Flotsam and Jetsam.

Manawatu Herald, 10 January 1893, Page 2

Flotsam and Jetsam.

(By Motuiti.) The holiday time is pretty well over—thank God! A. wise man, George Cornwall Lewis,- remarked ouee upon a time : " Life would be very pleasant and enjoyable, were it not for its pleasures " And there was much more truth than bitterness in the remark. But the holidaymaking is over lor a time, at least — let us be as joyful under the circumstances ! And now that one can think quietly over it all, _ I find myself very seriously asking the question, "Is life after all only a huge miserable joke?" Good reader, have you ever read the gospel according to Breitmanu — Der Breitmann, yon know the philosopher who once " gif a barty?" If you have not, it is embodied in the following beautiful lines, quoted from memory but all right, bar the spelling about which I am not sure: — " Hans Breitmann vent to Kansas ; Through all this earthly land A vovking out life's mission hero, Subjectiffly and grand. Some peoplesh vnnfi de beautiful, ~ voices philosopliie ; Der Breitmann solfes da infinite Ash von eternal sphreo !" One eternal spree ! Yes, that's the ticket -go it, my lino fellows— 11 put her through !" # - # # To me, deeply pondering this matter, there now occurs the remembrance of an article written many years ago by a literary man, in which the literary man maintained (and not without some show of reason) that the whole human race might very safely hi divided into two great classes, Knaves and Pools. And although he professed to be greatly exercised in his mind a.s to whether the Knaves or the Fools constituted the majority, he exhibited a manifest leaning towards the Fools. Looking philosophically at " the many " as they have ex. hibited themselves in this neighbourhood during the holiday time now happily over, I am inflined to believe that he was right — the Fools do preponderate ! Not that all the rest are necessarily Knaves, in this district at any rate. Otherwise, Mr Editor, where would you and I come in? Perhaps, after all said and done, it may be a good thing for the world that there are so many fools in it. Certainly for the professions it is a good thing ; for, if it were not for the multitude of fools, what would become of a large majority of the lawyers, the doctors, and the parsons who nnff make quite a nice and comfortable living? Take, for example, the medical profession. It surely does not need much wisdom to know that most of the bodily ilia (bar accidents) that flesh is heir to arise from people not observing the plainest and simplest dictates of common sense. People bring on themselves — I mean, of course, grown-up folks, not children— more than half of all their ailments simply by eating and drinking more than it good for them. Let me repeat this : Half of our ailments, perhaps more, arise from little else but over-eating and more especially over-drinking. Men go on from day to day eating in quantities sufficient to ruin the digestion of an ostrich, — drinking beer, whisky, brandy, tea, and such things enough to float the Queen of the South and the Ivy, having their carcases every now and then tinkered and patched up by the way, till the scene ends with rheumatism, or gout, or bile, or fever, or the lunatio asylum ; aud at last the curtain drops on blue devils,Jwhite ties, the doctor, | death, and oblivion ! If people only realised how many of their ailments would be avoided, as well as how many of them could be cured by temperance in eating and drinking alone— then what would become of the doctors ? Haer>-mai.