Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-22
THINGS IN GENERAL.
This Is the Time When Thoughts of vaca-
ton Are Numerous-The- Great Change
in Pittsburg in Ten Yesrs-The Way to
Make an Addition TO Life


ton Are Numerous-The- Great Change
in Pittsburg in Ten Yesrs-The Way to
Make an Addition to Life.
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.l
We are approaching the season of the
gripsack We are beginning to get ready
for our annual exodus out of the land OF
bondage. Already we are asking one an.
other "where are you going to spend the
summer" And guide books and check
books and timetables and flannel shirts and
russet shoes are getting to be the order of
the day.
Somebody has commented recently upon
| the progress of the vacation idea in our mod
ern life We used to think that vacations
| were lost time. We complained against any
| increase of holidays. We wanted to work,
and we wanted everybody else to work.
"Six days shalt thou labor" was taken to be
the first and foremost of the commandments,
and our only regret was that we were not
permitted to add another to the six and
make it seven. Work, work, work-grind,
| grind, grind-and all for the sake of money,
| money, money.
Ten years ago in Pittsburg there was
hardly handsome business block or a fine
residence in the whole town. Nobody had
time for the decorative side of life. All
the men were chasing after dol
| lars, looking neither to the right
hand nor to the left No time to read
| no time to look at pictures nor to hear
| music, nor to have any sort of rational en-
| joyment. The center of most mems life was
| located down somewhere in the narrowest
| part of the angle between the Allegheny and
| Monongahela rivers.
The Wisdom of Ten Years.
But we have changed good deal of that
| We are ten years wiser than we were There
is no lack now of fine houses; there is an
astonishing number of fine pictures hung on
the walls of the fine houses. We are getting
nearly everything that is best in the way Of
music. And we are really finding out good
many of the wholesome pleasures of life,
are are taking time to enjoy them. Business
hours are getting shorter. There are more
holidays and longer vacations.
The Professor of Things in General is not
particularly well posted in political econ
omy, and he really knows nothing about the
present strike in the building trades ex-
cept the practical discomforts of it: but he
has large sympathy with any man who
wants to have limit set to the hours of
work, and wants that limit set at eight hours.
Eight hours is long enough for any man to
work. Six hours would be better STILL Two
sets of men, each of them working six hours,
would be an arrangement which would give
an opportunity for work to thousands of
workless, and so breadless, brothers of ours
Let us have leisure. Give US chance to
do something for ourselves, to plant flowers
and potatoes in our gardens, to get ac-
quainted with our wives and children, and
to improve our minds We will work better
for 1t. They asked old Pharaoh for q
vacation, some years ago in Egypt, and
Pharaoh wouldn't give 1t. They put the
matter on the plane of duty, said that they
ought to take vacation, that they must do
it, that they must get away for a few weeks
anyhow among the hills, that God Himself
had sent them word that a vacation they
must have But old Pharaoh laughed grim
laugh, and said that there was no duty about
it, that the people were only. lazy. And he
set them double tasks, and made them find
their own straw for the bricks, and fur
nished all the overseers with new whips
But Pharaoh did not make much out of that
transaction, if remember rightly.
The Most Hurried People.
They knew what leisure meant in the good
old days of the stage coach, before anybody
had thought of such a thing as putting two
rails ofiron side by side for. a track before
the telegraph and the telephone and the
phonograph and the typewriter were in
vented. 1t is little queer that all these
time-saving contrivances have really re-
suited in giving us less time than ever. One
might naturally have predicted that they
would multiply the hours of leisure. Instead
of that, they have only suggested new ways
of spending time. a.
We are the most hurried people on the
face of the earth, we citizens of the United
States of America And, really, there is no
sense in it. We don't get any more out of life;
no. not SO much. The American traveller is
amazed to go out into the streets of London
at 9:9O, and even 10 O'Clock in the morning,
and fina the shutters still up at the shop
windows The day hasn't begun yet The
good people have had good nights sleep,
and are still enjoying their leisurely break
fast. There is no hurry. And this is even
in London. Why, New York wakes up at
daybreak and is ready for business an hour
after.
Everybody who can take a vacation ought
to take q vacation and q good long one.
Get away from business. Go to the
seashore; seek the cool shadows of
the mountains; take trip to
Europe or Alaska. Leave the money-mak
ing side of life behind you and take a turn
at pleasure-mallng. Put away your bust
ness suit and rig yourself out in white
breeches and a blazer. Try to get acquaint-
ed with the big world we live in. Watch the
great cool waves dashing their white foam
along the-sand: lie out beneath the trees and
look up into the illimitable sky: chase the
fish of the singing rivers or the bears of the
thick woods. And for month forget that
any such town as Pittsburg puffs its black
smoke into the blue heavens.
An Addition to Your Life.
Yes; this is business. This is q good in
vestment. 1t means health and sanity and
wholesome enjoyment. 1t means an addi-
ton to your life. This is what we all need,
We want more holidays and more vacations.
1 wish that every saints day in the calendar
was a national holiday. / believe we would
have more saints. And would be glad to
have universal vacation every other
month. We work too hard.
l know, of course, that everybody cannot
go to Europe every summer, Nor can every
body even get away from Pittsburg But
PittsbuIg is not such bad place in the sum-
mer. Here are the rivers, here is Schenley
Park, and Highland Park and cable and cleo
trio cars with cheap fares to take people out
of the. heat. Very few people are so poor
that they cannot get out at least few hours
every week, if it is only on Sunday afternoon,
under the green shade. 1 remember one |
Sunday in Lucerne how crowded the big |
church was at o'clock in the morning and |
how every other man and woman carried q |
lunch basket, and when the sermon was over |
and the mass was ended, how they all turned |
out along the shady woods which led into |
the country First religion, and then rest |
and pleasant fields. Or better, perhaps true |
religion all day long, first under the church |
roof and then under Gods blue sky. 1t |
seemed to me good example.
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Twn FAM0Ug RonKS PROSCRIHEn