Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-08-05
Late Hours.

1t il not merely a popular prejudice
which casts suspicion on the character
of those who keep late hours. Bad
hours and bad deeds are believed to be
generally found in company. That they
who sleep should sleep in the night, is
truism in harmony at once with the
order of nature and good society. If
the regulation, once enforced in Eng
land, that every light should be extin-
guished at the ringing of the curfew
bell, or nine in the evening, was little
arbitrary, it must have imposed valu-
able restraint on the practice of vice.
We are reminded, by the result of a
recent trial in this city, how deeply
these impressions have rooted them
selves in the popular mind. The ac-
cused was IN that case not proven, by
direct evidence, to be guilty of the
charge preferred against him; but the
fact that he was seen about the prem
ises of his paramour about three o'clock
in the morning, turned the scale against
him, and secured his conviction.
Late hours are incompatible with
successful business. The trader, the
banker, or the manufacturer who keeps
late hours, never succeeds. This is the
rule, and the exceptions only prove its
truth. There are plenty of reasons for
this; and every man of experience
knows how to attach to them their pro-
per weight. Late hours unfit man
for business.
First, On account of the physical
effects. In these days of sharp COM
petition, nothing but good abilities,
applied with the most unyielding en-
ergy. will achieve success. The trader
who comes to his Office half exhausted
for lack of natures sweet repose," with
his brain mudcled, his step heavy, his
eye dull, and his nerves irritable, is
pretty sure to be grabbed with his
clerks and his customers; he is behind
with his work, spends his short and
hurried day in a state of fretful anxiety,
augmented by the harassing surround
ings of neglected business; has no
time to look ahead to trace out his fu-
ture course, and justly weigh the pros
poets; his fevered brain cannot as
calmly take in the situation as his cool
headed neighbor, who has full eight
hours of dreamless, sober slumber; he
forgets his notes, his debts, his prom.
ises, and his engagements generally,
which results in guarrels and suits. He
seeks his friends sympathy and conso-
lation, by declaring how terribly he is
Cverworked. He bewails mis- lot, and
thinks it will kill him; and so it will
not the work, but his bad habits. 1t
will be found that nine out of ten of
these "overworked" people are the
victims of some exhausting habit. 1t
is when the vital forces begin to slacken,
and the nervous system flags, that the
worst mischief of late hours sets in.
Stimulants and higher pitch of ex
citement become indispensable, and
the result is soon reduced to one or
two alternatives-reform or ruin.
Second. The moral effects are not
less important in considering this dan
gerous vice. To keep up the unnatural
excitement, which sets at defiance the
course of nature, whisky. tobacco and
cards are the chief agencies. 1t is not
often that topics of science, art, morals
or religion are discussed till break of
day with sober sense, and for the pur-
poses of mutual Improvement. These
are midday topics, they do not intoxi-
cate, but edify. "Those that be drunken
are drunken in the night" "Rioting
in the daytime" is represented in the
Bible as the last stage, when all self
respect is gone-when the bottom
round in the ladder of degradation is
reached. Late hours make the small
beginning, "the parting of the ways"
the point at which the path of vice is
entered upon. Welded to bad COM
pany, as they are apt soon to be, an
endless progeny of vices, follies, fail
ures and troubles spring up to plague
their victim. 1t is the fitting occupa-
tion of bats, owls, and hungry wolves,
to squeak, and screech, and howl in the
dead hours of night; but the young
man who would achieve any success in
business life must go to bed early
must work in the day and sleep In the
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