Morning journal and courier., 1883-11-17
The Habit of Hurrying.

medical contemporary publishes some sensible and, we fear, only too opportune observations on what it calls the habit of hurry" in modern business life. The mod
 ern man of business dresses in hurry he breakfasts in a hurry he is in hurry to catch his train he is in hurry to get out of it. It is with hurry that he proceeds to his office, in hurry that he reads his let ters, that he answers them, that he passes his day and that he returns to the station to catch his homeward- bound train. All this precipitation, this constant, daily, per
 petual being in hurry is altogether gratui- tous, and 1t is the mere result of bad habit. Business men cannot afford not to seem to be in 8 hurry. If one of them were to walk at Ieisurely and deliberate pace to his morning train, and saunter through the day at the same rate, people would conclude that he had either very little business to transact, or that he was remiss and lethargic in transacting it. Hence, he begins by as suming necessity for haste when none real
 Iy exists and, by degrees, habit becomes a second nature. That there is a good deal of truth in all this nobody who has observantly
 watched modern ways of life would dream of denying But in truth the habit of hustle
 which is so marked characteristic of our time is originally set up by conditions over
 which men have little or no control In the case of men of business there are recessari- ly certain days in the year-"maii" days, for instance, or balancing" days-whGn there
 really does exist greater pressure of work than at other times. In these cases ''push'' has to be made and everybody concerned In getting the work done communicates hls own feverishness to his neighbors. But such Is the constitution of tho human frame, such the mechanism of the human temperament, that what is done frequently has tendency to establish itself as 8 something that Is d. WAYS done. It even becomes pleasure to some men at last, as we'll as a necessity, to do things quickly. Moreover, on the suppo- sition that a man of business lives In the country, or in semi-rural suburb-which is the case with the majority-it is only natural that he should finger among his household gods till the last possible minute. It IS so
 much pleasanter to go round to the stable, to see how the azsIeas are getting on, to
 count the coming rosebuds, to finger on the dewy gravel path, than to be in the noisy,
 dirty, steaming city. Then suddenly the
 watch is taken out of the pocket to see what
 time it is, and in order to catch the city train
 he must make a run for it" The day be- gun in that fashion probably is continued in that fashion The train arrives at the place of departure five, ten, fifteen minutes late.
 The traveller begins to fdget and worry. He has an appointment and he fears he will be late for it. Possibly he is. Thereby every thing is thrown out of gear, and for the rest of the day he is in the plight of Maeeulay's s Duke of Newcastle, whom the historian de- scribed as losing half an hour in the morning and spending all the rest of the day in fu- tile attempt to catch it up. It is easy enough to see how it is that the habit of hurry" is set up, but much more difficult to perceive how the setting up of it is to be avoided under the conditions of modern life,
 or how, when once set up, 1t is to be renae-
 died There is, however, this comfort which men of business and the working bees of so- ciety may take to themselves, that modern life very eften seems to spare the drones no less. Certainly during the height of the London season no persons acquire habits Of hurrying more completely than people Of fashion In order to consume all the amount of enjoyment" that is placed at their dlspo- sal they must perpetually be In hurry
 How to be in the Row-in time; how to be
 back for luncheon-in time how to dress for dinner-in time how to reach the thea ire or the opera-in time :; these are problems of daily, of hourly occurrence Tn the West
 End. The whole of modern life, whether in
 fbe centres of pleasure or the centres of
 business, is dominated by the desire to do too much, and the consequent necessity of doing 1t with precipitation. It is 8 horrible habit-a detrimental habit; we had almost
 said a vulgar habit. The whole world is in 8 conspiracy to double, to treble the pace.
 And what Is gained by it? Loss of temper,
 deterioration of manners, injury to diges- ton, increase of nervous diseases-these are the natural and inevitable results of that
 high pressure to which we nearly all expose