Richland beacon., 1889-06-29
SUFFERING ONLY A HABIT.
4 STORY ABOUT ITS PHASES BY ONE
WHO STICKS IN HIS TALK.

4 STORY ABOUT ITS PHASES BY ONE
WHO STICKS IN HIS TALK.
Suffering is more a nuisance than
disease. 1t is more or loss great
infiction to ones friends, but how
much pain or bother it causes the
stutterer depends more on his tenn
permanent and digestive powers than
on the extent of his suffering. 1t is
a mental and not physical malady.
4 man does not stutter because there
is ANYTHING the matter with his larynx
or vocal cords or lungs or Adam 5
apple or diaphragm or with any other
part of his anatomy which the phvsi-
ological picture books tell about. He
shutters because he either never
learned to talk properly, or because
he does not practice it, if he did learn
how. Talking requires muscular eff
tort Just as much as riding does of
parting man hair or shaving. The
difference is that it requires the use
OF another set of muscles, which are
not as we'll known as the muscles one
uses in shaving. and which in most
people are taught to work well enough
in childhood to suit them and let 90
at that. A man who does not know
how to shave himself will make a
botch of it. If he is nervous the razor
cuts will show; if the muscles of his
face and wrist and fingers are not
trained to it, instead Of the razor
gliding smoothly over his face, it will
catch every little while, and every
catch means either a rough, uneven
shave or razor cut.
To an extent, it is the same way
with Sufferers. A stutterer usually
has the same vocal organs that other
people have, and when he talks his
diaphragm and other things work in
the same way as they do in other
people. That is, they do if he talks
properly. Ifhe is not skilled at it he
will catch from time to time, and
either make his speaking rough and
broken, or, it he catches badly, make
gashes at it as a razor in clumsy
hands does on the face. That man
shutters simply means that he does
not know how to talk. He may have
bigger lungs and more healthy vocal
organs than perfectly controlled and
accurate talker, but he does not know
how to use them. The tools he got
by inheritance, but the proper use Of
them he is unskilled at.
To most people think suffering and
stammering are the same thing. What
difference there is in the meaning is
apparent to few besides the Sufferers
and stammerers themselves, and all
of them even are rot agreed about it..
The distinction which perhaps a ma
jority of those who know about it by
personal experience make, is that TO
stutter is to repeat the sound on which
the hesitation occurs. Like the word
which names it, "stutter," the slut
terer usually tut-tut-tuts, when he
ought to finish up with the consonant
sound and go on with the rest of the
word. A stammerer has the opposite
fault. Instead of saying the same
thing over several times, he has trou-
bic to say it once. Instead of doing
the tut-tut-tut, he would get to The
IT and stick there with his jaws
firmly set and the air in his lungs
rushing out between his teeth in suf-
ficient volume to deliver a few SEN
tences of an oration to political
gathering in competition with a brass
band, if the efflux of air came from
the lungs Of a man trained and skilled
in utilizing it. However the fault
may be the reason for it is the same
in both cases.
The fact that stutterer can talk
sometimes and cannot talk at other
times shows that there is nothing in
herent in his physical arrangement to
prevent his talking, but that some
mental influence or deface is RESPONSE
BILE. Almost every one shutters mo, e
or less. There are few men who do
not hesitate at times or do not at times
have difficulty in enunciating the next
word they wish to use. They may
not be conscious of it themselves, be.
cause a man who has talked well and
easily all his life usually pays no at.
tention to it,. any more than he does
to his lungs when they do their work
: properly or to his stomach when hi.
digestive organs do not trouble him
A sufferer notices all these things in
other people, just an the man who hal
the hay fever is interested in the ba,
ssvers If other people, and notices tn