Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-09-14
The Cause and: Cure Of Insanity.

The Cause and Cure OF Insanity.
If a man wishes to become insane.
let him fix his mind on ono subjecs-no
matter what the object of thought.
The invention Of q perpetual motion,
money-making, religion-any object
will do, so it is one. Let the man
think Of it by day and dream Of it by
night; let him be anxious about it at
sunrise and at monday, at eventide
and In the watches of the night; let
him not possess thought, but let his
thoughts possess him, so that he can.
not play with his children or speak
pleasantly to his wife. There will
come in due time, and swiftly, far
away look to his eyes and deafness
to his stomach, and, judging from his
tongue, he may be classed as fur
bearing animal. Mr.. Freeman, the
fanatic of Pocasset, has been thinking
too much and too long and too intently
on spiritual themes. He has become I'M
earthly, dehumanized. He points NOR
al. The average American has ceased to
enjoy himself. He is not free man. He
is slave to his party, to his business, to
the world. The house ought to keep the
woman, but the American woman Keeps
the house. She is anxious and worried
about the house-she keeps the house up
and runs herself down. We are losing
the faculty of enjoyment, dyspepsia has
become national, paralysis and insanity
common, and we go more than half way
to meet death. Look at the Ameri-
can face, the hard lines that care has
craven upon it. Contrast it with the
face OF the German too lately arrived to
have caught the American disease. The
Teuton can enjoy himself in simple, in
expensive ways. He can purchase more
fun with ten cents than bilious native
can with ten dollars. He loves flowers,
he loves music, he loves the social music,
he loves the social pleasures of converse
ton, and he has no dyspepsia. May we
not learn something from the round-faced
immigrant who brings his health and
good cheer with him? What is the remedy
for the drawn face, torpid liver and dead
stomach of the man at the desk, at the
counter and in the pulpit? A little play
would he good for him, perhaps, also a
little blue pill at first, but less
and less pill and more play-play pure
and simple. We want less of Washing
ton street and more of Broad Ripple.
Let the man of many cares and slave to
them strike for freedom, shake off his
cares and return to nature. It is a chance
between losing time in the grave and
losing time in play, which is fifty named
recreation. Many man thinks he has
no love for fishing, but he has. It is
latent in all men. The whiz of reel and
the bend of rod will wake it. It will
wake the dead. What is the loss Of a
day compared with to the landing Of a
bass-or even pickerel? ''The thoughts
of youth are long, long thoughts
We have used them vilely, but they
survive even in the time Of gray hail
and the evil days when we say we have
no pleasure in them. A days play is a
days journey toward youth: it takes the
black out Of the blood it joys the liver
If MI. Freeman had gone fishing all day
and had tisherman's luck, he would moi
have killed his dat hter; he would have
been too sleepy to think Of it. With the
boys WEAKNESS comes also the boys sleep
Men need to touch earth, to breath air
and air that has not been breathed. Man
is an animal, whatever else and more be
is, and must observe the conditions of an.
imal life.
A larger proportion of farmers wives
than any other class are in the inssne asy.
lum. The mt notony Of their lives sends
them there. No light, no color, no play
in their wretched round of cooking, and
washing, and hopping, and mending
The mind feeds on itself. The Sunday
riot Of the great cities is protest against
week of drudgery, a blind, ignorant and
wicked effort to make up by {; spasm .o1
what has been omitted in a week Man
needs play, not a great deal at once, but
a little and often. We can teach the Ger
man some things, and he can teach us in
return the art of simple, inexpensive
the art of conversation, the art
OF social life. To see how low we are fallen
consider calmly, if possible, the >o-called
social and the party. Is there en-
joyment in these things? Consider the
inevitable leg work, the forced attempts
at conversation, and finally and sadly the
refreshments! Do they refresh? Can a
man who devours chicken salad, cake,
ice cream, which he afterwards melts
with hot coffee, thus making retort of
his insldes, and who does this at midnight,
consistently lecture the German popuia-
ton on temperance?
The climate of this country has worn
out one race-the mound builders and
is wearing the American Indian away,
and has now begun on us, and we, with
our habits of work and worry, will make
it an easy task for malaria and east wind
to finish us.
The only way to avoid the cold grave
IS to exercise the all above ito return
to nature-to enter into the play of the
creatures God has made. The way to re-
form is to reform.
Nnonh o,I Tno~~