St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1880-03-20
A Lazy, Labor-saving Age.

iodu pore us away down into the lane
of the sunshine. While the porter wa
making up our berths, the fat passen
gers thoughts were evidently running
on what DR.. Iundell said about walk
ing, that wise Providence had given ;
horse four legs, so that he might wall
all he wished, but the same overrulins
wisdom had given a man but two, ant
had fixed them so they could bend il
two directions and thus fit a carriage
seat perfectly.
1t is lazy, labor-saving age,' the
tall, thin passenger said. oman is try
ing to solve the problem of living ant
growing rich without labor or exertion
1t is an age of labor saving machinery
land yet the sad passenger put in
"there never was an age of greater OF
more incessant activity.'
"People burn gas, y said the tall, thir
passenger, disrega1ding the Others
statement, "because they are too lazy
to snuff candle or fill lamp
Yes" said the passenger with the
sandy goatee, "and they light it with
electricity to save the trouble of scratch.
ing MATCH
"And it was d lazy man, said the
man on the wooden box, "that sat
around cold winter mornings, and shiy-
cred and shuddered, and wished he
knoWed some way Of putting enough
coal in the stove to last all day, that
finally invented the base-burner No
active man would ever have thought OF
such a thing
"Men used to take a fair amount of
eXercise,n said the tall, thin passenger,
" when they had to walk from their
homes to their places of business; but
then some ease-loying genius built 4
street car, and now any man who walks
three blocks with a nickel in his pocket
wilt not be recognized in good society,"
"And if he will not wait in the cold
half an hour for the carr said the man
with the sample cases, che is turned
out Of the church,
"And even then,' said the passenger
with the sandy goatec, "men took a
little air and exercise on the street ears,
when their business compelled them to
90 from their own Office 70 other bust
ness houses. But then Edison invented
the telephone, and now a man goes
down to his Office in the morning, CLUES
himself to chair and is there when the
street cars come along to take him to
supper. II he didn't need them to walk
up stairs with, man in this lazy age
might trade off his legs for another pair
OF hands,
"Ihat need not keep him back, -
said the sad passenger, j" because
when he wants to 60 up stairs he
gently but firmly glides into the ele-
vatorn
The fat passenger looked at the
speaker with a look of approval.
:" My son." he said, nodding his head
"you are mighty right, he does"
Surely, it must be as the pa .sengers
decided, the race is degenerating, physi-
cally. We take all our exercise pro-
fessionally, as the japanese hire people
to do their dancing for them. We play
base ball with salaried mines, we row
with men who can pull for us without
taking us away from the counting-room
when we want to walk some robust fell
low takes our money and makes 600
miles in five days for us. We are de-
generate race, and have fallen away
from the high standard of physical viz
tue maintained by our fathers. And
yet as l lie here in the pleasant palace
car of my friend Pullman, with the
jointless blanket folded about me in I'M
yielding plates, and the miniature pill
low slipping down my back, draw the
curtain little aside and look out at the
snowy landscape and the glittering
starlight, and l stretch myself out and
snuggle myself up in very excess of
comfort, and as think of our rugged,
manly, virtuous, stalwart fathers, plod-
ding over this same road from Louisville
to GAINESVILLE, in slow-moving stages
and numbering wagons, close my eyes
in degenerate content, and say, in
sleepy accents:
"Dear fathers, virtuous men of iron
frame, if that mode of travel suited you,
stick to it. This sort of thing is good
enough for me. ''-Burdctte, IN the Bur.
Iington Harheyc.