The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1911. THE BOON OF HOLIDAYS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 154, 28 December 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1911. THE BOON OF HOLIDAYS.

It has been facetiously said of New Zealand that there are so many holidays that it may become necessary in the future to specify the days on which a citizen may work. It is at least certain that he who is able to break away entirely at a proper season from the grind of ordinary toil is better able to tackle it when lie returns than he who is so "conscientious" that holidays have no charm for him. Especially at this time of the year there is a glad dislocation of business and the tools of one's trade, whether they be yard-stick, longhandled shovel or pen, arc thrown down with the relief that comes to all users of them. A New Zealand ex-Governor the other day said that there was a place in New Zealand for any strong, earnest young man who was "willing to work as he had never worked before," and it is certainly true that the average person in this country works far harder than does the average person in the older countries. The energy to work is stored in the glad holiday time, for the sun Is the source of all earthly energy. The man who begrudges the time lie spends away from a microbe infested office, a dusty shop, a dingy counting-house, is merely an ignorant man. The employer who begrudges his "hands" the occasion for recreation in the open air is simply foolish. As the world grows older and wiser there will be greater insistence on holidays. As the bricks and mortar grow and the energising sun and air are pushed further away, human energy, both mental and physical, will deteriorate. It is as inevitable as the making of the tide or the waning of the moon. The open-air child, whom you see in all his exultation on the beaches in Xew Plymouth, impresses you most of all with his tirelcssness. The strong muscular man will find it impossible to imitate the perpetual motion of the average healthy youngster. Energy is natural. "That tired feeling," as distinct from healthy fatigue, is unnatural. At the end of a week the man who puts his whole energy into his work is tired. It is natural to be tired, exactly as it is natural to live and to die. Convention, or necessity, has given him Sunday to recuperate in. It should be a real Mindav; for he can no more live without the' sun that he can walk without feet. At the end of the year, if be has worked hard, he is tired. He is like a run-down dynamo. He wants energising, and so he wants holidays—holy days, if the spelling means anything to him. The real holiday is the day or days during which he can get out of the groove. One has. of course, heard of the baker's carter who spent, bis holiday riding round with the man who relieved hiin. and of the retired mariner who hired a boy to call him at "eight bells" every morning and who carefully did not take any

notice of the summons. The groove was very dear to those men. The human beings who can collect energy the quickest are those who can slough off work like a snake sheds a skin. The man who lasts longest is the man wlio forgets yesterday and what he did in it. Work kills nobody, but worry slays as surely as—lysol. The man who eschews holidays courts worry. Worry is overpressure of the brain. Holidays are the levers with which tlie overpressure is reduced. The ideal holiday to many city folk is spent in the country. To the country person the baking footpath of a city seems to be 'the cure for twelve months in the cow-bvre. The countryman may return to his cows with sore feet and swollen ankles, the city man with the skin off his nose with tlu: unaccustomed sun, but both have got out of the groove, and the groove is the one thing it is necessary to get out of in order to qualify as an octogenarian. The haughty merchant prince who sheds his diginty with his socks and "goes m paddling" with his own children (or anybody else's children) is awarding himself an extra dose of life. A few coins may elude him while he is barking his toe on a rock, but he doesn't want the coins when the Man with the Scythe crooks a finger for him before his time. There are nefarious individuals in our midst who boast of not having taken a holiday for a number of years. Avoid with those sort of boasters. They merely don't understand. They are allowed to be at large because their disease is not understood. In New Zealand the true holiday spirit exists. The people do not take their pleasures sadly. It is frequently impossible to distinguish the young man who earns his living in an office and the young man who never goes indoors except at night. Why? Because the former makes use of his holidays and imbibes the only real regenerators—fresh air, sunshine and exercise. The nation that exults in holidays is a strong nation, strong to work, strong to fight, strong to etiffei-. The people who begrudge every minute spent away from the dreary routine of moneygetting retain no health to enjoy the money when it is attained. To get out of the groove at every lawful opportunity is to reach for long life, sound health and prosperity. To condemn frequent severance from the groove is to condemn humanity. Especially at this time of the year do the people of New Zealand jump straight out of the groove. They are a strong, vigorous, prosperous people, and they will always he bo as long as they recognise that it is as much their duty to make holiday as it is to work.