Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1903 — THE HURRY HABIT. [ARTICLE]

THE HURRY HABIT.

National Characteristic that Retards Instead of Assisting Progress. If there is one lesson more than another that Americans, and especially American women, need to learn, and at once, it is. to make haste slowly. Hurry is the most destructive of our national habits. It is the chief cause of our national disease, nervous prostration, and one of the principal allies of the undertaker. Hurry and worry always go together. In differentiating between haste and hurry a noted alienist cites the numerous quick-lunch restaurants which have sprung up during the last decade In all American cities. The sign Itself, “quick lunch” or “a meal In a minute,” is enough to set one to hurrying. Xl\ e sight of the spry waiters rushing about apparently half frantic from having twice as much to do as they should, the rattling of the dishes, the spectacle of his neighbor bolting his food without sufficient chewing, the very element of hurry that seems to be In the atmosphere about one, all have their effect upon the impressionable patron of the modern lightning express restaurant. The consequence Is imperfect mastication, dyspepsia and nervous prostration. Hurry destroys thoroughness. The person who hurries cannot nave his heart in his work. Thinking constantly of what is to be done next, the task of the present is slighted by borrowing unnecessarily from the future. Paradoxical as It may sound, hurry Is the subterfuge of the lazy. A man or woman who is lazy at heart often hurries to make a pretensd of working and detract attention from real Idleness. Little time Is required to compute the results achieved by the person who bustles breathlessly about with nerves unstrung and putting everyone within hearing in the same condition. Hurry and haste are not synonymous. A puffing, blowing, whistling tug hurries; an ocean steamship makes haste. A little less steam at the whistle and a little more at the piston rod would add immensely to the national health without spoiling the speed of our progress.—Housekeeper.