THE RACE FOR LIFE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 514, 21 December 1881, Page 1

THE RACE FOR LIFE.

There was an inquest held'the other, day at Islington on the oif a.,,. city clerk which is instructive, in that it ' shows the madness of the railway speed r 5 - at which too many live, and points tOi a ? new disease that completely baffles; qn modern medical science. The disease,'' 50 • with its innumerable affiliated is commonly and inaccurately known as “ overwork.” It should direct truth be called the Nineteenth. d Century of fuss; arid flutter;?) and the almost incurable fault of forO getting to live. Overwork does not, as a rule, kill any man, in fact more men 1 Of die from sheer idleness than from disteady application ; but what does kill men is the anxiety to , get a goqd start and keep the lead, the nervous, strain of pressing forward in the race of life, the extreme tension of the vital power caused by worry and increased by noise, locomotion, restlessness, harshness, and the occasional cruelty of the world. , This City clerk was. simply an exhausted machine. Not yet in the prime of life, he paid the. ~ penalty of high-pressure at the early age of thirty-six. He worked his brains*-' and he worked his hands, he neglected sleep and nourishment as well, he was for ever exhausting the system, and never supplying the deficit, and at last, without any apparent warning, hatiire’ closed the account, and the- career of the City clerk was over. According to the evidence taken before the Coroner, the deceased was apparently in good health until just before the crash came. He had unfortunately committed him self to a course of life which was as suicidal as if he were taking slow poison or -indulging in secret. Intemperance. He was burning ffie candle at both ends, working the human steam engine at far too high a «■ pressure, playing with a strong con- c stitution, and believing in his infatuation that possibly he might be an exception to the rule that overwork must sooner or later end in death. . Id ,a, this case the swift and heedless runner was very soon disqualified and forced } l{ to retire from the track. First came a. strange tremulous sensation at the heart, which was disregarded as scarcely iT worth the trouble of medical assistance, ihe daily toil, with its accompanying ■:! anxiety, went on the same as usual, until one dav, when returning from ■* J ' ■ ■ - ■•jiii > fl.

business, the poor fellow felt the streets; swimming before hinr>, a fajnting fit* supervened, and , in-a; few minutes he| t was dead of angina pectoris in a doctors surgery. • "/ '