The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas Et Pervalebit TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1885. Prose.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1452, 10 February 1885, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas Et Pervalebit TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1885. Prose.

It has been said that no persons are so really happy as those who never leave their native village, and neither rise above nor fall below the station of life in which they were born. It this is not absolutely and invariably true, we believe that it is very generally so, and for the obvious reason that even the most modest capacity can adopt itself to the circumstances with which it has been surrounded from birth, whilst it requires more than ordinary ability, tact, perception and judgment to adapt oneself to any great change in position or surroundings. In the older and less changing countries how wisely and frugally do we see the laborer’s wife eking out the week's small wages on a few plain necessaries of life, and never dreaming of luxuries that would leave her balance on the wrong side at the end of the week. Or the more far-seeing and oftener more less self-indulgent small farmer’s wife, who knows her income to be both small and uncertain and that it will bear no extravagance. And so as we run up the social scale, each woman acting in the station of life in which she was born feels a joyful pride in living within her means and proving that she can give her husband and children all that is necessary for health and comfort without a penny being wasted or without an approach to anything like insolvency. In a colony where ups and downs are frequent, and where most men and women are moved out of the groove in which they first commenced life, and often find themselves able to handle luxuries that in their natal country were not within their reach, how many more mistakes do we see. With greater means we often see less comfort; with a larger income we see less foresight, and with the means of improved mental culture we often see an exhibition of more animal and less rational jtasle. Those whose small income has long been the only limit to their eating and drinking fal’ into fearful mistakes when their income is extended, unless they quickly learn that nature has put other and more impassable bounds to indulgence in that direction. The country boy who said that, “if he were a king he would eat fat bacon, and ride all day on a gate,” was not so far behind the rest of the world in his tastes as we are apt to think, and was no doubt one of the happiest of his race. He ;knew nothing of indigestion, and retained in its full integrity that keen and healthy appetite which is so easily gratified; nor was he singular in his delusion that he would add to his enjoyments by adopting a more savory diet than that to which he had been accustomed. But it is not with epicurian indulgences that we intended chiefly to deal; there is a more formidable danger in our midst to which, uninviting as it may be, we would beg a moment’s earnest attention. Can a people, so generally unwashed, as the people of the colony are, look upon themselves as civilised ? If some of the money so absurdly spent in dining and dressing and hurtful luxuries were invested in instituting, in every direction, facilities for personal cleanliness, and for the removal of everything obnoxious, how truly and wonderfully blessed would be the result. It ’’s surprising that unwholesome habits and accumulations are not looked upon as crime, and persons guilty in this way punished as other offenders against the safety of the community would be. We are writing with an intimate acquaintance with homes surrounding Ashburton, with strong medical testimony and with information not generally available, and while admitting that things may be no worse here than in any other parts of the colony, we assert emphatically that they are bad, very bad, and many sanitary affairs stand in the greatest need of more attention and better administration. The increased wages secured in this colony are not in the majority of cases spent upon comforts, but upon indulgencies. The home is not made larger and more airy and more convenient and more clean. And yet there are indulgencies both physical, mental and moral, upon which the increased means could be spent with immense advantage. Let them try the inexpressible luxury of a daily cleaned skin, of breathing air as free as Providence sends it, both by day and by night, of wearing not fine, but good clothes suitable to the season, the occupation and the weather. Let them realise the pleasure of instructive reading and of learning tp talk and act like ladies and gentlemen befrjre they make themselves ridiculous by trying to dress like them, and they would soon find that they had secured the first blessing of life in improved health, and had attained that real respect and admiration in society which gaudy clothes and inimicked fashions only help to drive away.