St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-08-09
OVERWORKED PEOPLE.

white, and murmured:
ooh, John! Who told YOU"
OvERWORKED PEOPLE.
What Dewitt Ta1mage has to Say Con-
corning Hot Axles.
All those of us who travel much on
rail cars must have noticed a great
change for the better in the fact that
there are fewer halts and detentions
and exasperatiOns from what was call
ed the hot axle. Business men and
people in haste have failed in more en-
gagements from that cause than from
almost any other. l do otknow what
railroad men have done to improve
their rolling stock, but on the great
the hot axle has completely ceased.
What cause for congratulation for all
travellers
The express train was flying from
Cork to Queenstown. 1t was going 60
miles an hour. No sight of an Irish
village to arrest our speed, no sign of
We looked out of the window, saw the
brakeman and a crowd of passengers
gathering around the locomotive, and
We were on the lightning train for
Cleveland. We had no time to spare.
If we stopped for half an hour, we
should be greeted by the anathema of
a committee. We felt sort of presen-
timent that we should be late, when
to confirm it the whistle blew and the
brakes fell, and the cry all along the
train was, What is the matters 2" An
swer: ga hot axle" The wheels had
been making too many revolutions in
minute. The car was on fire. 1t
was a very difficult thing to put it out !;
caused long detention and q smoke
that threatened flame down to the end
of the journey.
We thought then, and think now,
this is what is the matter with people
every where. In this swift " express"
American life, we go too fast for our
ting on splendidly, when in the midst
halt. What is the matter7 Nerves or
muscles or brains give out. We have
made too many revolutions in an hour.
A hot axlei
Men make the mistake of working
according to their opportunities and
not according to their capacity of en-
durance. "Can l run this train from
Springfield to Boston at the rate of so
miles an hour 2" says an engineer. Yes.
Then l will run it, reckless of conse-
quences." Can l be a merchant, and
the president of bank, and director
in life insurance company, and
school commissioner, and help edit
nd ho off,
ward, and run for Congress? " L can !"
the man says to himself. The store
drives him; the school drives him
politics drive him. He takes all the
seedlings and frets and exasperations
height of the business season he does
most important meetings of the bank
ments of the political canvass he fails
to be at the place appointed. What is
the matter His health has broken
down. The train halts long before it
gets to the station. A hot axle.
Some of the worst tempered people
of the day are religious people, from
the fact that they have no rest. Added
to the necessary work of the world,
they superintend two Sunday schools,
listen to two sermons, and every night
have meetings of charitable and Chris
tian institutions. They look after the
beggars, hold conventions, speak at
meetings, wait on ministers, serve as
committee men, take all the hypercrit-
icisms that inevitably come to earnest
workers, rush up and down the world
and develOpe their hearts at the ex-
e f,~
the best men on earth, and Satan
fast as possible. They know not that
it is as much a duty to take care of
their health as to go to the sacrament.
1t is as much a sin to commit suicide
with the sword of truth as with pis-
toll.
Our earthly life is treasure to be
guarded. 1t is an outrageous thing to
die when we ought to live. There is
a speed that the boiler bursts mid-At-
it might have reached the docks at
work of 80 years in five years.
Most Americans do not take time for
sufficient sleep. We account for our
extraordinary health by the fact that
we are fanatics on the subject of sleep.
We differ from our friend Napoleon
BOnaparte in one respect; we want
nine hours sleep, and we take it-eight
hours at night and one hour in the day.
IF we miss our allowance one week, as
we often do, we make it up the next
week or the next month. We have
sometimes been 81 hours in arreara-
ges. We formerly kept memorandum
of the hours for sleep lost. We pur-
sued those hours till we caught them. If
at the beginning of our summer vaca-
ton we are many hours behind in |
slumber, we go down to the seashore
or among the mountains and sleep |
month. If the world abuses us at any
time, we go and take an extra sleep |
and when we wake up, all the world is |
smiling on us. If we come to a knotty |
point in our discourse, we take a sleep: |
and when we open our eyes, the opa-
que has become transparent. We split |
every day in two by nap in the after /
noon. Going to take that somniferous
interstice, we say to the servants
" Do not call me for anything. If the
house takes fire, first get the children |
out and my private papers and when
the roof begins to fall in, call me.n
Through such fanaticism we have
thus far escaped the hot axle.
Somebody ought to be congratulated
4 do not know who, and so I will
shake hands all around-on the fact
that the health of the country seems
Whether Dio Lewis, with
his gymnastic clubs, pounded to death
A merican sicknass or whathar tba