Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1880 — Some Physical Fruits of Idieness. [ARTICLE]

Some Physical Fruits of Idieness.

The mind should be always occupied; it is strengthened and preserved in a healthy state by work; whereas it decays or becomes impoverished Ly disuse; or, what is even worse, since it is impossible to keep the brain absolutely at rest, its powers should be profitably employed, or they react on the system, and give rise to the numberles ilments, physical, mental, and moral, ksewa as hysteria. This term almost implies that I am thinking of the female sex; certainly it is to women especially that the want of occupation applies. Young min are fotced to get their living whether they like it or not; but a lirge number of young ladies in a family have absolutely nothing to do. Those brought up in the country have this advantage, that they may always make work for themselves; the village children may be taught and otherwise cared tor; bringing not only a blessing on but a healthy body and mind ta the In town the condition of middle-class girls uto me pitiable. They are too genteel to follow any occupation; they are often too many in a family to asaiat in do mestic duties; they have returned home from echool with soeae very poor accomplishments; their knowledge of French and German is not sufficient to allow them to converse in those languages; and music just enough to indulge m a doleful song or play badly on the piano. They

dawdle through the day iu a listl<»s way, and fall victims to a tooaaand llttlo ail meats which the doctor is supposed to pm right by physic. And Uie uioet curious thing la that should toe instincts of the girl force her to put some of her enerSes into use, she to as litedly as not to be warted by the mother. I am a daily witness to thia; and whew young ladies are brought tome for advice, the invariable story la that they are overtaxing their strength; toe maternal instinct being ao perverted that it has become with many toe belief that every movemeat means fatigue, and absolute rest is the way to insure health. ft is against thia very erroneous view that lam now preaching. These mothers do not come to the doctor for advice, but e>me to dictate to him; and they say: “I want you, doctor, to insist on my daughter not play Ing the argan at church, tor it to Ufo much for her; or having that children's darn once a week, for she is always ill after it; but order her to have her breakfrat in bed, and a glass of . port wine about 11 o’clocr?’ It to this ianclful care ou the part of pareuts which te so injur lous; for the very energy of young people would command them to occupy themselves. I do not know that girls an worse than btnrs in respect of idleness; for probably toe latter would not work unless obliged, and even for them an occupation te good quite apart from that at which they earn their daily breed. The Bev. Dr. Mscleod, father of Dr. Norman Macleod, puuinr through the crowd gathered before toe doors of a new chureh he was about to open, says Chamber’s Journal, was stopped by an elderly man with, “Dr., I wish to speak with you.” Asked if he could not wait until after worship, he replied that It was a matter upon his conscience. “Oh, since it is a matter ot conscience, Duncan, said the good natured minister, “I will hear what it te.” “Well, Doctor,” said Duncan, "the matter te thia. To see ths clock yonder ou the new church. Now there is really no clock there, only the face of one; there is no truth there, only once in twelve hours; and in my mind it te wrong, very wrong, and quite against the conscience that there should be a lid on the face of the house oi the Lord.” The doctor promised to consider the matter. "But,” said he, “I’m glad to see ye looking so well, man. Ye’re not young. I remember you for years; but yov have a fine head of hair still.” “Eb, Doctor,” exclaimed the unsuspecting Duncan, “now ye’re Joking; it’s long* since I had my hair.” Dr. Macleod looked shocked, and answered in a tone of reproach: "Oh, Duncan, Duncan, are you going into the house of Jhe Lord with a lie on your head t" He Teard no more of the lie on the face of the church Adolphus Andrew Hoagland, of Bhadeville, Va., is 70 yean old, and has had three wives. The first waa a widow when be married her, and had a little daughter. When thia wife died her daughter was a widowed mother, and Hoag’.and within a tew years married her. There was some feeling, he says, againt making his stepdaughter his wife, but they were a happy couple, and the prejudice died out. Tin yean ago the second wife died. Her daughter was then 15. Five yean elapsed, and then Hoagland again married hie stepdaughter, who was also his step-grand-daughter. She is still living, and her husband’s Lge, aside from the fact that she bad no daughter when she became his wife, precludes the idea dThir peculiar system being carried any further. He has children of his own by each of the three wives, anl the complications of ‘heir relationships are almost endless. Hoagland declares that his matrimonial experience, covering about fifty years, has been exceptionally happy. The las’, two wives Inherited the good qualities of their mother, and all were so much alike that they have seemed to him the same woman, with her youth accasionally renewed. _ .

The other day an interesting relic of stirring times was recovered from the sea on the east coast of Aberdeenshire. Thu is no less than one of the guns of the Spanish Armada, which has been lying these three centuries in a creek at Biaina, a little south of Peterhead. The St. Catharine was wrecked here in her flight northward. Two guns were fished out of the same pool in 1840, a thiol in 1855, and two more guns and an anchor in 1876. The present And is reported to be the largest and most complete of all. “The gun is of malleable Iron,” writes a correspondent to the Aberdeen Free Press, “is complete in every respect and not even corroded. The extreme length of it is eight feet, from ths muzzle to the touch-hole seven feet three inches, and the diameter io tour Inches. The ball and wadding, still there, take up the space of thirteen inches.” The gun is mounted on an embankment in the neighborhood. A prominent miller of Minneapolis states that the mills of that city will griud 16,000,000 to 18,000,000 bushels of wheat during this cereal year, and Minnesota mills outside that city, will grind as much more. The Chicago Tribune says; “As this is not far from equal to the product of the state, after deducting seed, there should be little wheat left to come to Chicago or Milwaukee. It seems, however, that the millers there are drawing upon Dakota for good wheat and leaving the poorer aorta of Minnesota growth to find a market elsewhere. The mills of Minnesota and those of St. Louis are running to their utmost capacity to -fill export orders for flour. These orders are not sent direct from Europe, many of them, because ecough hat not been on sale in Chicago, and the mills are stated to be generally some weeks behind on orders.” 1 Prof. Boyd Dawkins, of the British association, has been investigating the condition and circumstances of the primeval man, as he calls him, though he does not show but there may have been a man of some sort anterior to him. But this “primeval man,” as he finds from remains of the tertiary periods, wore clothes of skins, and gloves and neck laces, and armlets, and pierced his ears tor ear-rings. He sewed the skins together with bone needles and sketched figures of animals on bone. He had some idea of sculpture also, but appears to have known .nr thing of metals, and had no domestic animals Prof. Dawkins believes those men were allied to the Esquimaux, and he thinks there will be es much progress in the future as in the past, and that by and by men will be as much superior to the best men of 1890, as those of to-day are superior to the early hunters and eave men. A cave in Eastern Tennessee is two miles in length, and has openings at both ends. The owner of the ground around each entranca charged for admission, and acted as guide for visitors. Their rivalry led to actions fights in the cave, foreach held the other to be a trespasser. Then eno of the contestants hit upon a novel and effective means of ruining the other’s business. He sunk ashait so as to admit a large stream into the cave at about the center, and. as there was an incline in a favorable direction, the water poured out at the enemy’s portal, while his own was unobstructed. The matter la to be made the subject of a lawsuit. They were sitting together Bunday tv ««ing, with an album or two between them, when she pleasantly said; “How would you like to have my mother hyswithyouf" In just sixteen seconds be had his hat down halfway over his face, and was bolting through the gate.