The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-01-03

that "the banana tree yields 600 times
greater amount of nutritious substance
to the acre than any Of our Northern
cereals, and, by the same amount Of work
by which a day laborer in the North has
to maintain himself, he could in the
tropics provide the necessities and many
luxuries of life for a village of 200 in
habitants." Himself and moderate
family he could consequently support
with merely nominal amount of hard
labor, and by far the greater portion of
his time might be devoted to pursuits
that would raise him high above the an
thropoid drudge of the snow countries.
Should he at the same time be tenn
perate and continent man, the same sun
that raises palm trees to the height of
eighty cubits would develop his men,
tai and physical faculties with mini
mum waste of vital power, and, since the
home of the Semitic races was q land of
eternal summer, the statistics of patri-
archal longevity may belong to the less
mythical portions of the Pentateuch.
In latitude where "all meadows and
all wood are ever green, and spring re-
turns with every rising sum-" man might
regain his pristine happiness in the
course of five or six generations. o.
He might-but does the history Of
the human race make it likely that he
ever will? Has man ever failed to
demolish his physical or political para
disc at his earliest leisure? For one
man." says Goethe, "who can endure
unmixed happiness, 10000 manage to
endure unmixed misery and it is dis
tressingly probable that, if we could
support ourselves on forty minutes of
daily labor, ninety out of hundred
would devote the rest of the twenty
four hours to sleep and vice. o.I
The why rs as occult as the origin
of all evil, but it really seems as if the
average man had to be dragged away
from the pitfalls of ruin; and our mu-
tual efforts to that effect are generally
unavailing against large and very
mischievous class of sins--the sins of
omission. No legislation, for instance,
can prevent the neglect of the indus
trial virtues, for nothing short of out
right slavery can prevent lazy man
from taking to the woods and herding
with his fellow-brutes if he can digest
their diet, or from enjoying his dolce
far 7lie1lte at home if he be rich enough
to bride his overseer.
A cold climate now supplies this de-
ficiency to some degree; it compels the
cultivation of industrial habits by re-
ducing the sluggard to the alternative
of death or labor-rather hard labor,
where remunerative work is monopo-
lied by non-sluggards.
Cold weather, therefore, is guaran-
tee against laziness; but rarely con-
sidered question is this: Who is the
better for it, except those who would
work anywhere, and might work to
much better purpose in less ungen-
erous climate? Are the lower classes
benefited by circumstances that compel
them to fight the battle of life under a
disadvantage? Experience may secure
them against the fear of utter defeat in
that battle; their labor may enable them
to survive winter after winter, and make
"both ends meet" but does it enable
them to make any progress-in the di-
rection of happiness? Constant drudg-
cry prevents, indeed, the indulgence of
vicious tastes, but We must not forget
that it still more effectually prevents
the development of the noblest facul-
ties of the human mind. Ten hours of
factory work, followed by two or three
hours of domestic labor, may not leave
much time for the qualification of an
ugly habit, but it is certain that they
leave even less time for the cultivation
of fine talent Our ethical systems
a mixture of Puritan and mercantile
principles-make us liable to forget
that labor is blessing only as a means
to something better, but not as the end
of existence.
"Let us consider the way in which
we Gin Massachusetts, spend our lives"
says Henry Thoreau. "This world Of
business What an infinite bustle i
am awakened almost every night by the
painting of the locomotive. 1t inter
rupts my dreams. There is no Sab
bath. 1t would be glorious to see man
kind at leisure for once. It is nothing
bat work, work, work. 1 cannot easily
buy blank book to write thoughts in;
they are commonly ruled for dollars
and cents. An IrishGaen, seeing me
making minute in the fields, took it
for granted that L wae calculating my
wages. If a man was tossed out of
window when an infant, and 50 made a
cripple for life, or scared out oil his wits
by the Indians, it would be regretted
chiefly because he was thus incapaci-
tated fOr-business! 1 think that there
is nothing, not even crime, more OPP
posed to philosophy, aye, TO hie itself,
than this incessant business"
Those who may hope to improve
their condition, or that of mankind,
cannot work too necessarily, but if la
Dor has no other purpose but prolonga-
ton of life, such life seems, indeed, not
worth prolonging.
1t is certain that the consequences of
incompetence are less fatal In a frigid
climate than i'll the tropics; but this adj
vantage, too, has serious drawbacks,
and, if we are told that tropical coun-
try necessarily enervates its inhabit-
ants, and that the North myst always
be the home of valor and worth, the
arguments alleged on either side re-