The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-03-19
Famine.

A LARGE portion of our Northern
States is at this writing suffering severe.
ly from famine, and deaths in conse.
quence of it are of daily occurrence. II
is true that the crops of 1880 were of un-
precedented abundance; it is true that
there is plenty of fuel, coal and wood at
reasonable prices; but for all that our
people are dying of famine. Even in
the palaces of the wealthy, where there
is no lack of money to supply every
want, no less than in the cellars where
poverty and filth hide themselves from
the light, there are daily deaths from
famine! 1t isn't said that people die of
famine; they are said to die of scrofulous
consumption, of typhoid pneumonia, of
rheumatism, and a thousand other COM
plants, but they are really dying of
famine. How can this beP Let us
enter this handsome house where the
mother lies PROSTATE on her death bed.
Double windows exclude all access of
air through them. Weather strips at
the doors bar out the cold; by ingenious
warming apparatus the temperature of
the house is kept at summer heat, and
it may be the moisture of the air is pre-
served by house-plants or other agencies
at the healthful point. The store-room
is full of provisions, the closets lack
nothing that comfort demands for cloth
ing, but the choking sensation that soon
seizes the incomer from the open air
declares that famine too is here. Let
us go into this cellar where human be-
ings are huddled together like-we
were about to say beasts of prey, but
that is unjust to the beasts. Here it is
warm and choking too, more choking it
may be than in the handsome house,
but the quality of the atmosphere is
identical. 1t reeks with human exhala-
tons.
Is there so scant supply of pure,
life-giving air that we are dying for the
want of it? The supply is unstinted,
the quality is perfect; it is only the want
of access to it that produces the famine
of which so many are dying. We will
not let it come into our houses; we shut
ourselves away from its healing power
and choose death that we may die. At
every breath we throw out from our
lungs effete matters which, absorbed
through the pores, are rs poisonous as
arsenic or strychnine. Every hour ex-
halations emanate from the body that,
reabsorbed, are deadly poison. Access
of fresh air would chemically neutralize
or dissipate these poisons, but access of
air means access of cold, and that can
by no means be permitted. So persons
60 on breathing out and exhaling poi
sons which in part they Immediately re-
absorb, until their whole systems be-
come loaded and clogged with effete
matter, their blood is black with. corrup-
ton, their skin loses all power of resist
ance to cold or poison, headaches afflict
them, appetite fails, they take cold on
some slight exposure, the weakest part
OF the body receives the shock, and the
whole structure crumbles and falls. ga
mysterious dispensation of Providence
has removed our brother, our sister,
beloved child, from our midst"
Now for the common-sense view. 1t
is well known, and should be universally
known, that those men who are most in
the open air in any healthy climate are
least liable to attacks of sickness. Let
ter-carriers, stage-drivers, wood-chop-
pers, physicians, and all who habitually
are out in all weathers, suffer less from
disability by sickness than their fellows.
They breath fresh air, their clothing and
their skins are aerated, purified, made
wholesome by the open air.
But there must be stay-at-home peo-
pie, invalids, children, who can not get
out of doors easily in our cold winters.
Then the air must be brought to them.
As Professor Youmans has said, "venti-
lation is. after all, question of ex-
pense. We "can-n heat all out
DOORS" and that is not necessary or
even desirable; but if we don't let some
OF it into our houses and heat it we pay
big doctors bills, we suffer, we die.
A great many persons who think they
are for the winter shut into their houses
might go out if they would only wrap up
enough. If an overcoat isn't enough,
put a cloak over that, shawl over that,
put on leggings and overshoes, wrap up
the head and face, if need be, with scarfs
and wells, have a warm brick or SOAP
stone at the feet if the going out is in a
vehicle. The only way to resist weather
is to conquer it, and everybody knows
how much better one feels after a bath
in the open air The more we shrink
and shut ourselves away from contact
with the clear, fresh, outdoor air the
more tender dove become and the more
liable to death from the attacks of dis
ease or exposure to draughts and acct
dents that can not be foreseen or guard
ed against. N. Y. Tribune.