Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1875 — The Mental Effects of Cold. [ARTICLE]

The Mental Effects of Cold.

“ The mental effects of the cold” is the title of a paper in a late number of the Spectator, in which the writer endeavors to prove in a verv satisfactory minner that the mental effects of severe cold on social and individual character are discernible in one or two different directions. Men are aware of a consid' rable addition to the draft on their energy in sever e weather over ami above that of ordinary weather. In delicate and middle-aged persons the effect is to exaggerate the economical reserve and frugal parsimony of their character. They economize their moral fuel by taking care never to do superfluous things. Every day that severe cold lasts they feel a need of . sharp moral and intellectual discipline Vj get through their ordinary tasks. Getting up itself is a great expense of energy; the strong attractions of the fire, if not resisted, dissolve away a large amount of disposable time; cold feet make serious drafts on the temper, and cold beds cause a dreadful dwindling in he stock of sleep, not to of colds in the head, the teeth and the liver. A man is not nearly so great a man in cold weather as’in warm. He shrinks himself an 1 feds of n > ’account. He can scarcely feel bumptious enough to issue great orders when his nose is blue and his eyes are watery. The sense of a dwindled existence takes down all his pride. He ekes out his moral resources frugally, but has no joy in his frugality. He becomes, in short, a sort of moral cicie. —A Danbury man who was discussing the woman question, taking grounds against her ability to follow masculine pursui s. finally admitted that woman was well enough in her way so long as she did not attempt to shat pen pencils. Say’s the Rochester Chronicle: “Tn Colorado the qjjier day a strong wind blew over a train of cars three times.” Didn’t it also blow under them? The wind may blow over a house and not blow the house over—he?