OVERWORK.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1048, 21 February 1873, Page 4

OVERWORK.

(From the Otago Daily Times.) " Killed by over-work" will probably be the verdict of those who read the full particulars now to hand regarding the last illness and death of Horace Greeley. (Somehow the prefix " Mr" seems stiff when speaking of him, as iu the cases of George Peabody and Charles Dickens. Piain " Horace" fits him best). The details show that the constant working of the keen mind had worn out the body in which it was enclosed as a sword in its scabbard. It is unnecessary for me to descant upon the virtues of Horace Greeley, or to dilate upon his virtues or his failings. The world knows all about these things, and the world will not soon forget them. I will only refer again to the fact that he died from overwork, for that fact has its lessons, and important ones. It shows that even the greatest intellects may be too severely taxed, and trite as the fact is, it is one that is every day lost sight of—nay, is being increasingly ignored. The mental strain to which men of mark are in these days subjected is so intense that it is not to be wondered at that their bodily frames or their minds give way under it. Horace Greeley and Prince Bismarck are examples of the former result; Mr Willes, who lately died by

his own hand, is an example of the latter. And even among men of much lower standing the same causes prevail, and the same effects arc produced. The statistics of lunacy, of idiocy, of suicide, show how many men break down annually from being overworked. They know all along the risk they are running; they know that the bow is tightening to such an extent that the string may snap at any moment, and must snap sooner or later; yet necessity or ambition compels or impels them to continue in the same course. The worst of it is, too, that there seems to be no remedy for this state of things. Ambition will persist in the course it has marked out for itself, regardless of results, and monetary necessity is equally imperious. The man whose bodily powers or mental faculties give way in consequence of his not bridling his ambition is the slave of a vice, and to some extent is not an object of pity. The mau who " puts life out in striving to keep life in," is an object of commiseration, though he does not receive it unless he labors with his hands. He is not a " working man" in the ordinary acceptation of the term, though he may work himself to death to maintain himself and family.' A great deal of attention has been paid of late years and rightly so, to the lessening of the hours of manual labour. No attention, however, has been paid to those who labor with their heads instead of their hands, and who, in proportion, as the brain is more delicate than the hand, are more liable to serious consequences from overwork. The time will doubtless come when the apathy that at present prevails on this subject will be thought astounding, even criminal; but I confess that, to judge from present appearances, that time appears to be very far off, and in the meantime the modern Moloch will claim many victims.