SOCIAL FALLACIES.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1227, 10 November 1874, Page 2

SOCIAL FALLACIES.

The following is from Hall's Journal of Health :—Besides others, we commit still the error of plunging into ice-water every morning, then scrub all the skin off with a horse-hair brush or a coarse board towel; sit down to breakfast of oatmeal sawdust; dine off a tablespoonful of wheat and two berries, and make a supper on catnip tea, then be put through a Russian bath of five hundred degrees ; sleep under an open window when the thermometer is at zero ; wear long hair; dress the women in pantaloons ; make our property over to them ; then sit down in the kitchen corner and nurse the baby, and when it is asleep, help to wash up the tea things, and go to bed at nine o'clock to be " out of the way." What will become of us men ? Surely we have fallen on evil times. A better and truer mode of life is to have plenty of everything that is good to eat and drink, which imparts nourishment and strength, and as you want it. The idea of getting up from the table hungry is unnatural, and absurd, and hurtful—quite as much as gettiug in the morning before your sleep is out, on the mischievous principle that •• early to rise makes a ( man healthy wealthy and wise." Early rising, in civilized society, always lends to shorten life. Early rising of itself never did anybody any good. Many a farmer's boy has been made an invalid for life by being made to get up at daylight, before his sleep was out. Many a young girl has been stunted in body and mind and constitution by being made to get up before the system has had its full rest. All who are growing, all who work hard, and all weakly persons should not get up until they feel as if they would be more comfortable to get up than remain in bed ; that is the only true measure of sufficiency of rest and sleep. Anyone who gets up in the morning feeling as if he " would give anything in the world" to remain in bed a while longer, does violence to bis own nature, and he will always suffer from it—not immediately, it may be, but certainly in latter years, by the cumulative ill effects of the most unwise practice. In any given case, the person who geta up in the morning before he is fully rested, will lack just that much of the energy requisite for the day's pursuit. As a people, we do not get enough sleep, we do not get enough rest, we will not take time for these things, hence our nervousness, our instability, our hasty temper, and the promaturo giving out of the stamina of life. Half of us are old at three score, the very time a man ought to bo in his mental, moral, and physical prime. Half of our wives, especially in the farming districts, ah long beforj their time

because they do not get rest and sleop proportioned to their labor. Nino times out of ten, it would be better for all parties if the farmer should get up and light the fire and prepare the breakfast for his wife, she coming directly from her toilet to the breakfast table, because it always happens that she has to remain up to set things right long after husband has gone to bed. This is a monstrously cruel imposition on wives and mothers.