The weekly miner., 1880-08-10
THE LONG FAST.

VIII HafC SouCtiluS VI thO opoip III 0hSi
composition. Gentlemen possessing this adj
vantage know that man always thoroughly
understands his own game, and that he is
not likely to undertake to do anything de-
pending for its completion entirely upon him
self unless he is thoroughly convinced before
:. hand of his ability to accomplish it. But
now that the task is finished, and the long
fast terminated amidst plaudits and water
melons, will some one be so kind as to tell
us what principle of science or economy has
been established, or what good has been done
by it. The experiment would have an
economic value, we admit, if the practice of
which the worthy Doctor is so shining an
exemplar could find general acceptance, but
this is very doubtful. The prospect is full of
Encouragement when we remember what i'll
success the good Doctor met with in his
first and only attempt to prescribe starvation
as ure-all for the various ills to which flesh
is heir. The patient being his wife, it is to
be supposed that the new religion found Il
ready and Jealous convert, for a man need
not be much of a philosopher to understand
that such statement as that an ordinary
human being could live forty days without
food is the veriest trifle in the matter of
veracity when compared with some OF the
whoppers that married ladies accept with so
touching, so sublime faith when coming
from the lips of their husbands. We may
be sure then, that the prescription was well
coined with the pleasurable excitement at
tending novelty, and the experiment entered
into with all the plucky determination of the
woman who "just knows she can do what
any body else can do; there now - but how
did it end? Alas for the fame of the apostle
of starvation! One little trial was enough
At the end of the second day visions Of roast
bees instead of the latest fashions were fill
ing the patients mind. An over weening
longing for pork and beans displaced in her
| affections the love even for a bonnet capable
OF rendering her dearest friends crazy through
envy, and hastily repudlating the doctrine of
starvation, the lady sought consolation in
Dinner and Divorce, leaving the new tangled
notions of her former lord and master TO
those who had stomach for them. This fail
ure Of ali attempt made under circumstances
most favorable for its success leaves us utter
| ly incredulous of the good to be accomplished
through the discovery of mans ability to
abstain from food for a stretch of forty DAYS
The gospel Of starvation may perhaps be
| preached; but we have not the slightest idea
that its practice will ever be accepted as
other than the dircst. most disamreeable
necessity.
But If it is of no use for us to learn that
we can altogether dispense with food for a
montn at a stretch, 1t will do us all the good
i'll the world if some philosopher will only
teach us to live on such food as we commonly
get. What the Montana traveller wishes TO
learn is how he can live on sodden biscuits,
fried steaks and boiled coffee without going
down into the vale Of dyspepsia with its &C,
companying horrors Of consuming melan-
choly or homicidal inc!inatio,is, according to
the victims temperament and disposition
Often when the community is startled and
shocked by a crime of violence committed by
some person whom we would have least sus
pected of criminal instincts, excellent people
will persist in regaling us with homlies OF
the necessity of curbing and controlling the
natural propensties of an "evil heart" Ev
fiddle-stick. Grim, is ten fold more ant tt
proceed from sour stomach than from an,
affection of the heart; and proper regard a.
to what we put into the mouth as wei! al
care respecting what We put into the hea,
must be observed if we would check and re
St,n ho vii Il
qHcntly from bad temper or sour disposition
than from any other cause. Al some future
day this fact will be more generally recoe
nzed than il is al present. 1t is altogethe
likely that the time will come when the intel
ligent jury. instead OF finding verdict 0
manslaughter against the destroyer of life
will record a verdict in the first degree agains
, the cook whose sour bread and villanon
t doughnuts had brought upon the prisoner a
, the bar disease in whose pangs he becam
, the helpless Instrument of tendency h
, found it impossible to resist. IL is to be re
t GREETED that this principle was not understoo
S some years ago. The early pilgrims to MOI
v tana rode day after day beneath Il blisterin
t sun over seemingly interminablc stretch {
= mountain, desert and treeless plain. AT tn
i way stations they were fed on fried beans
: fried bacon, fried corn dodgers and cotle
4 with which in comparison the witche
o brew would be as water from cry
s tai spring. That men thus fed shoul
J. drift into crime is only natural. ft
c the man who has 10 music III his soul
/ lamb-like innocence itself compared with tt
IS man who has the ten thousand devils Of dy
a. pepsia raging and fighting in his stomach
l Those pilgrims killed one another, but not
v much as might have been expected. I'll
,r only wonder is that the stream Of immigr
u ton did not dWindle AWAY and tinall