Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1893-12-23

- HE alright stove is an
insidious, a willy enemy.
III 1t gives you warmth
dls without trouble, but also
without ventilation and
without cheer. Thinl, of
the good old days of our hardy grand
fathers, when the flames roared up the
chimney and carried all impurities of
the air with them. You cannot have
better ventilation than by an open fire.
No matter if your back freezes and your
cheeks burn, your lungs are not poi
soned by used up air and your skin is
not parched by the dry, unwholesome
heat.
You know, undoubtedly, that con-
sumption. the scourge Of modern New
England. has more than doubled since
the introduction Of the alright stove.
You know that Americans are race of
dyspeptics, the unhealthiest race on the
face of the globe-at least on the healthy
part of its face Yellow, lean, nervous,
anxious looking people, all of us, in the
city and in the country. Look at the
hardy Scotch and English farmers and
their buxom wives and daughters They
do not look as if they had been bred on
the same planet with us. Our women
break down earlier than those of other
nations, the men grow old at twice the
rate There must be some reason for it.
1t does not seem probable that it is the
climate nor inherited weakness, but that
it is the result of the conditions und.
| which xua live o,,J bripe, ~, ,,,r ,l,;l 1,o,,
The plain fact is, we are dying of our
Injuries, our modern improvements"
Our easy money getting is our curse
Better be a little less comfortable and a
little more healthy, a little harder worked
and little longer lived.
But let us begin with the air we
breathe. think that if an instrument
could be invented which would register
! the impurities in the atmosphere, we
should all open our windows when ii
marked ''vile." The worst of our heaven
bestowed instrument of detection, our
organ of smell, is that it gets quite olt
of order if long in an impure atmosphere
and does not record correctly. Now
fancy for a moment what the air must
be in any ordinary living room in any
ordinary farmers or mechanics dwell
ing in the middle of winter. The stove
has been burning night and day for
months. The windows are corhed up.
the doors are LISTED" even, possibly.
There is cooking, and there is eating, and
there is smoking going on, and there are
| at night one or more kerosene lamps
burning actively for hours. And under
meath all there is that arsenal of woe,
the cellar, filled perhaps with spoiled
potatoes and other decaying vegetable
matter.
Now, where is this air to go to and
how is fresh air to come in to take IL
place? How can human beings stand
breathing that sort of atmospheric The
men have the best of it. for they have,
most Of them, to go ont into the open
| air. whether they want to or not, but
their wives and daughters usually have
to stay in and do the work Of the house,
without having air enough to fill their
lungs, and it is no wonder that their
blood is impoverished and that their or
gans. one and all, lose strength. 1t is an
unnatural and monstrous life. and it is
not to be wondered at that feeble children
4 are born of the mothers who have to
lead it. ! especially pity my country
sisters, in their hot. low rooms, doing
| work at such disadvantage. 1t is like
making bricks without straw.
| pity my sisters, too, who equally
| defy the laws of health in dress, diet and
/ air. But now | am talking to the coun-
| try ones, and this is what | say: Heaven
never meant you to lead such lives or
breathe such air. You are killing your
I selves by inches, and it is quite in your
own hands to prevent it. You have
/ bricked up your chinneys and bought
your stoves, and that probably can't be
helped, but you can at least take the
stuffing out of the windows and get ven.
| tilators for them and make it duty to
air the room several times day. And
\ buy some thermometers-the
are very cheap-and put one in every
I room, and when it gets to GS degrees open
1 the doors and windows and keep the
I temperature down to that.
| Do not sit in a draft--that is fatal
but open your windows and 20 ont Of the
room and come back TO il when it is
/ fresh. The more devitalized the AR is
the less it warns you. Sixty-eight de-
! grees of good air warns you more than
4 Is degrees of vitiated air does. People
/ on the other side Of the ocean think they
/ cannot breath when the thermometerg gets
/ above 60 degrees. | wonder what they
would think Of our rooms and Of our rail
way cars. Americans think they can
stand any heat. They certainly have be-
come insensible to it. 1t is difficult to
make any place '.too hot for them.
I And here in this unrivaled air, this
K wonderfully fine new world climate, You
{ men and women ought to be models OF
health and strength, and--you are not.
Z Think Of it, You who live beside the sea.
( there is nothing between You and Spain
! You can draw breath 5000 miles long
Z every time you open your windows, aud
+ you don't open them, bEt hug your
stoves and shut out the air and wonder
( that you don't feel we'll
I And you who live among the NOM
tains, where city people spend thousands
of dollars 10 take their families every
summer. what air do y0u breathe screen
months in the Year, Air that you have
made bad enough TO kill la dog. with your
stoves. and your lamps. ami yonr stuffed
upwindows. Nov. really. il seems pity
that we can't get something out Of our
splendid clear sunshine, and our strong
winds, and our rich soil here in America.
II sou lived in focgy little island
ike England, where the sun scarcely
ever shines, and where the raw chill eats
into ones very bones. you might com
plain. Or il you had 10 endure the cold.
rheerless winters OF Germany, or indeed
pf all northern Europe, you might say
that nature had not done much for you,
and it was no wonder that You were not
healthy. But in fact you have glorious
suns, and fine clear air. and soil that
breeds less evil than elsewhere, and. with
all that. you are the unhealthiest people
in the world. You do everything to
counteract the good that heaven has sent
you, and probably you charge heaven
with your miseries. 70 sou
The blessed sun and air
Are banned and barred fefbiddef. rare.