become so universal. But the
truth is that men in these days never
know when to stop. The richer they
grow the more earnestly they labor !;
| the desire and thirst for profit, the ex-
elements of competition, the intensity
of the spirit of speculation that pre-
vades every walk of life; these things
all hasten the mind and body to that
point where the strength of nature fails,
and the man, if he does not die instant
ly, fingers along with paralyzed limbs
and weakened intellect for the remain
der of his life.
| All men have more or less of the
cares and anxieties peculiar to human
life. That there is a skeleton in every
household in proverbial; and no man
can long survive a struggle with nature
who, in addition to the ordinary cares
of life, assumes load of responsibility
beyond all mortal strength, and with
overburdened brain and fevered body
attempts to battle through the world.
There is limit to the power of giants.
=
when taken separately and at intervals,
and be but the stronger for the labor, if
all pressed upon the brain at once, must
produce exhaustion of body and mind.
We are all working too fast. We are
all laboring as if the affairs of mankind
must be arranged before we die; we
are all toiling as if for the purpose of
leaving mankind nothing to do after
we are gone. There are men now liv-
ing who SO labor by night and day that
it is reasonable to assume that they ex-
pect in their time to lay every mile of
railroad that will ever be needed on the
continent of America. And the same
spirit is to be found in every walk OF
life. We are destroying ourselves,
that posterity may have nothing to
trouble themselves with.
| This unnatural process of destruction,
tof course, carries off those soonest
whose services to society are most val
liable. But the great mistake is in sup
posing that the men who follow US can
not get along just as we'll if we leave
something for them to do. We make
another mistake in supposing that any
one of US is absolutely necessary to the
worlds prosperity, or that the world
will miss us week after we are gone
It is madness, therefore, for men to tax
themselves mentally and physically, to
break down their bodily strength and
mental vigor under the delusion that
they are fulfilling q mission or accom-.
plishing anything that would not have
been as well accomplished if we had
never existed. There are but few men
engaged in commercial or professional
duties who, under the insane velocity
of the present day, are not exceeding
the proper limits of labor, and who are
not thereby inducing premature decay,
and inviting certain, if not sudden
death in the very hour of their work
Chicago Tribune