Los Angeles herald., 1905-04-02
MAGAZINE

the world healthy and vigorous chill
dren. are the salt Of the earth and
they should be encouraged 10 shower
the blessing OF more babies into the
bosom OF the human family. In the
first place, they are evidently, thanks
TO their ancestors. a physical elite, be-
cause they have reached n ripe middle
age with vlgor. In the second place,
they must have that mental poise and
self-contro which is so desirable. or
else by their way of living they had
forfeited their hereditary advantages;
and third. the fruit OF the pudding is in
the eatng-they have presented the
state with desirable babies"
Unfortunately up to the present the
English state has not acted upon this
suggestion, and the matrimonial world
wags on in the same old way. In Eng
land the man who has his quver full
of children Is not assisted to pay his
butchers bill over here on this side
of the water we manage this, as all
other things, so much better. Presi-
dent Roosevelt has recently given the
Job of postman to the father of fifteen.
A less actively pedestrian job might
have been more suitable for man who
has so much floor walking to do at
night, but the appointment itself shows
clearly how the president stands on
this important question, which is grow
ing more important every day.
No one should feel discouraged IL the
| r. In,
his particular case cast horoscope of
life which is not in harmony with his
hearts desire. Life. short or long, is
very uncertain problem. and no one
knows this better than students of biol
cgy and the actuaries of the great life
insurance companies, whose business it
Is, in a good sense of the word, to spec
ulate upon it's duration
AS to averages, the men learned in
vital statistics can foretell the result
almost to a fraction of a month. But
the individual case is full of surprises
and, after all, it is only in the indi-
vidual case that we as general thing
are able, to maintain our interest.
Indeed, life is not to be measured by
years or calendar months, but perhaps
by sensations which may be prolonged
or so short as to defy estimation by the
hour glass.
The time may come when the riddles
of the universe shall be solved and
what is dark made plain, but it has not
come yet Still we can say, still we
must say, in the light of observation,
with Goethe's Faust" Gray is all
theory and green alone the everlasting
tree Of life"
But death is always interesting. We
cannot regard it with the detached in
terest with which we can regard Col.
Younghusband's experiences in Thibet,
or Commander Perry's peregrinations
in the Arctic circle. This is a journey
which sooner or later we must all take,
and the nour of his departure no man
knows, and few men are concerned
with it. so that the statement of a pre-
cocious little girl at the family party
on Thanksgiving Day. 1--WE have all
got to die; amt it mean?" was dis
missed by all present as unwarranted
and without foundation in fact. We
can see death approaching our neigh
Dor boldly or with stealth. Our sur
prise is that of Everyman in the monk
ish miracle play when he pretends to
lay hands on us-unwarranted and
without foundation in fact.
If the mysteries of life are ever made
plain it will be by the work of such
cold, Unconditional investigators as are
Prof. Osler and the men of his school.
This great student of life, who is, /
believe, the first native born American
to be called to regius professorship at
Oxford though in his busy life he has
written 400 volumes, monographs and
papers, is very chary of words. He
would seem to have the rare faculty
tions. After having performed with
his own hand 1000 autopsies he is able
to compress what he thinks worth re-
cording of this prodigious labor into
three paragraphs. He has stood by 500
deathbeds of which he has record, and
of these he writes: LAS a rule man
dies as he has lived, uninhuenced
pTdCllCdily Dy the lnOuBnL OF future
life. Bunyan could not understand the
quiet easy death of Mr.. Badman and
took it as an incontestible sign of his
damnation The ideal death of Cor
a nelius, so beautifully described by
$ Erasmus is rarely seen. In our mod
: ern life the educated man dies usually
: as did Mr.. Denmer in Margaret Le-
J, lands story wondering but uncertain,
S generally unconscious ana unconcerned
r l have careful records of about 500
= deathbeds studied particularly with
( reference to the modes of death and
= the sensations of the dying The latter
t alone concerns us here. Ninety suf-
fered bodily pain or distress of one
: sort or another, eleven showed mental
apprehension, two positive terror, one
e expressed spiritual exaltation, one Bit
= ter remorse. The great majority gave
y no sign one way or the other; like their
II