The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1878-02-28
HOmely Hints.

NOW IL Is Mr.. Moody who is reported
as "giving way from over-work." That
sort of obituary over public mans dead
body or his ended usefulness is as com
mon nowadays rs in the last generation
was "died from the visitation of God"
The popular lay preacher has an excep-
tionally healthy organization and stock
OF animal vitality, but not enough, it
appears, to stand the incessant tremen-
dous strain he has laid upon the nerves.
He is, we believe, however, too wise and
too good a man to commit this common
mental suicide in the pursuance of any
duty, however high it may seem to him.
1t is not over-work which kills the
American; it is an Incredible lack of pru-
dence and common sense in the doing of
the work. Stout, beer-drinking German
scholars go through more hard grinding
labor In study in year than our students
in lifetime. English men of business
at sixty manage gigantic schemes through
the day, and sit down ruddy, portly,
genial in the evening to task of heavy
feeding which would appal any New
York epicure; the European statesman
certainly has affairs as complicated and
vast as our party politics to perplex him !;
yet when do you hear of his sinking at
middle age from an9mia or nervous
prostratinn2 The secret lies in the fact
that the German or Englishman assumes
that he will have sixty good working
years ut least, and takes his time. The
American sets off in the race as if he
would have but ten. The Englishman
does not leave school until the age when
New York boy is practising a profess
sion; he takes frequent holidays, eats
slowly, and more than all, moves in the
smooth ruts of religion, business and be-
lief in which his father left him. The life
of even the laboring Londoner is leisurely
Business does not begin for even the
small shop-keeper in the morning until
one-third of the American working day
is over. If he is ill he coddles himself
He can bear thumps at school or bullets
in battle, but he is coward before a
sick stomach or twinge of toothache.
He lives long and slowly, and we ques
ton whether the amount of accomplished
work which he has to show does not
equal in quantity and quality that of our
nervous, irritable countryman who dies
of cerebral congestion at fifty.
1t would be absurd to urge any Ameri-
can to follow the example of his heavier
blooded cousin. You cannot make a
masttf out of a greyhound. One or
two precautions any man may take, be-
side the ordinary hygienic ones, to
lengthen his days. First, to keep his
brain, rs far as possible, at work on one
subject at time. 1t is the multitude of
conflicting ideas which wears it out by
actual physical strain. Hence the brain
of man who controls the divers occu-
pations of other men, or who is accus-
toned to carry on separate trains of
thought, will give way sooner than one
which is confined to one branch of study
or work. Secondly, to make absolute
the pauses for rest, the stoppsge of work
must be complete to be worth any
thing. Thirdly, if possible, to have Il
hobby-some manual work which re-
quires also an exertion of the min d
totally Indifferent from its ordinary
work. Gardening, music, drawing, cabi
net-making, have been salvation for
many brain stretched and strained to
the verge of exhaustion. These are
homely hints, but they are meant for
those who know how to value simple
remedies.-N. Y. Tribune.
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