Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-08-26

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SATURDAY EVENING. AUG. 20. l0e2.
Work and Play.
The summer vacation season is nearly
over. To some it has brought neither
r.st nor recreation, and life's round of
sober duties will be kept up unremitting
ly. But most people in towns and
cities have had at least a few days "off, -
while others are happy in anticipation
of an early temporary release from cares
and work. The American people now
a-days carry q heavy pressure all the
year round. Nervous energy has become
national characteristic. We are born,
live, move and have our being in an at
mosphere heavily charged with mental
and physical electricity. As q nation
we can no longer tolerate slowness in
any form. We think quickly, speak
quickly, act quickly, and often die sud-
denly. organic and hereditary disease of
the heart having become one of our
commonest ailments, Were we to
be deprived of the railway and
the telegraph we would almost die of
suppressed energy. We could never Ell
dure the Old-fashioned, quiet aud easy
way of getting on. And this spirit is
not confined TO the great cities, where
life's friction is constant and exciting.
1t pervades town, village and rural life.
Many farmers are to day going at pace,
relatively, quite the equal of men in
Wall street. Not content with making
the slow but sure progress of their
fathers, they are determined to get rich
within few years, and to this end they
often bend their physical energies and
strain their financial resources beyond
all safe limit.
Living under such conditions it is well
that our people have almost universally
adopted the plan of breaking the daily
routine, for a longer or shorter time, as
circumstances will permit, and at least
once a year. And this period of recrea-
tion is more and more every year com
pletely given up to idleness and pleasure.
A few years ago only small number of
people, comparatively, visited the noun
tains and the seaside. Now the hills are
dotted with great hostelries from Vir-
ginia to Maine and hundreds of thou.
sands of health and pleasure seekers
visit these resorts between June and Oc
tOber, while the Atlantic coast for
five hundred miles is an almost
continuous stretch of seaside re-
sorts, and there is u steady stream of
travel thither from the beginning to the
close of the season, at times severely
tasking the facilities of the transporta-
tion companies. Then a multitude of
city people adhere to the old fashioned
aud healthful idea of a month in the
country, and thus they are thickly scat
tered in every direction. As the season
wanes and the nights become cool the
tide flows pretty much one way and in
q little while we are all in our old places.
studying, working and fulfilling the
duties assigned us.
There can be no question that all
those who have wisely improved their
vacation are the better for it, mentally,
physically and morally. Men and
women can dissipate anywhere, abroad
as well as at home, and it is too true
that many make recreation farce and
come home in a worse condition than
they went away. This is particularly
true of the two extremes, those who
" rough at the shore or in the woods,
and the ultra-fashionables who are the
helpless victims of dress and etiquette.
Men and women, too, who are confined
within doors all the year at home will
recklessly expose themselves in tho sun
and on the water all day, having what
they absurdly call "a good time" only
t. he followed often by serious illness.
Professional men, totally unused to such
perilous experience, will stand for hours
in deep and chilling mountain streams,
making exhibitions of themselves for the
benefit of the willy trout that
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people give free rein to suddenly
awakened appetite and gorge them
selves day and night, until outraged ma.
ture resents the ill-treatment in her own
emphatic way. But these are the ex-
ceptions and not the rule; the
foolish blunderers fall by the way
side, while the great army of pleasure
seekers march happily along, returning
to their homes refreshed and reinvigor-
ated in mind and body. Every one
should try and thus break life's monot
ony, and if only for a few days. 1t is a
demand Of our nature that should be
complied with cheerfully and regularly.
1t makes us better, happier and stronger.
Sprague's Mtsfortunes.
Ex-senator Sprague defends his Rhode