Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-03-03
things that are glad to be toyed with in
mans moments of relaxation.
A Short-Lfyed People.

"A SnOFt-LhVcu ftOpics
For. some time I used to wonder why Ct
was that 1 never saw an old man in Amer
lea. And coming from a country where it
is common to see men of ninety digging in
the fields unconcerned at the rain and hail
which peIted them. I was amused to find
the prominence given by the press to the
fact that Josh So-and-So had just died at
Utica, n. Y, at the wonderful age of nine
ty-three years. Having gone home to Ire
land last summer, l was one day. shortly
after my arrival there, standing in a dra-
perry in the village of Donegal, when a man
who looked more than seventy came in and
bought some funeral fittings. Nell" said
said he Your father! 1 didn't thing your
father was alive. He must have been a
pretty old man." Faith, no. sorra so old
was he at all. only four score and twelve.
years to come. only he was out on the hills
(mountains) after sheep last March and
the mists caught him so that he had to sit
down with his knees and chin together all
the night When he came off next mornin
he went about his work, like fool. without
changin his inSides, for he was drenched to
the skin, and when warned him he wasn't
as young as he used to be he tout me not
to provoke him or he might soon show me
whether or no. Well he took infiuenZy
and he never rightly got at himself again
till he slipped away from us. He scorned
ia take young advice but God rest his
Souli'
l remember. too, when out cycling one
sultry day, sitting down to rest by the way
side. where q bright eyed, Sunny-faced old
woman was resting, too. As we do in Dom,
egal, / inquired where she came from and
where she was going. She informed me
that on the second day before, at O'Clock
in the morning, she had left her home in
Colmkile. in the remote mountains of Don
egal, and Travelled forty Irish miles to see
her daughter, who was hired near the town
of Ballyshannon. She had taken her time
by the way and rested when she pleased.
and had reached her daughters place late
at night She had then taken a fine full
days rest" and was now travelling back
for home. She was eighty-two years of
age. / know well that to thousands of
Americans such q thing seems a preposter-
Gus untruth. But these people have not the
remoteSt idea of the constitutions with
which the mountaineerS of the west coast
of Ireland are blessed
The shortness OF life in America gave
me pause The causes that conduce to this
shortening seem to me. an onlooker, to be
five or six. viz: Nervous tension, over
heated houses. coffee. f1eshmeat quick lunch
restaurants, and in Kentucky, concealed
deadly weapons
The ore thing that astonished me first
and most in America was the breathless
haste at which the nation rushed. 1t is
probably my ignorance, but this deadly
pace at which life rushed seemed to me as
futile and as ludicrous as that of the DON
key who strove to keep up with the car
rot which his rider dangled before him at
poles end. The American, in his ner-
SouS haste. seems to have utterly lost sight
of the fact that life is to be enjoyed as
one goes.
The Race for Wealth.
The great fact that looms before his
eager vision is that he must grasp the
means of enjoyment-means that are about
as real and as approachable as the horizon
line To pause and gather the flowers that
bloom in vain by the wayside is to him
criminal waste of time. 1t has never
dawned on him that life is a morning saun-
ter IN our great existence, and that the
pleasure of that saunter is measured by
how much We feel of all that is for our en-
Joyment scattered around u.s. But the
American is the scorcher of civilization,
who jumps on his wheel and, with bumped
back and straining nerves and starting
eyes. flies over the landscape and measures
his satisfaction by the cyclometer To the
American life is a task. not a blessings
task that he srimly resolves to go through
1t the better. He has been so long so
grimly, so persistently chasing wealth and
station that. though he set out all right.
looking to those as the means to an end
vet, from his persistent pursuit of them,
they have entirely shut out the true end
and supplied its place to his strained vision.
That fictitious value given at some time
or other to almost worthless bits of metal
time OBTAIN a tpraCt1caily)
real value that has upset the whole moral
theory of humanity. is a curious instance
of the hallucination to which human minds
both great and small. are ever victims.
Doesn't Like Our Way of Eating.
In the labyrinths of theory 1 had almost
lost sight of the boarding house table and
the quick lunch counter toward which I
was toilng. 1t is certain that the amount
of meat eaten in America is greater than a
healthful moral and physical constitution
can stand. Meat is the staple commodity
OF all meals, and the American with whom
demonstrate shakes his head and informs
me that much meat is a physical necessity
here His proof for this, given after much
hesitation is that he has always heard so
From personal experience | know that meat
Is no more necessary in New York than in
Donegal And'I see. as any obseryant per
son will see. that much meat eating clogs
the system, and clogs and dulls the senses
eXcitants. Moreover. as brain and stomach
ever rival each other in their demands upon
the nervous energy, meat is suited to a
nhlegmatic, and very much unsuited to n
nervous, race like Americans. The use of
coffee is as much abused as the use of
meat. The American lives in and for the
moment, and so never hesitates to draw
drafts upon the future. The coffee stimu-
lates his jaded nerves and makes them do
more than they are naturally fit for But
even latent nervous power is a fixed guam
he exhausts it long before the race is run.
and he drops out and is forgotten by the
painting one who catches his place.
Quick Lunches Deadly.
think ! forgot to enumerate the corner
drug store in the list of ills that shorten
life in America And it does not deserve to
be forgotten. for 1t certainly divides honors
with its rival. the quick lunch. Yet. on re-
Election, 1 do believe the latter has the
heaviest score to its credit And. scientifi-
cally. 1t Is the more interesting of the two
The drug store has been reckoned with for
ages. but the quick lunch as a factor in
mortality returns is characteristic deyeI-
opment of new world civilization
Now. i have not seen any American NOR
tallty returns, and do not know what are
the proportions ascribed to the different
causes of death. But after close obserya
tion and mature elaboration have for INV
own use. drawn up mortality table. which
am prepared to vouch for and from
Which, II the official figures differ. the off,
clai hSures are decidedly misleading Here
IS my table land challenge doubt calcu
iated on the basis of every one hundred
deaths IN the eastern states of America:
Cause Mo..u.
Epidemic and pulmonary diseases. love.
accident. murder. suicide &c ~
Coffee and mcat. % a.
Corner drug store ,a a