The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-11
THE MAY0R'S' MEDICATION


 Forty thousand persons. men, Wo- men and children, visited Steeple- case, syesterdaxdi makipgi the largest attendance the resort had ever known. Hospital Sunday was indeed a suc- cess from more points than one. substantial sum was netted for the two institutions which were benefi- ciaries of tho sale of special tickets. A rebuke was administered to those sullen, obstinate, arbitrary. joy hating souls who had Invoked in vain, through a long summer, every blue law, legal wastage of three. centuries, to impair the comfort and injure the happiness of the majority of their fellow citizens.
 This great sassemblage came, spent . Vs5 n;fnessuASh.le. watched ball game, heard the bands play, saw blue water rippling in the breezes. clouds floating overhead. and recreation, restful and serene. all about them.
 No policeman walked among them.
 But the law was there. that law which moves American citizens every where; that law which is in the bosom of every normal man, making him of all creatures the only one that is capable of government; of self gov ernment if you please.
 There were no excesses. An occas- ioual drunken man staggered in the city streets. or slept heavily in his home. The health. and cheer and sobriety of the open air are not heav- ilx paEonized by. such as steep them selves in Tcups.sr srt eiee1ebisfo
 The truth was by this great con- eregation made manifest, that such assemblages on the day of rest make for public health and for public joy. They increase delight in the Lords Day. make Christianity known to all men ss c phafossbhyvof,life and sun shine, of comfort and charity. of optimism and worship.
 Cleanliness is next to Godliness, said somebody, long ago. An unclean body makes against rightoVsness. Nothing can be truer. And so does blood, running stagnant for lack of the life giving oxygen of the open air. Be sure that your blue enthusiast is a creature of rooms with closed win dows, of furnaces that take bad air from cellar bottoms. He shudders at a draught, sleeps in an overheated. room. and there is no health in him. He needs the open-air Sunday most of all. . He is a victim of his own bad habie&s of over sttidy. 1anaI life without muscular exertion. The tub is not enough for him, for the inward wastes accumulate, and make his spirit, morose, irritable. discomfort ing and Joyless; . He eanst be happy himself and he thinks that happiness in others is an act of sin, whereas it Is an act of worship.
 A smiling population is as welcome as a smiling wife in the home. A man who comes down to breakfast in the morning. with a crouch on. who kicks the dog. frightens the children and bedevils his wife is the symbol of the men who have been bedeviling Steeplechase. flying from prosecutor to prosecutor. from newspaper to newspaper, from state police to na- tional police.s. These people have been the agents of gloom. the vice re- gents of poor ventilation, and are the sadly deteriorated descendants of those who. having the power, burned at the stake any who could not agree with them.
 Come out of your caverns, ye dole full ones! Take the fresh air cure. Learn the lesson of Hospital Sunday, and be saved. One would hesitate to say that Heaven will not be yours. but lacking repentance and good works. your mansion will be on one of the poorer streets, and the homes with the best light and air will go to others. t
 Incidentally let us say that Hos pital Sunday was a vindication for Mayor Buckingham. who, a church. man himself, refused to lend his of- ficial aid to the making of a blue Sunday. Knowing that worship has more than one pha ser: and rest more than One form, he. with strength and courage, declined to become the in strument of narrow reaction. He made possible yesterdays triumph for soundness. sanity and health in