The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-14

-
 sad endngs have their human counter
 parts throughout the world in many diff
 ferent forms and varieties. Every year
 thousands of PiedmonteSe Workmen go
 to France and Switzerland, returning at
 the beginning of winter by the valley of
 the Rhone Every year many die of Ia
 tigue and cold in the pass of the Great
 St Bernard. The corpses are carried to room about 100 yards from the monas- tery. and there they are left just as they
 are found, in order that other travellers
 or relatives looking for them may recog- rize them.
 They are Piedmoates peasants and workmen returning to thelr homes at ap- proach of winter, with bag or valise on shoulder bringing to their families their little savings. Sometimes they set forth too late or the season becomes bad quickly and snow oVertaSes them in the mountain passes. Badly clothed and eX- hausted, they are forced to stop when
 the north wind blows. Their hands and
 feet are frost bitten and they are quick ly benumbed.
 But their sufferings can only be pie tured by those who have travelled in the Alps, and know how the snow falls in
 fine powder. literally grains of ice dashed against the face by the wind, and penetrating every garment. He who rests Is lost m DenumDeu Sleep thal
 passes into death.
 These terrible unfortunates, however are only isolated in rare cases, and their tragedies are invested with q melancholy glory The vast and dreadful majority of those who perish by fatigue fall in armies by the slow suicide of continuous Cverworl.
 Why Children of the Poor Die. Infant mortality, as Dr. NIosso has indi- Loo tad fe e than among people in easy circumstances, and children born and bred in poverty are never so strong those more happily conditioned because their food is insuffi- cient or because they suffer from the
 effects of the fatigue undergone by thelr mothers.
 Prof Pugliani of Turin. made a series cf measurements comparing the weight. the height, the circumference ot the
 chest. the vitality and the muscular force of the poor children with those Of chli-
 dren comfortably circumstanced and in
 every instance the advantage was with
 tine latter.
 The ruin which the exhaustion of fla tigue brings about in man appears finally and clearly in the degeneration of the
 race In one of the Italian provinces
 out of 3,672 sulphur workers who pre- sented themselves for examination only 2OS were declared fit for military service.
  height 69 for deficit chest measurement, 64 for constitutional weakness, p for
 malformation of the chest. 43 for herna, l 4S for spinal curvature 20 for other phys lcal deformities, : for varicocele, lS Tor malarial cachexia, IS for blindness B for other causes. The remainder were re- handed for another examination The first time Dr. Mosso went to Sicily it was as an army inspector. He stood close to the altar of a tiny church while sometimes the conseripts of entire Vll- lages passed by without one being found fit to bear arms.
 Sad Effects of Child Labor. Child labor in almost all its forms
 makes for deformity and degeneration, because the child victims are pressed be- yond the endurance of the delicate bones. which become twisted, and the tender organs which are displaced, compressed. or otherwise impeded thelr functions. Despite humane legislation, the unhappy child workers all the world over are en- slaved, mutilated, and brutalized by pre- mature labor, inducing excessive fatigue. At first thought the introduction of
 modern machinery might be thought to relieve man of his fatigue. But in tho mind of Mosso such thoughts are base less poets dreams. Beside the roaring machines and their whirling hammers and flying wheels are seen half-naked
  1 suing enormous weights, which sweep 1 round at a furious speed. The hiss of the steam, the rattlng of the pulleys, the 1 shaking of the joints, the snorting of the 1 on giants, all point the tale that man l is condemned to follow them without i
 moments rest. because every minute wasted consumes time which is worth money seeing that it renders useless the 1 fuel and the movement of these coloSSi. ! The least distraction, the least mistake, l may drag the workers between the grind l ing teeth of the wheels.
 Death Follows Carelessness. The inauguration recois horror struck before the mutilatons, the deaths, with which these monsters punish the slightest carelessness, the slightest hesitation on the part of those who direct them A machine recognizes limit to its speed save as to the weakness of man in per forming hls part assistant Now the capacity for action of human energy is in inverse ratio to the time through which it acts But books on po- litical economy contain little exact in- formation on this point. The statistics are inadequate Dr. Mosso urges fresh investigations to be made. And whatever else will be proved, certain it is that as machine work increases the desideratum of intellectual tension and fatigue also increases. This is a new and important element.
 In brain fatigue Mosso observes phe-
 nomena which bear certain resem
 dance to those produced in the muscles
 by a long walk. We have all experienced that torpor in the legs which flinders us resuming our walk once we have sat down to rest. It is the same with the
 brain. When we tired by prolonged
 intellectual work eacnnot without great effort take up our task again. The
 headache which succeeds intense brain
 work corresponds to the inertia felt in
 the muscles of the arm after a first game
 at tennis.
 So long as we are in good health we are
 little aware of intellectual fatigue. But
 as soon as i'll health comes upon us
 find how eXhausting brain work is. The source of thought and the power of at tention dried up and the flow of ideas is sluggish. When we recovering from illness even conversation fatgueS
 us. We have occasionally to stop talk ing, and, taking our head between our hands, close our eyes In order to rest