New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-08-18
Suicide by sunshine.
From the Pal Mall Gazette, July

| been more sultry in the Atlantic States
| than in England, we can scarcely be sur
| prised at the excessive mortality from heat
| and sunstrOke. Here we have found it IN
pleasant enough. Day after day the air
! has been overcharged with electricity.
Thunder storms by the dozen have broken
| upon us without clearing it. When we
| looked for freshness at nighttall the atmOs-
! phereshas become closer and more Oppres-
| sive. Yet, while we have gasped and
| grumbled, we have scarcely changed our
! ways of life Some Of Us who frequent
| clubs OF have bOrage, in the garden may
| have renowned sherry for cups, and APP
pealed to the tagging appetite with cold
meats and piquant salads. But we make
| no question that the consumption of beer,
| of diluted spirits, has rather Increased
than diminished. Nor is it only clerks
busting about their masters business
in the city, artisans enriched by judici-
GUS combination, thirsty labOrers, pOrteTs,
and draymen, Kissing hot from unseasOn-
able toll, who harden themselves in their
familiar habits, in spite of natures warning
to the contrary. Men of means and activity
are more generous TO themselves of "peg3'
and glasses Of, sherry. Cups at garden par
ties, and champagne at the balls are drained
more freely than ever, while more than ever
do women, in their light muslins, drink
scaldng tea IN the afternoon. The fact is
that, whatever our political creed, in mat
tiers of diet dress and drinking, We Of the
English race are the staunchest OF Tories.
Go where ycu win in the burning Orient,
the trading or military Engishman evinces
his repugnance to the superstitiOns Of Islam
by freely INDUCING in the drinks the sage
prophet forbade. But it is strange that
they should stick to them as peTtinaciOuSly
as ever when they have long renowned
their English nationality, when their
original English blood has become diluted
by intermixture Of foreign strains, when the
English mOtherland has become tue object
Of unnatural antipathy. Those Of US who
have not been unlucky enough to expert
ence it know something by heaIsay OF the
warmth of summer on the Atlantic sea-
board. At this moment our business con
nectiOns in New York are COngratUlating
themselves on a fall of the thermometer to
the modest figure of 600 IN the shade. Yet
If the city were built on the banks Of the
Neva, it could not have been built more re-
gardlcss Of solar consideration. Go to any
Southern town inhabited by Southern
race, and you find them sheltering in a
labyrinth of narrow and tOrtuOus streets
They live floor over floor, in lofty houses
with spreading caves, and the upper win
dOws nOdding to each other across the mar
row street Look up from the narrow
thOrOughtare at noon, and you see but a
SLIlD OI SKY stretching diUuS overhaul like
a ceruiean ribbon shot with gold color. Not
often in the course of the year do the
searching sunbeams fall on the deliciously
gloomy pavemcnts. The prinCely street of
palaces at Genoa is one Of the mar
rowest thoroughfares in Europe. But
all New York city lies open to
the fierce rays of its sun in spacious
thOrOughfares arranged TectangUlarIy. The
pavements of Broad way glow in his fiery
bao% fill +hayv q lDHOCT Grnrpb Fbp EtOoLipps If
its denizens through the thin sOles Of their
Iacquered French boots. The business men
hold by our London hours, in place Of
breaking the neck Of the days work in the
comparative cool of the morning aud digest
ing late breakfast in a long, quiet siesta.
And what life theirs is. Si6stas are per
Laps impossible to their fretting tempera-
ments; they are always hurrying after the
main chance III the fear that if they nap for
a moment the chance may slip through
their fingers, or somebody else get the start
Of them. Fancy a financial crisis, with the
thermometer at 100 the gold premium ris-
ing and falling like the surf of the Atlantic
Wall street in a roar and termcnt, while
some astute cambinatiOn of the Com
modore is flooding the market
with Aleghany Grand Trunk stock
q discretion and cOTnering the believing
bulls who have rashly overbOught for the
rise. Throw III the rUmOTs Of difficulty with
England put forward on the best authority
and in the largest type Of the New York
Herald, or add the chronic uneasiness arts
ing from a hercely contested presidential
election. Given these cOncOmitaut ciTCum-
stances of crisis such as We have supposed
occurring in a tropical temperature, what
would an English insurance company give
for any Of the lives in the thick Of it!
Worse training for such an ordeal than that
Of the men OF Manhattan we can scarcely
conceive. Late hours in place Of early
ones, heavy breakfasts and dinners hUr-
ricdly bOlted. drinks short and long, iuleps,
cObbleTs, brandy smaShes and eyc-CpeneTs,
taken promiscuously out Of season Ivy way
Of calming the brain and cooling the blood
evenings spent by the young business
blOOds Of the place in haUnt5 more or less
improving and moral, blazing with light and
flowing with the eternal champagne; while
business mixes pcTpctually with pleasure,
and they are always ready for trade or a
deal. All classes do not live Ike that for
obvious reasons. But the whole cOmmu-
nifty does live regardless Of the heat,
and makes all its social arrangements in
contempt of the sun. The latest corners
have emigrated with all the habits and
preiudices of Northern and Western Eu-
rope; the children Of earlier settlers still
cherish the traditions their ancestors i'm
ported generations back. The men 90 to
their work Indifferent to shade, and quench
their thirst with the free independence of
capitalists. Irish and German mothers send
their children-to play in the streets as they
might in the fragrant cutters Of Cork or
Cologne. No wonder the States whip"
the Old country in the summer death rate,
as in other things, although we see no rea-
son to doubt we should run them hard if
our climate offered us similar opportunities
of suicide.