Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1875 — Lounging. [ARTICLE]

Lounging.

The Americans are supposed to be alert enough of mind and limb. They are, notwithstanding, capable of a good deal of lounging on occasion. To that “intelligent foreigner” who is always understood to be exercising his powers of observation upon us, seeing them at rest in their familiar postures, they would seem to be the most inactive people, physically, at least, in the world. He looks at the lolling crowds in the hotel, with their bodies stretched over two or three chairs at a time, their arms thrown about their neighbors’ shoulders, and legs extended to every mantel-shelf, table or window-sill within reach of .the heels of their boots, and concludes, naturally enough, that the Americans are Constitutionally a lazy set. It is true that he no sooner puts his foot into the street for.a stroll than, hearing the quick steps at his heels, and jostled every moment % the elbows of a hasty crowcf, he has reason to qualify his first judgment of the physical indolence of the people. How far his opinion of their manners may be affected by the result is j another question. The American habit of lounging does not come, like that of the ever-prostrate Turk, from.any constitutional languor of spirit or body. The readiness of our countrymen to assume the reclining posture, and to bring into requisition for the ease of their limbs every other chair besides their own, and each surface or ledge which can by any possibility support a leg or let hang a heel or an el tow, may possibly be, to some extent, the consequence of an excessive fatigue. Their efforts are apt to be so spasmodically exerted, and to such an extreme degree of tension, that it is quite natural that they should to alternated with frequent intervals of what the doctors term collapse—a state, we need hardly say, quite unfavorable to anything like erectness or formality of posture. Whatever there may be in this there is still more, we venture to say, fn the contempt with which' democratic America is 60 disposed to treat many of the small proprieties of conduct which seem to conflict with personal ease and independence. Many of our countrymen are so fearful of making .the least concession to a respect for others that they not seldom, though unintentionally, derogate from that due to themselves.

It would be well for them to understand that a certain decorousness of carriage in public is not only expected from everyone who is assumed to he a decent citizen, but that the exhibition of his anatomy in all its sprawling contortions of hat, shirt, coat, trowsers and hoots does not leave a very favorable impression of the grace and proportion of the American organization. The ordinary native traveler, as seen through a hotel window, made apparently spacious and exposed with the express purpose of facilitating the view of the public, taking his ease in his inn, is certainly not a handsome object, and nothing seems so surprising as the selfcomplacency with which he exhibits liis tumbled and distorted person to universal gaze. Tlie women of America are greatly given to lounging, even more so than the men, although they are not charged with the same eccentric display of it, at least in public. A hatching bird is not more constant to its nest than our ladies are to the rocking-chair and sofa. -They glass much of the time in one or the other in a state of dissolving ease fatal to all vigorous effort of body and of mind. The rocking-macliine, an invention of our own country, of which we have no great reason to be proud, is regarded so peculiarly national that it is termed in Europe, where it has been sent, we suppose, with the same purpose as whisky is said to be distributed among the Indians, to stupefy and demoralize the natives, is universally known among them as the American chair. There can he no question that its frequent use lias a very decided effect upon the nervous system. It first lulls and disposes to sleep, and if used in moderation might possibly be beneficial in certain cases of restlessness and extreme wakefulness, just as an opiate in small doses would be. The excessive use, however, of the one, like . that of the other, tends to stupor, with an alternating languor and irritability which are the recognized symptoms of that feminine ailment known as nervousness. If the constitution should be robust enough to resist the serious effects of the rockingchair upon the health, it is undeniable that the most sturdy would not he proof against tlie laziness of disposition its habitual use is sure to engender. The sofa, or the lounge, as it is often aptly termed, and above all the rockingchair, should be strictly denied to the young, who are always ready to accept their invitations to ease and abuse the indulgence they permit. The rocking-chair, besides the enervating effects of its swing upon the nervous system, cramps, through its peculiar construction, the chest and limbs in a manner very unfavorable to healthy and graceful development of the person. Women do not confine the indulgence of their lounging propensities to the home. Their walking in the streets and promenades has nothing in it of that briskness of movement essential to fulfill its purpose as an exercise. They seem, as they step mincingly along, to use only the tips and heels of' their boots, while their whole muscular frame is kept rigid. The fashionable costume they affect is largely responsible for this, as its complicated involutions, heavy hangings and alternate strictness and exorbitant swellings, make all freedom of physical exercise impossible. There is also a false notion of female decorum which restrains movement. A young girl is told that it is unbecoming to use her limbs freely. She must not, in a word, run and toss her arms like a rude boy. She is thus made to hold her hands pinioned to her side, so that she looks like a trussed fowl, and bade not to forget in every step she makes her dancing-master’s lesson, to keep her toes out and knees stiff. — Harper's Bazar.