SOME "HOME TRUTHS"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 32, 7 February 1931, Page 18

SOME "HOME TRUTHS"

The report on "nerves" issued by Hie Industrial Health Kesearch Board is an interesting and, maybe, a valulable document,. says "Time arid Tide." The worst of "nerves," by which, of course, bad nerves are always meuui., is that their possessors: are so often proud of them. However they aro plagued by them, they are rarely as ashamed of them as they would be of the most trivial defect in skin or bone, and hardly ever attempt to cure them. Various kinds of nervousness have, in-deed,-come to be regarded as a hallmark of superiority to the crowd. All too often they masquerade as an artistic temperament, and as such are a domestic and a public nuisance. Novels of the last century show that they were onco regarded as a feminine monopoly, but the report indicates that the symptoms are as common with men as with women. Occupational differences appear to make no great matter. If anything, manual labourers seem to be father more afflicted than are clerical workers. Anyhow, there is no evidence at nil that neurotic tendencies arc inevitable defects attached to fine qualities. If the truth on this point can be driven homo, the world may yet bo made a more comfortable and tranquil place in which to live.