Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1871 — Overwork. [ARTICLE]

Overwork.

has just suffered a physicial prostration, from which it will take him some time to recover. Mr. Stewart ia yet comparatively young. But for many years, and especially of late yean, he has been Intensely devoting his mental and physical powers to his immense business, and, at last, unable to bear the persistent strain, his system gave way and he lies helpless; and such a wreck that his physicians cannot give an assurance that his health will be re-estab lisbed. We published yesterday an account of the departure for Europe of Mr. John F. Tracey, so long known to the public from his connection with railroad affairs. He, too, has been subjected to such a mental and bodily strain for the last six years that the wonder is that he has not broken down lobg ago. He goes to Europe, accompanied by a physician, and it is uncertain, so greatly is he prostrated in mind and body, whether he will ever resume his active leadership in railroad affairs again. There are other men engaged in railroads, in banking, in all branches of commerce, and in all the'leamed professions, ’ who are also hastening to a like sudden, and, perhaps, more overwhelming termination. Every day we read of men, seemingly in good health, suddenly falling in death, or perishing by protracted paralysis, ■ or rapidly falling into mental decay. So numerous have been such cases of late years that people have wondered that “ heart disease,’’ to which these things are attributed, bad become so universal. But the truth is that men in these days never know when to stop. The richer they grow the more earnestly they labor; the desire and thirst for profit, the excitements of competition, the intensity of the spirit ftf speculation which pervades every walk of life; these things all hasten the mind and body to that point where the strength of nature fails, and the man, if he does not die instantly, lingers along with paralyzed limbs and weakened intellect for the remainder of his life. All men have more or less of the cares and anxieties peculiar to human life. That there is a skeleton in every household is proverbial; and no man can long survive a struggle with a nature who, in addition to the ordinary cares of life, assumes a loa<| of responsibility beyond all mortal strength, and with overburdened brain and fevered body, ventures to battle through the world. There is a limit to the power of giants. The burdens which a man may carry when taken separately and at intervals, and be but the stronger for the labor, if all pressed upon the brain at once, must produce eshaustion of body and mind. We are all working too fast. Wa are all laboring as if the affairs of mankind must be arranged before we die; we are all toiling as if for the purpose of leaving nothing for any one to do after we have gone. There are men now living who so labor by night and day that it is reasonable to assume that they expect in their time to lay every mile of railroad that will ever be needed oh the continent of America. And the same spirit is to be found in every walk of life. WC are destroying ourselves, that posterity may have nothing to trouble themselves with. This unnatural process of destruction, of course, carries off those soonest whose services to society are most valuable. But the great .mistake is in supposing that the men who follow us cannot get along as well if we leave something for them to do. We make another mistake in supposing that any one of us is absolutely essential to the world’s prosperity, or that the world will miss us a week after we have gone. It is madness, therefore, for men to tax themselves mentally and physically, to break down their bodily strength and mental vigor under the delusion that we are fulfilling a mission or accomplishing anything that would not have been as well accomplished if we had never existed. There are but few men engaged in commercial and professional duties who, under the insane velocity of the present day, are not exceeding the proper limits of labor, and who are not thereby inuucing premature decay, and inviting certain, u ndt sodden, death in the very hour of their work. —Chicago Tribune. - f > ■ The terrible hall-storm which swept over portions of Burlington County, N. Jf., some time since, was a very severe one on the crops of a hard-working man who farm of a Quaker lady, at an an,l*l rental of *1,210. The lady called upon the tenant and said .- “I have heard misfortune, and eame over to co■optexte with slue." “ Yes, ma’am, it’s ...wry unfortunate foe me." “ Are the build tßßch f* ■ very little.” 1 wWßwih-yicd jjotbegmaafned about the rent JwbfwJMj, thee need nut