The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-04-11

clean. Early in the morning the cows
were MIXED, filing TWO large cans,
| when he Immediately started for the
city. carrying them from a yoke across
the shoulders in the orthodox manner
and making his rounds TO all the houses
he served. Returning he had TO get
his own breakfast. Then for several
hours there was grass cutting and at
itending TO the cows, and getting his
own dinner. Yet often in the early
lavening he was dressed and made calls.
often at the very houses he had served
with milk in the morning Notwith-
standing this hard wark with the
Thermometer from so TO 80 degrees or
upward every day, he was the picture
of health and appeared to enjoy his
life
1t is well-known fact that in Cey-
Ion and India the men who enjoy the
best health are the enthusiastic sports
men who seize every opportunity of
lgettng away from civilization, and
who often submit to much privation
and fatigue with benefit rather than
Injury to their health Our soldiers
Iagain. even in the unhealthy climate of
India, most of which is really outside
the tropics, have to do good deal of
work, and when marching against an
lenemy undergo much fatigue, and we
90 not hear that they are unequal to it
on account of the heat. The same is
teven more clearly the case with our
sailors, who do their regular work
when stationed in the tropics, and do
not suffer injury either from the eli
mate or the work if not exposed to in
fectious disease while on shore. The
editor OF the Ceylon Observer, COM
menting on my letter in the Daily
Chronicle, adduces case after case of
officers, planters, doctors, ETC., who
have lived from twenty-five up to fifty
eight years in Ceylon and have retain
ed almost continuous good health. He
Ialso refers to Dutch families descended
Ifrom settlers who came out from 80
to 200 years ago, and who have main
tanned average good health. even in
the hot country Of the plains
In the Moluccas there are even more
striking examples, many Of the Dutch
families having been continuously on
the islands for 300 years, and they
have still the fair compilations and ro-
business of form characteristic of their
kinsfolk in Holland. The government
physician at AmbOyna, a German, as
sured me also that the race is quite
as pI DIS UiOpC, ioiitiiSS VI
ten or a dozen children being not I'M
common The Dutch, however, live
sensibly in the tropics, doing all their
official work between the hours Of Z
land II a. m, resting in the afternoon,
and going out III the evening.
But perhaps the most conclusive ex-
ample is that OF Queensland, the eli
mate of which is completely tropical;
yet white men work in every part of it.
Whether as gold miners, sheep shear
Iers, sugar workers or railway builders,
there has never been any complaint
that white men cannot work, while
almost all the heavy mechanical work
Of the country, engineering of every
kind, carpentering and all the various
| building trades, and the scores of
varied industries Of a civilized COM
munity are carried on by white work
men without any difficulty and with
no special effect on their general
health. This case really settles the
question.
| The fact is that white men can live
and work anywhere in the tropics, if
they are obliged, and unless they are
obliged they will not, as rule, work
even in the most temperature regions.
Hence. wherever there are inferior
races. the white HSn get Gu6SS To w
for them. and the kinds OF work per-
formed by these interiors become mira
dig. for the white man. This is the
real reason why the myth, as to white
men not being able to work in the
tropics, has been spread abroad. 1t
applies in most cases to agricultural
work only, because natives can usually
be got to do this kind Of work while |
that of the skilled mechanics has !
usually to be done by white men. And |
another reason is that it is only by |
getting cheap labor in quantity that |
fortunes can be made in most tropical |
countries. But when people come to |
recognize that the fortune ma kers |
whether by gold-mining, specializing or |
any of the various forms of thinly veil |
ed slavery, are not by any means the !
happieSt, the healthiest or the wisest |
men, whereas those who really work. |
under the best conditions, so as to re-
ceive the whole produce of their labor,
may be both healthy and happy, will |
usually live longer and enjoy life more,
and by working in association may OBJ
tain all the necessarieS and comforts
of eXistence-then the enormous ad
vantage Of living in the best parts of
the tropics will become evident For
not only is nature so much more pro-
ductive that equal amounts of produce
may be obtained with half. or perhaps
a quarter, of the labor required in
northern lands, but the essentials of a
happy and an easy life are so much
fewer in number. Houses may be
slighter and far less costly; clothing
may be reduced to less than half what
is required here; fuel is only wanted
or cooking; while the enjOyability of
the early morning hours is so great
that everybody rises before the sun,
and thus comparatively little artificial
light is required. When all this is fully
realized we may hope TO see co-opera-
tive colonies established in many tro
meal lands where families OF the same