Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1893-02-25
Self Examination or Suicide as a
Fine Art.


Fine Art.
Tread By Prof Laverty at the Teachers meetin
in Ellis. Feb. 4, 1897
It is with some embarrassment that
have selected this subject, fearing tina
the! dolefulness, expressive OF wha
may follow, will convey to the
hearer an impression that the writer
should make himself the subject of biz
cratic disquisition.
In mystic visions of the last century
and one half we behold the human race
the embodiment of everything conducive
to perfect health and happiness. Hyge-
mic laws were religiously kept; modern
inquisitions of social torture were un-
known and life insurance companies, un-
dertakers, and tombstone agents could
only struggle with their poverty and be-
moan the sad fate that had induced them
into land prolific with old age, athletic
robust youth, and childhood blooming in
the beauty of health and activity.
But it is always darkest just before the
| dawn. The liberty that threatened to
make collins as archaic as Egyptian sar.
cophagi has taken a downward turn, it
has taken an unparalleled license, and
where kings once slew their thousands,
luxury, fashion, and modern social GUS
toms sweep off their tens of thousands.
The wicked conspiracy of the whole med
ical fraternity against human freedom
and the right to die, when and where,
and how early, one pleased, has been
more than overcome by Individual wilful-
ness, self satisfied ignorance, and vitiated
appetites. The mortuary statistics are
all right again. Sections gleefuliy rub
their hands and importers of mourning
millinery can safely cable new orders.
Still vigilanc is the price of our liberties,
and sanitary conventions and hygenic
law bode no good to manufacturers OF
neat and appropriate epitaphs, or to the
youth waiting with ill-concealed patience
for legacy.
What are some of the established
methods that survive despite doctors and
professors, sanitariums and popular lee
turers on hygiene? Let us look our
selves over and see on what we may
safely depend to make an end of us, if
not the most rapidly, at least the most
certainly.
To begin outside-with our clothing.
All orthodox believers in the doctrine of
the duty and privilege of being sick will
at once have the blessed opportunity to
sing the doxology over what we may dis
cover.
The way we dress leaves little to be
desired, viewed from our standpoint; it
is as unhealthy as it can be made. If
ingenious men had studied out devices
to impede circulation, to reverse the
natural distribution of heat aud blood,
to heat up what ought to be cool, and to
chill what ought to be kept warm, they
could not have succeeded better in
slaughtering the race than has fashion
able dress. by its elastic bands, it's heavy
paddings, its shameless exposures and
cruel neglects. The best of it all is that
popular belief has settled it that our
present methods of dressing are not only
the acme of beauty but the climax of
healthfulness. We, the initiated, how
ever, know with satisfaction that what
popular belief settles as all right is n.y.
genically all wrong. Popular opinion
plumes itself on the fact that dress is
first for modesty, while it throngs the
social world with anatomical displays Of
clavicles, scapul@, cervical and dorsal
vertebr@ with their supra cutaneous en-
velopes. that would be most gratifying to
a country medical student with limited
access to material. Popular opinion
prides itself on the fitness of present
styles of clothing as defence from the
cold, dampness, and injury; it has cotton
hose and kid slippers for the defence of
its outlying and unprotected frontiers,
while it builds breastwork of steel about
its citadel that is able to take care of
itself with slight defence. Popular opin-
ion shows its humble appreciation of the
wisdom of the almond eyed celestials
when, like them, with but slight adapta-
ton to longitude, it cripples its girls and
women with peg heels under the instep,
mains them with narrow soles, and COM
forts the rising generation with the une-
quivocal consolation that if they can't
have walk and carriage like a queen,
they. at least, can hobble along on a
praiseworthy assortment of corns and |
bunions.
Popular opinion insists with Spartan
severity that school teachers shall know
to certainty whether Shakespeare shall
be called an Elizabethean poet or a wri-
ter of Elizabethean English, and would
turn him out instantly for slip in false
grammar, but it would frown on any
young man who should venture to warn
large young girls of the improperly of
sitting in drabbled skirts or with damp
ieet. Oh, society is all right It is dis
and knows evil when it sees
it, even If it does send its ninety pound |