MHBHMfEiliMJHHH 
 
 UI&BH : 
 
 '%.* i
 
 OUK GIKLS. . 
 
 BY DIG LEWIS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "FIVE-MINUTE CHATS WITH YOUNG WOMEN," ETC., ETC. 
 13mo, Cloth, $1 5O. 
 
 The book not only deserves to be read ; it will be read, because it 
 is full of interest, concerning itself, as it does, with such matters as 
 girls' boots and shoes ; how girls should walk ; low neck and short 
 sleeves ; outrages upon the body ; stockings supporters ; why are 
 women so small ? idleness among girls ; sunshine and health ; a word 
 about baths ; what you should eat ; how to manage a cold ; fat and 
 thin girls, etc., etc. N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 Dr. Dio Lewis has written a sensible and lively book. There is not 
 a dull page in it, and scarcely one that does not convey some sound 
 instruction. We wish the book could enter thousands of our homes, 
 fashionable and unfashionable ; for we believe it contains suggestions 
 and teaching of precisely the kind that "our girls" every where need. 
 N. Y. Independent. 
 
 This really important book. Christian Union. 
 
 Written in Dr. Lewis's free and lively style, and is full of good 
 ideas, the fruit of long study and experience, told in a sensible, prac- 
 tical way that commends them to every one who reads. The whole 
 book is admirably sensible. Boston Post. 
 
 Full of practical and very sensible advice to young women. 
 Episcopalian. 
 
 Dr. Lewis is well known as an acute observer, a man of great prac- 
 tical sagacity in sanitary reform, and a lively and brilliant writer upon 
 medical subjects. N. Y. Observer. 
 
 We like it exceedingly. It says just what ought to be said, and 
 that in style colloquial, short, sharp, and memorable. Christian 
 Advocate.
 
 2 Our Girls. 
 
 The whole tone of the book is pure and healthy. Albany Express. 
 
 Every page shows him to be in earnest, and thoroughly alive to the 
 importance of the subjects he discusses. He talks like one who has 
 a solemn message to deliver, and who deems the matter far more 
 essential than the manner. His book is, therefore, a series of short, 
 earnest appeals against the unnatural, foolish, and suicidal customs 
 prevailing in fashionable society. Churchman. 
 
 A timely and most desirable book. Springfield Union. 
 
 Full of spicy, sharp things about matters pertaining to health ; full 
 of good advice, which, if people would but take it, would soon change 
 the world in some very important respects ; not profound or system- 
 atic, but still a book with numberless good things in it Liberal 
 Christian. 
 
 The author writes with vigor and point, and with occasional dry 
 humor. Worcester Spy. 
 
 Brimful of good, common- sense hints regarding dress, diet, recrea- 
 tion, and other necessary things in the female economy. Boston 
 Journal. 
 
 Dr. Lewis talks very plainly and sensibly, and makes very many 
 important suggestions. He does not mince matters at all, but puts 
 every thing in a straightforward and, not seldom, homely way, per- 
 spicuous to the dullest understanding. His style is lively and read- 
 able, and the book is very entertaining as well as instructive. Regis- 
 ter, Salem, Mass. 
 
 One of the most popular of modern writers upon health and the 
 means of its preservation. Presbyterian Banner. 
 
 There is hardly any thing that may form a part of .woman's experi- 
 ence that is not touched upon. Chicago Journal. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS will send the above -work by mail, postage 
 prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS 
 
 WITH 
 
 YOUNG WOMEN, 
 
 AND 
 
 CERTAIN OTHER PARTIES. 
 
 BY DIG LEWIS, 
 
 AUTHOR OP "OUR GIRLS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 
 1874.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Our reading -matter becomes more and more con- 
 densed and brief. The typical illustration is found in 
 the telegraphic paragraph. Our life has become so 
 ^complex and hurried that books and long papers are, 
 for the most part, pushed aside. If one would speak 
 to the public now, he must speak briefly, to the point, 
 make his bow, and be off. The long-winded chaps have 
 gone out of fashion. I suppose if some hygienic re- 
 former had gone to Methuselah he would have found 
 a patient listener, even if his story had been a long one. 
 Not that Methuselah particularly needed instructions 
 in regard to health and longevity, but then yon see he 
 had plenty of time. He could give ten or fifteen years 
 to any little out-of-the-way matter without seriously 
 interfering with the general drift of his personal history. 
 
 But, nowadays, if you would have the public swal- 
 low your health-dose, you must do it up in small pills 
 and then sugar-coat them. 
 
 This volume is made up of paragraphs, and is mostly 
 devoted to the subject of health. I trust that you Avill 
 find a sort of good nature running through every thing.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And I may say that this is a quality all too rare in 
 hygienic literature. I don't like to be preached at my- 
 self, and so I never preach at other folks. 
 
 When I toss our little Sammy up to the ceiling, and 
 catch him as he comes down, he cries out, as soon as he 
 can get his breath : 
 
 " More, uncle, more ; please do so some more ! " 
 Now, if my readers should like this paragraphic way 
 of discussing health topics, and I should hear them say 
 "do so some more," I should, within a year or so, pub- 
 lish another volume of brief "Chats about Health."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 CHATS WITH GIRLS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE preacher will assure you that love to God and 
 to your fellow-man is all there is of it. And yet 
 he goes on preaching and exhorting all his life. 
 
 So I assure you that the laws of health are few and 
 simple, and yet I have gone on preaching and exhorting 
 for thirty years, and shall keep it up as long as I live. 
 
 Girls, the great obstacle in the way of your health 
 and happiness is what we have been talking about all 
 our lives, viz. slavery to custom or fashion. To illus- 
 trate it for the thousandth time, I will relate a fact. 
 
 Years ago I sailed from New York on board the 
 stanch old Cunarder "Africa," bound for Liverpool. 
 Among our passengers were some newly married 
 couples. One of them was from Philadelphia. The 
 bride was a delicate and beautiful girl. 
 
 My state-room joined theirs. We were scarcely out 
 of the harbor before the lady began to vomit. During 
 the entire voyage her sufferings were dreadful. The 
 i*
 
 10 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ship's physician really became alarmed. A friend hap- 
 pened to call me Doctor in the presence of the young 
 husband, when he eagerly inquired, " Are you a 
 physician ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Do see my wife, and for mercy's sake try and save 
 her." 
 
 We did everything in our power, but the sensitive 
 brain would not be appeased, and the retching and 
 fainting continued until she was carried out of the 
 ship at Liverpool, more dead than alive. 
 
 Two months after our landing I overheard this 
 beautiful, brilliant young woman describing to a group 
 of admiring friends, in a Parisian hotel, the splendors 
 of a sea- voyage : " O, it is magnificent ! the sea in 
 a storm, the wild mountain-waves crested every- 
 where with foam ! 0, the sea in a storm is perfectly 
 glorious ! " 
 
 The poor child had heard fashionable people make 
 such exclamations, as she had seen them wear absurd 
 dress, as she had heard them talk absurd nonsense, 
 as she had seen them walk and wiggle and giggle in 
 an unnatural and ridiculous manner. She, like too 
 many girls, had aspirations for recognition among the 
 fashionable. So, from her close little state-room, lying 
 flat on her back, retching and vomiting, fainting and 
 dying, she saw the " magnificent, glorious, foam-capped 
 waves."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. \\ 
 
 Ah, girls, if you only could rise above this weak- 
 ness, if you only could think and feel, dress and walk, 
 speak and act, for yourselves, what an immense gain 
 in all ways ! How you could help us all into a 
 higher life ! 
 
 II. 
 
 TAKE the glass part of a thermometer out of the 
 frame ; hold the bulb under your tongue ; wait four 
 minutes. Now look. It is 98. That tells you how 
 warm your blood is. Now hold it against your foot. 
 Don't be in a hurry ; give it a chance to feel the 
 exact state. Down it goes to 65. That tells you 
 how warm your feet are, 33 between your tongue 
 and your feet. 
 
 Don't you know that equable circulation means 
 good health, and that the loss of it means bad health ? 
 Let us see. You have a headache. Your head is hot ; 
 it throbs. Your feet are icicles. Now put your feet 
 in a pail of hot water. In six minutes you say, 
 " O mother, how good I feel ! That rush in my head 
 is all gone ! " You have headache about half the time ? 
 No ? Well, then, pain in your side ? No ? Well, I 
 venture that every day you have some bad feeling 
 about the head or neck or chest or back ? Now let 
 me tell you something. It is very rare that a hot 
 foot-bath will not remove all those bad feelings for
 
 12 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the time being. What does this mean ? Why, it 
 means that there is too much blood in the head or 
 neck or shoulders or back, and that there is a lack 
 of it in the feet and legs. A hot foot-bath draws the 
 blood down below, and takes the excess of blood from 
 the upper parts. That 's exactly the philosophy of it. 
 Of course the hot foot-bath is a bad thing, but it 
 serves to illustrate the law. 
 
 Now let me whisper in your ear. I will tell you 
 a secret. If, during the damp and cold season, you 
 will wear one or two pairs of thick flannels on your 
 legs, and very thick woollen stockings, and strong, 
 broad-soled shoes, you will have all the time that 
 good flow of blood that the hot foot-bath gave you 
 for the time being. This will keep the blood from 
 crowding into the head and upper parts of the body, 
 and will prevent those uncomfortable feelings. 
 
 What I have been saying about the legs is true 
 of the arms. The extremities, both upper and lower, 
 will, in our climate, during the damp and cold sea- 
 son, be sure to get cold, and thus the balance in the 
 circulation is lost. Then comes fulness in some organ, 
 or in the head or neck, with heat or pain, or some 
 other uncomfortable feeling. This can all be prevented 
 by keeping the blood flowing equably in all parts. In 
 this climate we must depend upon clothing. Friction 
 is good, exercise is good ; but the main dependence
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 13 
 
 is clothing. So you must, for eight months of the 
 year at least, dress your legs and feet and arms with 
 very thick woollen garments. 
 
 Just think how women dress. About the chest, 
 the warmest part of the body, they put one, two, 
 three, four thicknesses ; then comes a shawl, and then 
 thick-padded furs ; while their legs, with one thick- 
 ness of cotton, go paddling along under a balloon. 
 They go to the family physician, and say, " doctor, 
 my head goes bumpity-bunip. Doctor, it seems as if 
 all the blood in my body is in my head and chest." 
 " Well, madam, how about your legs and feet ? " 
 " doctor, they are like chunks of ice." 
 " Ah, madam, if you dress your legs and feet so 
 that the blood can't get down into them, where can 
 it go ? It can't go out visiting. It must stay in the 
 body somewhere ; and if it can't go down into the 
 legs and feet, it of course goes into your head and 
 chest." 
 
 Girls, most of you wear too much clothing about 
 your shoulders, chest, back, and hips ; but there is a 
 sad lack of it about your legs, feet, and arms. 
 
 III. 
 
 IN a previous chat I spoke of one feature of your 
 dress which, I venture to say, must be changed be-
 
 14 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 fore you can have a clear head, good digestion, and 
 a healthy liver. 
 
 I wish now to speak of the dress of the middle of 
 the body. Every one of us lives in proportion to our 
 breathing. If we breathe strong, we live strong ; if 
 our breath is weak, our life is weak. The quantity 
 of air we take into our lungs is the measure of our 
 life. Now go with me to a ball-room. Here we are. 
 Notice that couple ; they are now dancing. "Watch 
 them. When they stop, observe their breathing. There, 
 he has taken one deep breath, filling all the lower 
 part of his lungs, and now his breathing is quiet. 
 But notice her breathing. See how the upper part 
 of her chest works up and down. Watch her ten 
 minutes ; that panting and pumping will go on. 
 
 What do you suppose is the reason for this differ- 
 ence ? Do you suppose the Creator made a woman's 
 lungs so deficient in size that she has to work that 
 way to get her breath ? Among young children there 
 is no difference in the breathing of boys and girls. 
 If we visit a farm where persons of both sexes are 
 engaged in out-door labor, with the same freedom of 
 dress, we shall not find the women breathing in that 
 peculiar way. 
 
 No ; the working and pumping of that chest are 
 owing to her dress. The lower part of the lungs is 
 the krge part. There is where most of the breathing
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 15 
 
 should be done. There is where the man does most 
 of his breathing. But she has so squeezed and con- 
 tracted the lower part of her lungs that very little 
 breath can get down there, so that the small upper 
 end of the lungs is compelled to do most of her 
 breathing. It is that little upper end which is work- 
 ing away so hard under her ribs now. When a lady 
 dances, runs, or goes up stairs, she suffers thumping 
 of the heart and labored breathing, not because the 
 original constitution of her breathing apparatus was 
 faulty, but because she so compresses the lower, larger 
 part of her lungs that she is like a person who has 
 but a single lung to breathe with. There is a lack of 
 breathing-room, and of course the breathing is labored. 
 With knife on corset-string, every woman should cry- 
 out, " Give me liberty or give me death ! " 
 
 Perfect freedom for lungs, heart, liver, and stomach 
 is indispensable to good respiration, circulation, and 
 digestion. Without such freedom, living is not living, 
 but dying. 
 
 IV. 
 
 GIRLS, I will, if you please, turn aside from the con- 
 versation about dress, and tell you of a letter I have 
 just received from a bright young lady who resides in 
 a small city in Central New York. She says : " What 
 can I do ? I am tired to death, and perfectly disgusted
 
 16 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 with waiting for dinner and waiting for supper and 
 then waiting for bedtime ! " 
 
 In my answer I told her, first, what not to do. 
 She must not do any wonderful thing. She must 
 not astonish the world. She must not attempt a 
 great book or a grand poem. I particularly implored 
 her not to enter the field of dramatic poetry, and on 
 no account to challenge the world's admiration of 
 Homer by the production of a superlative epic ; but 
 I suggested that she should begin on her little 
 brother's dirty face, and that she might try large and 
 repeated doses of tenderness and help on her invalid 
 mother. Then there were the poor and sick of the 
 neighborhood. I said to her, " My dear Clara, if none 
 of these services suit you, there must be twenty kinds 
 of business carried on within sight of your home 
 which are waiting and suffering for quick and willing 
 hands. Of course, there are prejudices in the way, 
 but what does a brave girl care for prejudices?" 
 
 There are thousands of our girls who sit down, 
 uncombed, in the midst of neglected duties, and, turn- 
 ing their eyes up toward the cobwebs on the ceiling, 
 sigh and dream, and dream and sigh. Listen, and 
 you will hear one of them exclaim, in a languid voice, 
 " this miserable, stupid, humdrum world ! dear 
 me ! I wish I was dead ! Here I am, crawling 
 along, more dead than alive. O, what is the use of 
 living?"
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 17 
 
 Just here the weary mother calls from below, 
 " Clara, Clara dear, do come down and help wash the 
 dishes ! " 
 
 Clara says, " Dishes ! dishes ! What do I care for 
 dishes ? I hope I have a soul above dishes ! This 
 miserable, contemptible world ! Dishes ! washing- 
 dishes ! that 's pretty business, ennobling occupa- 
 tion ! " 
 
 How prone we all are to exaggerate the witlwut 
 and belittle the within ! After our necessities are 
 supplied, work has 110 other legitimate use than the 
 exercise of our faculties ; and that which gives the 
 whole being the most perfect and harmonious play is 
 best for us. I need hardly add that conspicuous posi- 
 tions and wonderful achievements are not favorable to 
 healthy and harmonious development. 
 
 HOW TO OBTAIN THE "BEAUTY-SLEEP." You must 
 
 retire at exactly nine o'clock, and rise before six. If 
 you rub your skin hard with a rough towel and drink 
 a tumbler of cold water before retiring, sleep in a well- 
 ventilated room, and take a hand-bath on rising, the 
 nine hours 'in bed which I have named will give you 
 the famous " beauty-sleep."
 
 18 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A MODERN SALE. 
 
 " DID you notice that beautiful, refined young woman 
 who just passed us with that coarse fellow ? " I asked 
 a friend the other day. " Could you believe that she 
 is his wife ? " 
 
 " It would seem impossible," said the lady with whom 
 I happened to be walking. " How did it happen ? " 
 
 " Happen ? It did n't happen at all. It came of her 
 necessities. If she could have chosen between being 
 tied to that beast and living unmarried with adequate 
 means of support, she would never have consented to 
 unite herself to such a brutal fellow. But what was 
 sher to do ? No other person came to ask her. She 
 was already more than twenty-five years of age, and 
 with no means of support. It cost her a good many 
 tears and shudders, for she had a strong, womanly sense 
 of cleanliness and purity ; but her father was getting 
 old, and she knew that he could not support her much 
 longer, so she shut her eyes and surrendered herself. 
 If she could have been brought up to some remunerative 
 occupation, she would not have been even tempted to 
 such a shameful sacrifice. There are thousands such. 
 Margaret Fuller said: 'That a woman may give her 
 hand with grace and dignity, she must be able to stand 
 alone.' "
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 19 
 
 DO YOU THINK IT FAIR? 
 
 I KNOW a young man, a noble fellow, who carries on 
 a successful manufacturing business. Although pos- 
 sessed of an abundant competence, he devotes himself 
 with untiring assiduity to the interests of his factory 
 ten hours every day. His eyes and hands are every- 
 where. Half a year ago he married a beautiful, ac- 
 complished girl, who is said to speak four of the conti- 
 nental languages with fluency, while she touches the 
 keys with infinite skill. Four months ago they began 
 housekeeping. A week since they gave it up in utter 
 disgust. Three servants figured conspicuously in their 
 griefs. The coffee was execrable, the steak abominable, 
 the cruet-stand and silver not fit to be seen, and the 
 whole house in confusion. The husband bore it as long 
 as pride and patience could endure, and then, sacrificing 
 everything at auction, returned to boarding, resolved 
 never to suffer the miseries of housekeeping again. 
 I was never more indignant than when I heard of it. 
 If that beautiful bride had learned one less language, 
 and devoted the year to the mysteries of housekeeping, 
 she might have made my friend's home a paradise. 
 Suppose her husband's management of his business had 
 been like her management of the house, what would 
 have become of them ? I don't think the match a fair
 
 20 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 one. On one side it was a cheat. A young lady of 
 the same ornamental class, in discussing the case, ex- 
 claimed, " She did not agree in the marriage contract to 
 play the part of a household drudge ! " Did the hus- 
 band agree to play the part of a factory drudge ? 
 
 SKATING AND KINKS. Skating is a fine exercise, 
 but does not hit the weak place in our people. Our 
 girls have strong legs, but weak, thin arms and chests. 
 Skating gives the legs more exercise, but may be done, 
 and done very handsomely, with folded arms. The 
 change from furnace-heated houses to the bleak lake or 
 pond has often proved very mischievous. The rink 
 lighted with gas, the ice covered with skaters of both 
 sexes in pretty costumes, and the air filled with music, 
 makes an enchanting scene. I like to spend an hour 
 there. But it is a dangerous place. The air is like 
 that of an ice-house, and gives a great many dangerous 
 colds. Einks will soon go out of fashion. Quite a 
 number of them, and some of the largest and best, 
 have already been discontinued. I have personally 
 known ten cases, at least, of severe disease which 
 originated in our Boston rink
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 21 
 
 CHAT WITH THE BOYS. 
 
 JUST before the final dismissal, the chairman of our 
 school- committee made a little speech to the boys. 
 It was the same " few remarks " heard on all such 
 occasions. Of course, he told them that this is a free 
 country, that here there is no king, that we are all 
 sovereigns, that every boy in America has a chance 
 at the Presidency, etc., etc. He alluded to the Fourth 
 of July, the Star-Spangled Banner, and the American 
 eagle. But his special point was the glorious opening 
 for young America. There was the office of Governor, 
 if one was disposed to aim rather low; and if any 
 unfortunate boy happened to miss being President or 
 Governor by some inexplicable accident, he could then 
 fall back on Congress. 
 
 The speech was full of a kind of nonsense and 
 poison which is too common, and which we wish 
 might be left out of speeches to boys. 
 
 One of our best educators, in making an address to 
 another school, said something which it was a genuine 
 pleasure to hear. His " few remarks " were about the 
 following : " Boys, you are fitting yourselves here for 
 the duties of life. You should cultivate the plain, 
 substantial branches, because most of you will pursue 
 plain, substantial occupations. Some of you will have
 
 22 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 to bear the trials, vexations, and disappointments of 
 political and professional life, but the great mass of 
 you will, I trust, enjoy the health and independence 
 of carpenters, blacksmiths, and other skilled laborers. 
 These are our truly independent citizens. You never 
 catch them currying favors or seeking influence. They 
 stand on their own two feet, and with their own arms 
 command the respect and support which, from this 
 time on, must, in America, be heartily conceded to all 
 the useful industries." 
 
 Of all the men with whom we deal none are so 
 strong, self-contained, and independent as "skilled 
 laborers." They have everything pretty much their 
 own way. With a few exceptions, our doctors and 
 lawyers are poor and hard-pushed. It is distressing 
 to be called upon to pay rent and grocery-bills, and 
 then sit down with your small ledger and try to pick 
 out the patrons from whom you can urge payment 
 without loss of business. It is so humiliating to be 
 obliged to maintain a certain style, on account of your 
 being a professional man, when you know you can't 
 afford it, and when you are obliged to turn away the 
 importunate tradesman or market- man with a " Can't 
 pay you now ; you must call again." 
 
 A good machinist is a prince among men. I have 
 the honor to know two wealthy young men in an 
 American city, who are learning the business of the
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 23 
 
 machinist. They are learning that business because 
 they know that every man must have some regular 
 occupation, and they are disgusted with the mad rush 
 into the professions. I reckon it one of the truest 
 honors of my life that I enjoy the intimate friendship 
 of those young men. 
 
 A MINUTE'S CHAT WITH YOUNG MEN. 
 
 OBSERVE that pale young fellow crossing the street. 
 You see a good many of that kind just now. Some 
 folk say it is the climate. The truth is that the climate 
 of America, with a fair chance, produces not only the 
 best complexion, but the best health in the world. 
 
 Did you notice the thing he was carrying in his 
 mouth ? Well, it is that meerschaum which is doing 
 the business for him. It is busy with three millions 
 of our men. Let us study one of these meerschaum- 
 suckers. We will take a young man. He shall have 
 brains, money, and plenty of time for sucking. Pale, 
 nervous, irritable, thin in chest and stomach, weak in 
 muscle, he is fast losing his power of thought and 
 application. Let us get near enough to him to smell 
 of him ! Even the beast of prey will not touch the 
 corpse of a soldier saturated with the vile poison. 
 Nice bedfellow he is for a sweet, pure companion (I 
 mean the man, not the beast of prey).
 
 24 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Chewing is the nastiest mode, snuffing ruins the 
 voice, but smoking, among those who have time to be 
 thorough, is most destructive. 
 
 Young K. graduated at Harvard (no devotee of the 
 weed has ever graduated with the highest honors at 
 that institution), and soon after consulted his physi- 
 cian with reference to his pale face, emaciation, indi- 
 gestion, and low spirits. He weighed but one hundred 
 and eight. 
 
 " Stop smoking ! " was the prescription. In four 
 months he had increased twenty-eight pounds, had 
 become clear and healthy in skin, his digestion all 
 right, and his spirits restored. One or two millions 
 of our young and middle-aged men are in a similar 
 condition, and would be restored to health and spirits 
 by the same prescription. On the whole, the cigar is 
 worse than the pipe. 
 
 A HINT TO YOUNG MEN. Nothing in the long run 
 can be more unsatisfactory in your lady friend than 
 mere good looks. Unless she possesses something more, 
 her fair face is likely to become unfair a little after 
 thirty. Then the disappointment to you will be com- 
 plete, I mean if your investment is made in a stock 
 of "good looks." Better a thousand times that your 
 choice should be a woman with a broken nose, but with 
 a head full of common-sense and a heart full of good 
 things.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 25 
 
 THE MILITARY DEILL. 
 
 WE are dying for physical culture. It is the Ameri- 
 can want. The people demand of the schools provision 
 for this want. A thousand schools have replied. They 
 offer the military drill. The great passion of the hour 
 favors this educational response. 
 
 The military spirit should not be deprecated. We 
 must give up our liberties, or become a nation of sol- 
 diers. But, as a means of physical education, the 
 manual of arms is singularly defective. I have seen 
 no system of children's calisthenics which does not 
 embrace a better combination of movements. The 
 motions with the musket are almost exclusively of the 
 arms ; and they have little reach, breadth, or variety. 
 
 Indeed, it is surprising that the idea of physical edu- 
 cation should have occurred to any one in connection 
 with the ordinary military drill. All physical training 
 should be mainly directed to the upper half of the 
 body. It is there our American defects are found. 
 The drill brings into play mainly the lower half of the 
 body, which is already comparatively strong. It is not 
 a little more walking we need, but a development of 
 the shoulders and chest. And even here it is not six 
 simple, limited motions of the forearm and arm which 
 will suffice, but a hundred free, broad, vigorous exercises 
 2
 
 26 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 of the muscles of the back, neck, chest, shoulders, and 
 arms. In one word, the manual of arms is quite de- 
 ficient in the indispensable features of a system of 
 physical training adapted to a weak-chested people. 
 Even the soldier, who may practise the drill several 
 hours daily, still needs gymnastic exercises. The Eng- 
 lish government, fully appreciating this, has recently 
 issued an order introducing thorough gymnastic training 
 into its entire armies, both at home and abroad. The 
 school that announces among its advantages " Physical 
 Training in that most complete of all means, the 
 Manual of Arms," has no physiologist in its board of 
 managers. 
 
 I take the liberty to suggest another objection to 
 the introduction of the military drill into our schools. 
 Girls are disinclined to exercise. We shall never reach 
 satisfactory results in their physical development while 
 we deny them the presence and participation of the 
 more vigorous magnetic boys. A gymnasium with the 
 sexes separated is about as attractive and inspiring as 
 a ball-room with men alone or women alone. If the 
 military drill be introduced for the boys, the girls will 
 be sure to fail in reaching their much-needed physical 
 training. 
 
 IN the best school within my acquaintance each desk 
 is occupied by one pupil of either sex, and the teacher 
 reports all difficulties of discipline at an end.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 27 
 
 THE SHAPE OF OUR BODIES. 
 
 SYMMETRY is one of the conditions of good health. 
 God knows the best form. He created man upright in 
 his own image. The vital organs in the chest and ab- 
 domen are fitted to an erect spine. If the upper portion 
 of the spine bends forward, as in drooping shoulders, 
 not only is the great nerve-marrow of the spine itself 
 distorted and its circulation crippled, which is a 
 serious matter, resulting in certain common affections, 
 but the lungs, heart, liver, and stomach lose their 
 natural place, and perform all their duties disadvan- 
 tageously. A very large proportion of our many 
 affections of these vital organs take their rise in such 
 displacement. 
 
 What shall be done ? 
 
 1. Improve the desks in our schools, so that, instead 
 of compelling our young to sit for hours every day in a 
 stooping position, they should be compelled to sit erect, 
 with head and shoulders drawn well back. This is 
 very easily accomplished. Such a change in our school 
 furniture would prove a priceless national blessing. 
 
 2. Kemove every ounce of pressure from the waist. 
 Pants worn without suspenders and drawn close about 
 the body, skirts or dresses pressing at the waist, must 
 produce round shoulders ; for when the organs of the
 
 28 FIVE -MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 abdomen are pushed downward, the shoulders must 
 droop in order to maintain the relations between the 
 thoracic and abdominal viscera. 
 
 3. The back legs of our chairs must be sawn off two 
 inches shorter than the front ones. The front edge of 
 the seat must not be more than fourteen inches high for 
 women, and sixteen for men. The chair-back is like- 
 wise unphysiologicaL The part which meets the small 
 of the back should project farthest forward. Instead 
 of this, at that point there is generally a hollow. This 
 arrangement will immediately relieve the back while 
 sitting, and secure a good position of the shoulders. 
 
 4 The habit of walking erect with the air of a 
 soldier must be generally cultivated. 
 
 5. Gymnastic culture of the shoulders. 
 
 PRECOCIOUS CHILDREN. Is that your son, that 
 one with the big head, bright eyes, and small chest ? Ah ! 
 and so he 's the one that took the first prize at the 
 high school ? No doubt you expect great things from 
 him. But let me tell you confidentially that you had 
 better take him out of school and send him to a farm 
 for a couple of years. If you don't, when he is forty 
 years old he will be somebody's clerk, or a third-rate 
 professional man, knowing the books, it may be, but 
 lacking the force to achieve success.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 9 
 
 CHAT WITH OLD PEOPLE. 
 
 No one can be happy at rest unless he is fatigued. 
 When he is rested, he becomes unhappy without occu- 
 pation. Except in cases of sickness, this law is general. 
 We suppose ^that among civilized human beings it is 
 universal. The necessity for occupation is especially 
 pressing upon those who for many years have enjoyed 
 an active, vigorous play of their faculties. Deprive such 
 persons of the accustomed stimulus, take away the 
 objects on which their faculties have been at work, and 
 they are wretched. Let us give an illustration from 
 actual life. Mr. H. had been engaged in a wholesale 
 dry-goods house nearly forty years. He was now 
 seventy, and thought it time to retire. His friends 
 all said that the deacon ought to retire ; it was high 
 time. He felt of his knees and back, found he was not 
 the man he used to be ; in fact, he was getting to be an 
 old man, and he would retire just as soon as he could 
 wind up. His friend E., the real-estate agent, was 
 informed of the situation, and commissioned to look 
 up an estate out of town. 
 
 The following spring the interests in the city were 
 sold to the younger partners, the deacon shook hands 
 all around, promised to look in upon them as often as 
 he was in town ; but he had been at it forty years, had
 
 30 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 got enough of it ; in fact, had done his part, and pre- 
 sumed he should not be in town three times a year. 
 
 Let us look in upon him at his handsome country 
 house. " Well, my dear," he says to his wife, " how do 
 you like this ? I fancy this will give us about as 
 pleasant an evening to our life as we could wish. 
 And, if anybody deserves it, I think I do. Forty 
 years I have been at it in that great store-prison, and 
 I think it is about time I rested, if I am ever going to 
 rest this side of the grave." 
 
 One year after, we drop in again and listen. The 
 deacon is pacing up and down his drawing-room, and 
 his frightened wife sits in the corner listening to his 
 ravings. " I can't digest even gruel ; I can't digest 
 anything ; I can't eat ; I can't sleep ; I can't live. In 
 the name of common-sense, what did I ever come out 
 here for ? Farming ! Pretty business for an old dry- 
 goods merchant ! O yes, of course, the doctor says his 
 miserable drugs will help me. But I tell you, wife, 
 that nothing will help me but going back to the city. 
 You might as well ask a musician, after playing his 
 fiddle forty years, to become a blacksmith and be 
 happy. You might as well ask a man who has been 
 at work upon a farm forty years to become a dry-goods 
 merchant, as to ask me to leave my business in town 
 and come out here to raise beans. Wile, I must go 
 back or go crazy ! "
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 31 
 
 Eetiring from business, common and popular as it is, 
 is a great humbug. No man should retire from busi- 
 ness until he retires to his grave. When his faculties 
 become slow and dull from age, he should reduce the 
 number of hours in his daily work, reduce them just 
 as his strength declines ; but in no case should he 
 change his occupation or drop it unless disease actually 
 compels him. He may purchase an estate in the 
 country, to which he retires at an early hour in the 
 afternoon, and he may postpone his morning arrival 
 till two or three hours after the younger people have 
 begun, but he must not quit or make a radical change. 
 A man would have to go far to find a thousand homes 
 in which there is so little happiness and so much 
 wretchedness as in a thousand of those Hudson River 
 palaces occupied by New York retired merchants. 
 
 A friend of ours in New York has a list of the mer- 
 chants of that city who have committed suicide after 
 retiring. We intend to publish that list some time, 
 but for the present we will only say that we know of 
 nothing more sure to lead to dyspepsia, insanity, and 
 suicide than retiring from business. And besides the 
 great injury to the man himself, what a selfish thing 
 to withdraw his trained, successful faculties from the 
 great battle of life ! 
 
 ALL who start in life with good constitutions have 
 the elements of old age within them.
 
 32 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 FEEBLE CEEtCULATION. 
 
 AN old person has feeble circulation in the feet and 
 legs. Nothing contributes more to relieve the diffi- 
 culty in breathing, and the chronic cough and other 
 troubles about the head and chest, so common among 
 all people, than keeping the feet and legs warm. 
 
 Mr. S., a bank-officer, had been sitting in a bank 
 nearly fifty years. He came for some advice about 
 short breath, wheezing, and cough. 
 
 " Your feet and legs are very cold." 
 
 " Yes ; but how did you know it ? " 
 
 "By these troubles about your throat and lungs. 
 There is congestion, too much blood there. If the 
 legs and feet were warm, if they had their share of the 
 blood, this congestion about the upper parts would 
 cease, and this short breath, wheezing, and cough would 
 be relieved at once." 
 
 " How shall I make my legs and feet warm ? I wear 
 as much clothing about my lower extremities as I ever 
 did, and yet they are like icicles." 
 
 "I will tell you a secret: An old man with low 
 vitality must have two, three, or four times as much 
 dress about the legs and feet as a young man with high 
 vitality. Now, you must put on two pair of thick knit 
 woollen drawers, very thick stockings, and broad, strong
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 33 
 
 shoes. Your legs will be warm enough, perhaps. If 
 not, then put on a pair of wash-leather drawers over 
 the knit woollen ones. With thick pants over these 
 you will probably be warm. In some rare cases even 
 this will not keep the limbs warm. But they must be 
 kept warm. So you must add, and keep adding, till 
 they are warm. This is the way you do with your 
 body ; why not the same with your legs ? You will 
 thereby save your throat, lungs, and head from many 
 common troubles." 
 
 PLEASURES OF OLD AGE. 
 
 A FINE old writer says that an " old man who is not 
 a fool is the happiest creature in the world." With 
 adequate means of support, with few and simple wants, 
 he sits in his great-chair, reviews a long life well spent, 
 sees his children and grandchildren developing into 
 useful and noble lives about him, watches the progress 
 of society, and reflects that he has sown seed which is 
 now bearing fruit. 
 
 " Age's chief arts and aims are to grow wise, 
 Virtue to know, and, known, to exercise ; 
 All just returns to age then virtue makes, 
 Nor her in her extremity forsakes ; 
 The sweetest cordial age receives at last 
 Is consciousness of virtuous actions past." 
 
 If the past has been reasonable, the last ten years are 
 likely to be the happiest of our lives.
 
 34 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 LONGEVITY. 
 
 A KOMAN judge made the first reliable records of 
 human longevity. His statistics were collected and 
 published during the third century. His tables were 
 adopted by the Eoman courts, and made the guide in 
 determining the value of life-estates, reversions, etc., for 
 hundreds of years. In modern times, the oldest trust- 
 worthy accounts are those of Geneva, Switzerland. 
 From these and other records kept during the last four 
 hundred years, we learn that the length of human life 
 during the last sixteen centuries has just about 
 doubled. 
 
 Diseases which in former times were very destructive 
 have now disappeared ; and some which formerly swept 
 away whole peoples, now only attack individuals. 
 Small-pox between 1675 and 1757 annually caused 
 from seven to ten per cent of the mortality of London. 
 Now, through that most beneficent of all discoveries, 
 vaccination, this loathsome disease is wellnigh ban- 
 ished from civilized nations. Measles, which formerly 
 caused eight to eleven per cent of the deaths, has now 
 fallen below two per cent. From 1675 to 1727- twenty 
 per cent of the deaths among children came from teeth- 
 ing, while now the rate has fallen below one per cent. 
 And even consumption, which many people think a
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 35 
 
 modern disease, was formerly more fatal than now. In 
 the seventeenth century seventeen per cent of the 
 deaths were caused by consumption. The percentage 
 in London, where the mortality from this disease is 
 still great, is now not more than ten per cent. One 
 hundred years ago fevers caused the death of one sixth 
 of the people of London. From 1857 to 1860 this per- 
 centage wa's reduced two thirds. Some diseases now 
 unknown made frightful havoc in those days of low 
 civilization. The "Black Death" carried off twenty- 
 five millions of the inhabitants of Europe during 1348 
 and 1349. The " Sweating Sickness " was another ter- 
 rible scourge. From 1602 to 1665 eaoh year there died 
 in London alone from one thousand to ten thousand 
 and four hundred persons of the Plague. For the last 
 two hundred years this scourge has appeared only occa- 
 sionally, and in those parts of Egypt and Asia where 
 civilization has not removed its causes. Two hundred 
 years ago the deaths averaged annually about one in 
 twenty of the living, even in the most favored districts. 
 From 1846 to 1865 the deaths in England were one in 
 forty-two. From 1604 to 1682 the births in London 
 were 699,075, and the burials 964,882. From 1851 to 
 1860 there were in London 869,263 births and 610,473 
 burials. In the former period for every 100 births 
 there were 137 burials. In the latter period for every 
 100 births there were 78 burials. Fifty years ago the
 
 36 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia used a table 
 based upon an expectation of twenty-eight years and 
 five months from birth. The life-table of the United 
 States calculated in 1860 made the expectation forty- 
 one years. The distinguished Mr. Finlaison calculates 
 that one quarter was added to human life during the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Formerly people lived in holes and caverns of the 
 earth. Even within a brief time the laboring classes in 
 England lived in houses without floors. The ground 
 was often wet and muddy. To avoid this, straw and 
 rushes were spread over the ground, which were put on 
 fresh without removing the old. Erasmus, who care- 
 fully studied life in Great Britain, declares that in 
 some cases the straw and rushes would not be removed 
 for twenty years, and was not unfrequently filled with 
 fish-bones, broken victuals, and the excretions of dogs, 
 children, and men. Life in the cities was terribly ex- 
 posed. They were unpaved, undrained, and the streets 
 were made the receptacles of every species of filth. 
 Crawling about in this mire of indescribable filth, in- 
 haling fetid, pestilential exhalations, staggering through 
 this sea of vileness, the people sought to propitiate 
 Heaven by prayers and entreaties. Even as late as 
 the nineteenth century a number of intelligent people 
 in Scotland, when the cholera was threatening that 
 country, instead of insisting on a thorough cleansing
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 37 
 
 of cellars, yards, cesspools, and streets, petitioned for a 
 day of national fasting, humiliation, and prayer. Lord 
 Palmerston, in reply, urged immediate and thorough 
 sanitary measures, " otherwise," said he, " pestilence will 
 surely visit you, in spite of all the prayers of a united 
 but inactive nation." 
 
 I DO not know whether the performers in circuses 
 are long-lived. Such men used to be drunken, and I 
 presume were short-lived. But now that they have 
 become sober, and every way temperate, I should pre- 
 sume they are exceptionally healthy and long-lived. 
 Two, at least, of Barnum's performers are wealthy gen- 
 tlemen, occupying very fine houses in New York City, 
 and bringing forward fine families. The profession of 
 circus gymnastics has become very respectable, and 
 commands large salaries. Some of them receive three 
 or four hundred dollars a week. I wish I could show 
 you the residence of one of Barnum's company. It is 
 in a fashionable avenue in New York, and at ten 
 o'clock in the morning you may see that circus-rider 
 starting out with his beautiful wife and daughters for a 
 drive in Central Park. In the afternoon you may see 
 him in tights performing in the ring. And, by the 
 way, the circus is the only place of amusement where 
 you never witness an indecent sight or hear an inde-
 
 38 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 cent word. It is the purest, and, on the whole, the 
 most wholesome amusement we have among us. I 
 like to see the little people gathering to the great white 
 tent. Men assure you that they go to see to the chil- 
 dren. For myself, I like to take the little folks, but I 
 go for my own amusement, greatly preferring a good 
 circus to the most splendid tragedy ever put upon the 
 stage. At the circus you breathe a good air, and every- 
 thing is simple and natural. There is nothing of the 
 stilted, artificial fuss and feathers and roar which make 
 most tragedy performances a constant strain and pain 
 to all people who happen to have a little nature left in 
 them. 
 
 THE men of culture about Boston are remarkable for 
 freshness and youthfulness, although as a class they are 
 prodigiously overworked. I wish I felt at liberty to 
 mention the names of ten of the best-known scholars 
 in and about Boston, and give their ages. I am sure 
 that some people who imagine that there exists a chron- 
 ic quarrel between the body and the mind would be 
 surprised. Place these ten scholars before us in a row 
 without selection, but taking them as they come, and 
 then go into the street and gather the first ten cartmen, 
 farmers, or carpenters, and I am sure we should be 
 astonished at the contrast between them ; it would be 
 hard for us to believe that the scholars were as old
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 39 
 
 as the workingmen. Of all work, brain work is the 
 healthiest, and conduces most to longevity. 
 
 THE work of the politician is an exception to the 
 rule -mentioned above. Without doubt, his life is un- 
 favorable to health of body, and it would seem in these 
 later times to be unfavorable to health of mind and 
 morals. I am sorry to hear that a friend has " gone 
 into " politics. Yet a political career should be the 
 most useful and honorable of all careers. It is unde- 
 niable that the larger number of our public men are 
 not first-class in any respect, and that very few of them 
 are first-class in integrity. jSTo feature in our Ameri- 
 can life is so deeply to be regretted. 
 
 THE true rule in regard to the use of glasses is to 
 put them on as soon as you need them. This attempt 
 to put off the beginning of their use has injured a 
 great many eyes. I will not deny that occasionally 
 some one has contrived to avoid their use through a 
 long life, but such cases are rare exceptions. In the 
 great majority of cases it would prove about as suc- 
 cessful as the Dutchman's attempt to teach his horse to 
 live without food. Just as soon as you begin to push 
 your paper from you, just as soon as the gas becomes 
 bad, and the type in the newspapers too small, and the 
 printing very bad, you had better get a pair of glasses.
 
 40 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Begin with No. 60, and then come down gradually, as 
 your eyes change. Don't buy cheap glasses, but get 
 the very best from the best dealer. Don't wear these 
 nose-nippers, except for momentary use, but get a pair 
 of good old-fashioned spectacles. 
 
 I THINK artificial teeth are vital when the natural 
 ones are gone. Mastication is indispensable to good 
 digestion, and without teeth that is impossible. Few 
 men are so useful as our dentists, and a good one is 
 easily found. Find him, and give him time to make 
 the fit complete. The people are getting so economical 
 in dentistry, that much of the work, if dentists are to 
 earn their living, must be done hastily and imperfectly. 
 
 COLD-WATER DRINKING. Cold baths of the skin 
 are good, but it is doubtful if flooding the stomach on 
 going to bed and on rising is not, on the whole, the 
 most profitable form of cold bathing. Costiveness, piles, 
 and indigestion are uniformly relieved by this morn- 
 ing and evening stomach cold douche. The quantity 
 must be determined by each one for himself. Two or 
 three swallows will generally do to begin with, but the 
 quantity will soon grow to a tumblerful, and I have 
 known persons to use much more with marked benefit. 
 If wisely managed, every dyspeptic will be greatly 
 improved by this cold stomach bath.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 41 
 
 CHAT WITH LOVEES. 
 
 THE separation system of the French is fatal to true 
 love and marriage. Already it has obtained a footing 
 among us. A girl sees her future husband in a draw- 
 ing-room. The ambitious mother, who is in attend- 
 ance as stage manager, has arranged the programme. 
 After three performances the engagement is announced, 
 and in due time the ceremony is solemnized by the 
 Church. The couple are driven to their home, and 
 then, for the first time, the mask being removed, they 
 get a peep at each other. That both of them should 
 soon set about a search for agreeable partners is only 
 the natural result of such a union. Without perfect 
 freedom of choice, a true and happy marriage is ex- 
 ceedingly improbable. There can be no such freedom 
 without intimate acquaintance. 
 
 Our separate schools have contributed much to the 
 wall between the sexes. During the awakening period, 
 when the imagination is most active, the sexes are 
 carefully kept apart in separate schools. Some years 
 ago I had the supervision of a school for young men 
 and women. The desks were what is called double, 
 each one accommodating two persons. I placed a 
 young man and a young woman at each. Permission 
 was given the pupils to render such assistance to their
 
 42 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 desk-mates as they thought profitable, keeping the 
 noise within bounds. But we did not often check 
 the hum and buzz ; for 'as these young people were 
 being trained for life, and as in actual life there is a 
 hundred times as much noise as silence, I should 
 hardly have felt at liberty to train their faculties in 
 silence for use in noise. I only said, "Don't be too 
 noisy." 
 
 What I wish to bring before you is the striking 
 influence of this system upon the love passion. When 
 Thomas and Lucy first sat down together, they looked 
 and acted just as a young man and a young woman are 
 likely to do when they first meet. I need not describe 
 it. You have seen how they look and act. This soon 
 began to wear off, and in a month the young people 
 acted toward each other like brother and sister. All 
 that peculiar expression and manner which you often 
 see among lovers, and which you recognize at the 
 distance of three blocks, soon disappeared. With the 
 new arrangement in our school there was more or less 
 of this all through the room, but, as already stated, it 
 soon gave place to a social atmosphere which seemed 
 identical with that of a home among brothers and 
 sisters. 
 
 Still further, they were permitted to change partners 
 at pleasure on the first Monday of each month. This 
 renewed the "lovers'" exhibition a little at first, but
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 43 
 
 after three months even this change of companions 
 evoked no visible disturbance of the school-work. But 
 what good came of it ? It is just that question I wish 
 to answer. 
 
 1st. From the day this system was introduced the 
 school required no government. It was like a com- 
 pany of ladies and gentlemen in a drawing-room. 
 There was no necessity for rules in the one case more 
 than in the other. 
 
 2d. The average progress in the studies was strik- 
 ingly enhanced. Stupid, coarse fellows, who in a com- 
 pany of men alone would chew and growl and loaf, 
 became bright, gentlemanly, and studious, and girls of 
 light, frivolous composition became earnest. The aver- 
 age progress was greatly increased. 
 
 3d. The young men came to regard women, not as 
 charming creatures to be toyed with and to be talked 
 down to, but as brave, hard-working companions, com- 
 petitors, and equals. They ceased to think of their 
 bodies, and thought only of the quality of their minds. 
 The young women no longer looked up to the young 
 men as chivalrous heroes, seeking opportunity to die 
 for their lady-loves, but as fair, honorable companions, 
 whom it was a pleasure to know and sometimes to 
 conquer. In a few months they came to feel toward 
 men just as those girls do who have been reared in a 
 large family of boys, and who are rarely wrong in the
 
 44 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 choice of husbands. The girls who are educated in a 
 separate school are like the " only child," who is almost 
 sure, if she has been brought up in seclusion, to fall 
 into some trap. The young men, after a year in such 
 school companionship, are like the young man with 
 half a dozen sisters, who is sure to be wise in the 
 selection of a wife. 
 
 In its bearing upon the most important interests of 
 our earthly life, there is no part of our education so 
 vital as an early, large, intimate acquaintance with 
 many persons of the opposite sex. What probability 
 is there that a young woman, an only child, brought up 
 in seclusion, educated in a convent or other separate 
 school, and who then, having finished her education, 
 sets up at home under the watchful eye of her mother 
 for a husband, what probability is there that she 
 will be wise in her relations with men? "With no 
 occupation save that of catching a beau, with imagina- 
 tion and emotions left to wander, is she likely to see 
 through the sham smiles and vows of an impostor ? 
 
 THE ONLY WAY. Nothing but unrestrained, unaf- 
 fected intercourse between the sexes can assure an 
 average of wise and happy marriages. This can never 
 be secured until woman is elevated to a legal and finan- 
 cial equality with man.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 45 
 
 LAUGH! LAUGH! LAUGH! 
 
 No other exercise is equal to laughing! Nothing 
 acts so directly and happily upon the organs within 
 both chest and abdomen. Ten hearty laughs real 
 shouts will do more to enhance the general health 
 and vitality than an hour spent in the best gymnastic 
 attitude and motions, if done in a sober, solemn spirit. 
 Of course I know you can't laugh at will, so you must 
 play with the children, play with the dog, introduce a 
 hundred games which involve competition and fun. 
 Open the folding doors, move back the centre-table, and 
 go it. Play with small bags filled with beans, run for 
 the pins, play any of the games which you can recall 
 from your early experience. When the spring conies, 
 devote a part of your garden to a playground, and then 
 carry forward the good work in earnest. If your solemn- 
 faced neighbor suggests that you had better devote the 
 ground to potatoes, tell him that one good laugh is 
 worth more than an hour at digging potatoes, and then 
 go it with redoubled zeal. 
 
 THE BEST TEACHEKS. Dr. Hammond's formula for 
 the cure of dyspepsia, " eat little and often/' is based 
 upon a theory, as most medical teachings have been. 
 My advice, namely, eat but twice a day, the first meal
 
 46 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 hearty and quite early in the morning, the second meal not 
 hearty and not later than two o'clock, is not based upon 
 a theory, but upon wide observation and experience. 
 
 To PREVENT DYSPEPSIA. Have a right good talk, 
 with a funny anecdote or two, and a half-dozen hearty 
 laughs, with each meal This eating alone at a res- 
 taurant, and shovelling in the provender in solemn 
 silence, would give dyspepsia to an ostrich. 
 
 FUN AT HOME. 
 
 DON'T be afraid of a little fun at home, good people. 
 Don't shut up your houses lest the sun should fade 
 your carpets and your hearts, lest a hearty laugh should 
 shake down some of the musty cobwebs there. If you 
 want to ruin your sons, let them think that all mirth 
 and social enjoyment must be left on the threshold 
 when they come home at night. When once a home 
 is regarded as only a place to eat, drink, and sleep in, 
 the work is begun that ends in gambling-houses and 
 degradation. Young people must have fun and relax- 
 ation somewhere. If they do not find it at their own 
 hearthstones, it will be sought in other, and perhaps 
 less profitable, places. Therefore let the fire bum
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 47 
 
 brightly at night, and make the home ever delightful 
 with all those little arts that parents so perfectly under- 
 stand. Don't repress the buoyant spirits of your chil- 
 dren ; half an hour of merriment round the lamp and 
 firelight of home blots out the remembrance of many a 
 care and annoyance during the day, and the best safe- 
 guard they can take with them into the world is the 
 unseen influence of a bright little domestic sanctum. 
 
 MARRIAGE UNFASHIONABLE. 
 
 AMONG the better classes marriage is becoming un- 
 fashionable. The number of educated business men 
 in our cities from twenty to forty who remain single, 
 and have no intention to marry, is becoming very 
 large. The hotels are full of them, the clubs and 
 boarding-houses teem with bachelors. I have a hun- 
 dred times introduced the subject of matrimony among 
 such people. Their comments are curious, and nearly 
 always in the same vein. 
 
 Mr. A. "Not any for me, if you please." 
 
 Mr. B. " Of course women are all well enough in 
 their way, but then I 'shall never bind myself." 
 
 Mr. C. "Yes, I should look jolly now, with a wife 
 and half a dozen babies, should n't I ? Of course I 
 admire women hugely, especially those blondes in the
 
 48 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ' Black Crook ' ; but then I ain't quite a fool. No, 
 gentlemen, I sha' n't hitch a tail to my kite yet awhile. 
 When I'm played out, and want hot flannels on my 
 joints, then perhaps I '11 sail in ; but for the present 
 I '11 paddle my own canoe." 
 
 Mr. D. "Why, yes, if the old cove would come 
 down with the stamps, I would n't mind ; but then 
 I wouldn't go in for less than a cool hundred thou- 
 sand. The old madam can't get her off on to me with 
 any of your thirty or forty thousand. You see it 
 won't go down. Can't catch me with any of your 
 small bait." 
 
 Mr. E. " 0, of course I know it ; she 's a stunner, 
 but then old Moneybags can't expect to work off 
 his girls without showing his hand. A fellow can't 
 leap into the dark. If the old skeesicks wants to 
 get rid of 'em, he must plank down the shiners." 
 
 Mr. F. " Well, boys, it 's no use talking ; the sort of 
 life we are leading is that of savages. What does it 
 all amount to? My idea is a little cottage with a 
 little wife, and I would have one if I were not afraid. 
 The fact is, they are all sick, and the doctor's bills 
 are more than all the rest of it. Now, if I could get 
 a wife with such health as my grandmother had, I 
 would go in to-morrow ; but these wasp-waisted con- 
 cerns, why, they have n't room enough for their blood- 
 vessels, saying nothing of liver and stomach and a
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 49 
 
 good dinner. No, boys, the kind of life we are lead- 
 ing is not a bit to my taste ; but then the other thing, 
 well, I '11 have to think of it. Of course I know 
 that a body only, no matter how healthy and beau- 
 tiful, fails to make a woman. The best part of a 
 woman is her beautiful loving soul, and I should be 
 sorry not to think that heaven will be full of them, 
 but in this world health and strength are indispen- 
 sable." 
 
 BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. Beauty in woman is, in con- 
 siderable part, a matter of health. A sick woman's face 
 may be exquisitely moulded she never appeals to our 
 imagination. But even an ugly face all aglow with 
 health and spirit, and with sparkling eyes, becomes 
 beautiful. Such a woman appeals to the imagination ; 
 she charms and attracts us by a subtle magnetism. 
 Whether as maid, wife, or mother, health is woman's 
 great good. 
 
 AMONG Lycurgus's laws was one that a man should 
 not marry before he was thirty-seven, nor a woman 
 before she was seventeen. Modern physiologists dis- 
 card this great disparity, though they do not deny 
 that such a maturity on the part of the father would 
 secure strong children ; but they think the difference 
 too great for modern peoples. The general opinion is
 
 50 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 that the man should be twenty-five to thirty, and 
 the woman from twenty to twenty-five. 
 
 I DON'T quite fancy what Dr. Barbour says about 
 lacing. He says he likes it. All the fools are killed, 
 while the sensible girls are preserved as mothers 
 for the next generation. I don't like it, because, in the 
 first place, the foolish girls are not quite killed, and 
 then, unfortunately, a good many bright girls are caught 
 in the trap. 
 
 ADVICE TO A YOUNG GIRL. It is rare that a young 
 woman should marry before she is twenty. It is better 
 she should be twenty-five. But to marry at sixteen is 
 an outrage upon nature. Suppose you marry at this 
 present age, and at seventeen you become a mother, the 
 laws of nature must be changed if your child is not in- 
 ferior. Indeed, the best and strongest men are born of 
 mothers over thirty years of age. But sixteen, that is 
 too bad; and then it is almost certain that you will 
 lose your form and bloom prematurely if you marry 
 when you are a child. If he won't wait, he is not wor- 
 thy of you. It is your body more than your soul that 
 he is after, if, when a proper explanation is made, he 
 will not wait. He should rest in the fact that he has 
 your love, that your heart is his, and wait for your body 
 to grow.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 51 
 
 MY LEAN FKIENDS. 
 
 You want to know what you shall do to become 
 plump and seemly ? I will tell you. 
 
 1. Be thankful you are not fat. Man's body is 
 designed for use. Lean, flexible, active folks should 
 be duly grateful that they do not waddle, wheeze, and 
 sweat. Besides, your chance for long life is, on the 
 whole, better than that of the fat man. So gratitude 
 that your case is no worse is your first duty. 
 
 2. You must begin the consideration of your ema- 
 ciation with the physiological fact that the quantity 
 and quality of your flesh depend upon the character of 
 your digestion. The dyspeptic and consumptive eat 
 enormous quantities of nutritious food, but grow thin- 
 ner day by day. Lean people are not unfrequently 
 great eaters, but the food is not appropriated. Such 
 bodies are like our great peninsular army, which, 
 receiving constant supplies of men and horses, con- 
 stantly decreased in size and strength. So, my dear 
 shadows, we must determine, first, what will give you 
 more thorough digestion and assimilation. You proba- 
 bly eat too much. The digestive apparatus is com- 
 pelled to undertake so much, it can do nothing well. 
 Eemember, it is not the quantity eaten, but that 
 digested, which determines your flesh and strength.
 
 52 FIVE -MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Eat less ! And as the saliva plays a very important 
 part in the function of digestion, masticate thoroughly, 
 drinking little or nothing by way of helping the food 
 into your stomach. 
 
 3. Eat but twice a day ; and, unless in the midst 
 of hard labor, let the second meal come as early as two 
 or three o'clock. So important do I regard the two- 
 ineal-a-day system for certain classes of invalids, that 
 I rarely prescribe for a consumptive or dyspeptic 
 without making this rule imperative. If the patient 
 is to eat twenty or even twenty-five ounces of food per 
 day, it is greatly better to eat it in two meals. And I 
 may add, that for all classes of persons, I believe it 
 would prove a great advantage, in a physiological 
 point of view, to change from the present system to 
 two meals a day. 
 
 4. For breakfast, eat coarse bread, cream, and baked 
 sweet-apples ; for dinner, beef or mutton (not veal or 
 lamb), with some coarse bread, potatoes, and all the 
 vegetables of the season except tomatoes; for des- 
 sert, use fruit ad libitum. If possible, sleep a little 
 after dinner. 
 
 5. You must sleep in a pure atmosphere ; go to bed 
 as early as nine o'clock, and, rising by six, walk slowly 
 in the open air half an hour or more, drinking two or 
 three tumblers of cold water. 
 
 6. Spend the evening in social enjoyment. Happi- 
 ness and laughter are the best friends of digestion.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 53 
 
 7. Live as much as possible in the open air, never 
 forgetting that, after the food has been well digested 
 in the stomach, it must mingle with a good supply of 
 oxygen in the lungs before it can be transformed into 
 the tissues of the body. Bad food with a pure air 
 will make flesh faster than the best food with an 
 impure atmosphere. 
 
 8. Bathe frequently, that the effete matter in the 
 system may easily escape, and thus afford the best 
 opportunity for the deposition of new material. 
 
 9. If married, cultivate the quiet sentiments of 
 domestic life. If unmarried, and of proper age and 
 health, seek in this most satisfactory of all earthly 
 relations that freedom from the fret and discontent 
 of life which only a true marriage can give. 
 
 PEOPLE who perform hard muscular labor may eat 
 three times a day, but most of the inhabitants of our 
 towns and cities would be greatly improved in health 
 and capacity by eating but twice, breakfast at eight 
 and dinner at two. 
 
 I do best when I take a large steak, bread and po- 
 tatoes, with a cup of weak coffee, for breakfast at seven, 
 and an oyster stew or dish of oatmeal for dinner at one 
 o'clock. The morning is the time to take in a large 
 supply of food.
 
 54 FIVE -MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 FAT PEOPLE. 
 
 PERHAPS you fancy your shape. You do look com- 
 fortable and jolly ; but as a physiologist, I must find 
 fault with you. Obesity, like emaciation, is a sort of 
 disease unfavorable to health and long life. This 
 warm weather makes you pant and perspire. 
 
 I met one of your number down on the beach the 
 other day. It was a warm afternoon. He was very 
 uncomfortable. We stopped to chat a moment, when 
 he exclaimed, " I would give ten thousand dollars to be 
 reduced to one hundred and fifty pounds. I pant, 
 wheeze, and sweat, pant, wheeze, and sweat, every time 
 I stir " ; and, looking earnestly in my face, he said, 
 " Doctor, what can you do for me ? What can I take ? 
 My family doctor tells me he can give me something 
 that will whittle me down ? Do you think it can be 
 done ? " 
 
 " yes," I replied, " nothing is easier ; but it is quite 
 unnecessary to take any medicine. Suppose, sir, you 
 have a very fat horse much in the condition of your- 
 self, and some doctor were to propose to reduce his 
 weight with medicine, what would you say?" 
 
 " I should tell him that I could reduce his weight 
 by reducing the amount of his food." 
 
 " Just so, and you would be quite right. Allow me
 
 FIVE-^MINUTE CHATS. 55 
 
 to commend the same practice to yourself. Seduce 
 the quantity of your food one quarter, and I venture to 
 say that in a month you will weigh from five to ten 
 pounds less than now. At the end of the first month 
 reduce the amount of your food another quarter. 
 Within three or six months you will find yourself 
 lighter by twenty to fifty pounds. Your digestion will 
 be much healthier, your respiration freer, and your 
 activity and endurance greatly increased." 
 
 " But," said he, " I don't eat half as much as some 
 thin men whom I know." 
 
 " This is not improbable, and I presume their ex- 
 cessive eating keeps them thin, as with your tendency 
 excessive eating produces fat. If they were to reduce 
 the quantity of their food, they would, like yourself, 
 tend toward the normal standard, they would gain in 
 weight, while you lose." 
 
 He promised to try it, and started on. 
 
 In a horse-car the other day I met six corpulent, 
 uncomfortable men, all quite sure to die prematurely. 
 Each one of them might, in six or twelve months, be 
 reduced to the normal standard, and enjoy a degree of 
 health and activity to which he is now a stranger. Is 
 any physiological statement more self-evident than 
 that every fat person eats more than he needs ? 
 
 " But," exclaims some fat young woman, who would 
 " give the world " to be in good shape, " I cannot go 
 hungry and faint forever."
 
 56 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 This remark shows you have never tried what I have 
 suggested. It is only the great eater who is troubled 
 with hunger and "goneness." If you would reduce 
 the quantity of your food even one half at once, after 
 three days you will not suffer from faintness or hunger. 
 The man who eats temperately of unstimulating food 
 rarely knows the sensation of hunger. 
 
 In the light of these undeniable statements, how 
 silly the practice, common among girls, of swallowing 
 acids and other killing things, and among men of 
 steeping in tobacco, to reduce their flesh ! I have 
 personally known scores of young women whose health 
 'has been ruined by drinking vinegar or eating chalk 
 and other indigestible things, all to take away their 
 fat. And I have known a still greater number to ruin 
 themselves with corsets, in the hope of keeping them- 
 selves comely and in shape. 
 
 I have met hundreds of fat men who were besmeared 
 and saturated with tobacco-juice, objects of disgust to 
 all beholders, terrors to decent housekeepers, peregri- 
 nating stench-pots, and all to keep their flesh down. 
 
 My poor, dear, fat simpletons, allow me to prescribe 
 for you. 
 
 Eise early ; exercise much, particularly in the open 
 air ; bathe frequently, rubbing the skin very hard ; but 
 most important of all, eat plain, coarse food, and reduce 
 the quantity until you find yourself growing thinner 

 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 57 
 
 two or three pounds per week. Your sluggishness, 
 short breath, and other discomforts will soon leave you, 
 and you will become bright, clear-headed, and happy. 
 
 Two meals a day are quite enough for persons seven- 
 teen years of age of either sex. Breakfast on bread 
 and milk, with cracked wheat and syrup, and dine at 
 one, two, or three o'clock on plain meat and vegetables, 
 eating heartily if your appetite craves it, taking no 
 dessert unless it be simple fruit, and you have food 
 enough to last till breakfast next morning. Omitting 
 supper or tea, you will sleep better after the habit is 
 established, and make better progress in your studies. 
 Persons who have tried the two-meal system testify 
 almost unanimously in its favor. 
 
 Is YOUR SON DULL AND LAZY? You had better 
 stop his meat, rich food, and coffee, make him get up 
 early, bathe in cold water, coax him into active sports, 
 or put him at work, and when a lesson is given him 
 make sure that he learns it. 
 
 THE best of all chair-bottoms is the cane, which is 
 neither too soft nor too hard. But still more important, 
 it is cool. 
 
 3*
 
 58 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 STRENGTH AND HEALTH. 
 
 IT is quite a common idea that health keeps pace 
 with strength. I know intelligent persons who really 
 think that you may determine the comparative health 
 of a company of men by measuring their arms, that he 
 whose arm measures twelve inches is twice as healthy 
 as he whose arm measures but six. This strange and 
 thoughtless misapprehension has given rise to nearly 
 all the mistakes thus far made in the physical-culture 
 movement. I have a friend who can lift nine hundred 
 pounds, and yet is an habitual sufferer from torpid liver, 
 rheumatism, and low spirits. There are many similar 
 cases. The cartmen of our cities, who are our strongest 
 men, are far from the healthiest class, as physicians 
 will testify. On the contrary, I have many friends 
 who would stagger under three hundred pounds that 
 are in capital trim. But I need not elaborate a matter 
 so familiar with physicians and other observing people. 
 No test of health would prove more faulty than a tape- 
 line or a lift at the scale-beam. Suppose two brothers 
 bank-clerks in bad health. They are measured 
 around the arm. Each marks exactly ten inches. 
 They try the scale-beam. The bar rises at exactly 
 three hundred pounds with each. Both seek health. 
 John goes to the gymnasium, lifts heavy dumb-bells
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 59 
 
 and kegs of nails until he can put up one hundred and 
 twenty-five pounds and lift nine hundred, and his arm 
 reaches fifteen inches. Thomas goes to the mountains, 
 fishes, hunts, spends delightful hours with the young 
 ladies, and plays cricket. Upon measuring his arm we 
 find it scarcely larger than when he left town, while he 
 can't put up sixty pounds nor lift five hundred. But 
 who doubts Thomas will return to the bank counter 
 the better man of the two ? John should be the better 
 man, if strength is the principal or most essential con- 
 dition of health. A circus usually contains among its 
 performers a man who can lift a cannon weighing near- 
 ly or quite half a ton. Then there are half a dozen 
 riders and vaulters, who have comparatively little 
 strength. If anybody supposes that the strong man 
 has better health than the flexible, elastic ones, he has 
 but to make inquiries of circus-managers, as I have 
 done, and he will learn that the balance is found almost 
 uniformly with the latter. Agility and flexibility are 
 far more important than strength, and that fine silken 
 quality of the muscular fibre which comes only from 
 an infinite repetition of light and ever- varying feats far 
 more important than size.
 
 60 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 CHAT WITH CONSUMPTIVES. 
 
 WHEN I was practising my profession in Buffalo, 
 N. Y., where I resided many years, there came one 
 morning a note requesting an appointment for a pro- 
 fessional interview. His own health was the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Seating himself, he began with, "You see, I pre- 
 sume, that I am an Englishman. I left England two 
 years ago, and came to America to seek my fortune. 
 An old friend in business here induced me to stop, 
 and now I am junior partner in the firm of G. T. & Co., 
 fancy dry-goods. My father, mother, and sister all 
 died of consumption. I have been coughing and 
 getting thin for about eight months. Please feel my 
 pulse." 
 
 "What, 95?" 
 
 " Yes, that 's about it, and in the evening I fancy it 
 gets above a hundred." 
 
 " How about your breathing ? " 
 
 " O, that 's just as you might suppose. Up hill or 
 up stairs, and I gasp as if I were going to suffocate. 
 O doctor, I have all the symptoms. I watched my 
 sister, and know just how this horrible thing works." 
 
 " Night-sweats ? " 
 
 " Well, no, not much, though occasionally my shoul-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 61 
 
 ders and neck are wet when I wake up in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Pain ? " 
 
 "Not much, though I have several times had a 
 severe pain under my shoulder-blade, and lately a dull 
 aching just here under this collar-bone." 
 
 " Expectoration ? " 
 
 " Not- a great deal, though I now begin to raise 
 pretty freely in the morning." 
 
 " Take off your coat and vest, and let me listen. O 
 no, I must get at your skin, so you had better take off 
 the shirts. I will give you a warm dressing-gown 
 to protect your back and shoulders. This listening 
 through a shirt or through a stethoscope is all non- 
 sense. There is nothing like putting the ear right on 
 the naked chest. There, now ! you may breathe in a 
 natural way ; if I want you to breathe deeper, I will 
 
 tell you Do you want rue to tell you the plain 
 
 truth or humbug you with a nice story ? " 
 
 " The truth, doctor, the whole truth ! " 
 
 "Your lungs are in a bad way. The left lung, 
 through all this upper part under the collar-bone, is a 
 mass of tubercles, and some of them have softened. 
 The upper part of the right lung is tubercular, though 
 to a less extent, and the softening has not yet begun." 
 
 " There can be no mistake ? " 
 
 " Not the least. I can, with a piece of chalk, mark
 
 62 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the exact outline of the tubercular deposit as accu- 
 rately as though I had the lungs themselves in my 
 hands." 
 
 " How long do you think I shall live ? " 
 
 "About six months. I think you will die about 
 November." 
 
 Sitting with his face buried in his hands for several 
 minutes, I busied myself with writing a note, when, 
 with reddened eyes and trembling voice, he said, "I 
 would n't mind it for myself, sir, but a beautiful girl, 
 whom I love better than my own life, expects me to 
 come for her during the holidays next winter. It will 
 kill her, sir. Of course nothing can be done for me ? " 
 
 "Let me listen very carefully again, and then you 
 
 must give me a day to think of it Well, sir, I 
 
 have made up my mind upon the course which you 
 should pursue. I have written a letter to your friend 
 in England. There it is. I have left it open, of 
 course. Eead it. If you approve of it, send it off by 
 the first mail." 
 
 My letter was the following : 
 
 " DEAR LADY, Your friend George R. has applied to 
 me with reference to his health. I have carefully examined 
 his lungs, and find that he is in consumption. Both lungs 
 are seriously involved. In the natural or ordinary course 
 of things he will die in about six months. He has told me 
 with streaming eyes of the crushing grief this news will
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 63 
 
 bring to you. My dear lady, if you will come to us at 
 once, you and I will cure him. I am not holding out a 
 false light. If you will come and join your forces to mine, 
 
 we will save him. I am your friend, 
 
 D. L." 
 
 With a heart too full for utterance George withdrew 
 into the window, and when he could command his 
 voice, said, " What does all this mean ? Are you 
 serious ? I supposed this horrible disease was as 
 incurable as death." 
 
 The letter was sent. A horse and saddle were 
 purchased. He was so deeply impressed with the 
 absolute necessity of doing exactly as I prescribed, 
 that he started on his morning ride at exactly eight 
 o'clock to the minute. He rode, as soon as the first 
 soreness disappeared, exactly three hours and a half 
 every day, and always, as I prescribed, on a walk. In 
 a month it was three hours in the forenoon and two in 
 the afternoon. In a little more than two months Mary 
 arrived, and found that George was out for his morning 
 ride of four hours. She came at once to me, and with 
 an eagerness which was painful to witness asked, after 
 speaking her own name, " How is George ? For mer- 
 cy's sake, don't tell me he is worse ! " 
 
 The wedding occurred on Christmas, and my wife 
 insisted that it should come off at our house. Every 
 one of us cried, and that does seem so absurd at a 
 wedding !
 
 64 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Of course there is a part of his lung which does not 
 breathe, but then he is a healthy man and does a large 
 amount of work. His wife still writes us, and nearly 
 always closes her letter with something like this : " I 
 can't refrain from saying again, May God bless you for 
 saving the life, of my noble husband ! " And he writes 
 me that he still keeps his old motto over his desk, and 
 has it likewise in letters of gold in a beautiful frame 
 over his mantel : " A good saddle-horse can carry a 
 consumptive from the grave back into the midst of life 
 and health." 
 
 CONSUMPTION is found in every climate. Inhabitants 
 of the frozen regions and those who live under the 
 equator die of consumption. As to the United States, 
 there is no doubt whatever that New England has the 
 largest ratio of mortality from consumption; but the 
 difference is but slight, and is probably accounted for 
 on the ground of her immense cotton, woollen, and 
 other great factories, and her very close houses. A 
 person who lives much in the open air, and when at 
 home sits by an open fire and sleeps with an open 
 window, is rather safer from consumption than the 
 inhabitants of Florida. A person born in New Hamp- 
 shire is a trifle safer staying at home and pursuing a 
 hygienic life than he can be by going to Florida 
 
 Sir James Clarke, Dr. Carriere, a distinguished
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 65 
 
 Frenchman, and Dr. Burgess, a thoughtful Scotchman, 
 have written ably, and with much spirit, against the 
 idea that a change of climate is curative of pulmonary 
 consumption. " That a warm climate is not in itself 
 beneficial, is shown from the fact that consumption 
 exists in all climates. In India and Africa it is as 
 frequent as in Europe and North America. At Malta, 
 in the heart of the genial Mediterranean, one third of 
 the deaths among the soldiers is by consumption. At 
 Nice, a favorite resort of those who are afflicted with 
 lung complaints, there are more native-born persons 
 die of consumption than in any English town of equal 
 population. . .*. . Naples, with its boasted climate, 
 shows in her hospitals a mortality by consumption 
 equal to one in two and one third, whereas in Paris 
 the proportion is only equal to one in three and one 
 quarter." 
 
 " The proportion of deaths from consumption," says 
 Keith Johnson, " indicates how little mere climate has 
 to do with the extent of this disease ; since, while it is 
 almost unknown in the Madras Presidency of India, it 
 is more frequent at the Cape of Good Hope than in 
 the Northern United States, nearly even in Britain and 
 British North America, and nearly the same at Gibral- 
 tar as in the West Indies."
 
 66 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ATMOSPHERIC IMPURITIES. 
 
 THERE are some impurities in the atmosphere which 
 have been thought favorable to the lungs. The coal- 
 smoke of cities has been so regarded. It has been like- 
 wise asserted that consumption, when actually devel- 
 oped, is less rapid in its progress in an atmosphere of 
 coal-smoke. The same opinion prevails with reference 
 to many odors and effluvia, but it may well be doubted 
 whether a pure, odorless atmosphere is susceptible of 
 improvement. The " balsamic odors " of certain forests 
 have long enjoyed a reputation for healing maladies of 
 the lungs, but I think their virtues come from the out- 
 door life which wandering among these groves involves. 
 If the odor of pine forests and tar-kilns were concen- 
 trated in the air of a furnace-heated house, I fancy that 
 life in that atmosphere would not favor the lungs. But 
 I have no doubt that living in the pine forests of Upper 
 Georgia has often cured consumption. 
 
 But if you will select two consumptives in similar 
 condition, and you will take one to saunter in the ele- 
 vated pine regions of the South, I will let you select 
 the most unhealthy locality in the Northern States, 
 and I will take my case there. Now, if you will give 
 me plenty of flannels and a saddle-horse, I will wager 
 you a farm that my patient will recover sooner than
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHA TS. 6 7 
 
 yours. You may take your case to the hills of San 
 Domingo, and have him live gently and quietly, and I 
 will take mine to the worst region of New England, 
 and with the flannels and saddle I will cure my patient 
 in half the time it will take to cure yours. 
 
 YES, I know very well that the doctors prescribe 
 whiskey for consumption, but not a quarter as much as 
 they did five years ago ; and within five years from this 
 time the same doctors who now prescribe it will be as 
 much ashamed of it as they are now of half a dozen 
 other prescriptions for consumption which have had 
 their run within the last thirty years. In medicine 
 fashions change about as often as they do in dress. 
 
 SHALL I MARRY? You ask us if you had better 
 marry. You say that both of your parents died of 
 consumption, and that you have had indications of the 
 disease. You can judge as well as anybody of the 
 desirability of bringing half a dozen children into 
 existence to go through with the same terrible experi- 
 ences as that through which your parents passed. It 
 is a fearful responsibility to take upon yourself. "With 
 our notions there are few crimes so grave as marriage 
 by persons who inherit consumption, insanity, or epi- 
 lepsy.
 
 68 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 EXPANDING THE CHEST. 
 
 - TAKE a strong rope, and fasten it to a beam over- 
 head ; to the lower end of the rope attach a stick three 
 feet long, convenient to grasp with the hands. The 
 rope should be fastened to the centre of the stick, 
 which should hang six or eight inches above the head. 
 Let a person grasp this stick with the hands two or 
 three feet apart, and swing very moderately at first, 
 perhaps only bear the weight, if very weak, and 
 gradually increase, as the muscles gain strength from 
 the exercise, until it may be used from three to five 
 times daily. The connection of the arms with the 
 body, with the exception of the clavicle with the 
 breast-bone, being a muscular attachment to the ribs, 
 the effect of this exercise is to elevate the ribs and en- 
 large the chest. Nature allows no vacuum, and the 
 lungs expand to fill the cavity, increasing the volume 
 of air, the natural purifier of blood, and preventing the 
 congestion or the deposit of tuberculous matter. We 
 have prescribed the above for all cases of hemorrhage 
 of the lungs and threatened consumption of thirty-five 
 years, and have been able to increase the measure of 
 the chest from two to four inches within a few months, 
 and with good results. But especially as a preventive 
 we would recommend this exercise. Let those who
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 69 
 
 love to live strive to develop a well-formed, capacious 
 chest. The student, the merchant, the sedentary, the 
 young of both sexes, ay, all, should have a swing 
 on which to stretch themselves daily. We are certain 
 that if this were to be practised by the rising generation 
 in a dress allowing a free and full development of the 
 body, many would be saved from consumption. Inde- 
 pendently of its beneficial results, the exercise is an 
 exceedingly pleasant one, and as the apparatus costs 
 very little, there need be no difficulty about any one 
 enjoying it who wishes to. 
 
 OUR FLANNELS. 
 
 THE value of flannel next the skin cannot be over- 
 rated. It is invaluable to persons of both sexes and 
 all ages, in all countries, in all climates, at every sea- 
 son of the year, for the sick and the well; in brief, I 
 cannot conceive of any circumstances in which flannel 
 next the skin is not a comfort and a source of health. 
 It should not be changed from thick to thin before the 
 settled hot weather of the summer, which in our. North- 
 ern States is not much before the middle of June, and 
 often not before the first of July. And the flannels for 
 the summer must not be three quarters cotton, but 
 they must be all woollen, if you would have the best 
 protection.
 
 70 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 In the British army and navy they make the wear- 
 ing of flannel a point of discipline. During the hot 
 season the ship's doctor makes a daily examination of 
 the men at unexpected hours, to make sure that they 
 have not left off their flannels. 
 
 HORSEBACK IN WINTER. 
 
 I SEE no reason why you may not continue to ride 
 on horseback all winter. The " saddle " is warm work, 
 and if you dress your legs in two thicknesses of woollen 
 drawers, one thickness of chamois-skin, and thick pants, 
 and give the same thorough protection to the feet, in 
 brief, if you will give yourself dress enough, not only 
 can you ride all ' winter in the coldest weather and 
 through all the storms without suffering, but with posi- 
 tive enjoyment and great profit. I think the saddle- 
 horse is a more profitable institution during the cold 
 than the hot season. 
 
 NAMES OF OUR MALADIES. 
 
 A COKRESPONDENT tells me that one physician says 
 he has " colonic dyspepsia " ; another says he has " gas- 
 tric difficulty " ; No. 3 says it is " irritation of the 
 mucous membrane and disordered liver," etc. And he
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 71 
 
 closes his four pages with these words, "hoping you 
 will give me a name for my complaint," etc. 
 
 Nothing surprises me more than the eagerness, the 
 feverish anxiety, people show about the names of their 
 maladies. When I remember that the name of a mal- 
 ady means little or nothing, even to a doctor, after he 
 has spent a lifetime in studying the nomenclature of 
 his profession, it is really curious that the people should 
 be so solicitous about the name. One doctor has told 
 a patient that his trouble is " colonic dyspepsia ! " Now, 
 does he know anything more about it than he did be- 
 fore ? Another tells him it is a " gastric difficulty ! " I 
 wonder how much information he gets from that diag- 
 nosis. And the third doctor tells him " irritation of the 
 mucous membrane," etc. Does that give him any no- 
 tion of his malady ? I presume he has all these diffi- 
 culties, and that every other part of his body is out of 
 condition ; for when one member suffers, all the other 
 members must suffer with it. I have no doubt that at 
 least one hundred names of maladies might be truth- 
 fully applied to his case. But of what possible use or 
 satisfaction can this sort of thing be to him ? He is not 
 well ; that fact is to him an important and interesting 
 one. The only other question in which a sensible man 
 can feel any interest is, What will cure him ? A lady 
 who employed a homoeopathic doctor heard him repeat 
 the law of that school of medicine, similia similibus
 
 72 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 curantur, and she understood it to be his name for her 
 malady. So she went about among her friends, saying, 
 " Thank goodness, I have found out at last the name of 
 my disease, it is the similia similibus curantur. Now 
 I begin to see my way clear. Dr. B. told me it was 
 nothing but debility. That shows how much he knows ! 
 Dr. W. said it was indigestion. That shows how much 
 he knows ! Dr. S. told me it was similia similibus cu- 
 rantur just as soon as he saw me. Don't tell me these 
 homoeopathic doctors are ignorant ! " I wonder if this 
 woman had not as clear a notion of her malady as my 
 correspondent has with the "irritation of the mucous 
 membrane." I rather think she has. 
 
 I saw a bit of nonsense in the paper the other day 
 which I thought good in the way of a name for a 
 malady. 
 
 "Yes," said Bolus, rolling his eyes heavenward, 
 " yes, I do say so ; there ain't no hope : he 's got an 
 attack of nihil Jit in his lost frontis." 
 
 " Where ? " cried the startled wife. 
 
 " In his lost frontis ; and he can't be cured without 
 some trouble and a great deal of pains. You see his 
 whole planetary system is deranged. Firstly, his vox 
 populi is pressin' on his ad valorem ; secondly, his cuta- 
 carpial cutaneous has swelled considerably, if not more ; 
 thirdly, his solar ribs are in a concussed state; and, 
 finally, he ain't got any money, and consequently he is 
 "bound to die"
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS, 73 
 
 I will not say that this doctor's diagnosis was as sci- 
 entific as some I have heard, but I think the friends 
 of the sick man got quite as distinct a notion as people 
 generally obtain from the technical names which are 
 given them. 
 
 CEKEBKO-SPINAL MENINGITIS. 
 
 IT is almost worth while being sick, if one can only 
 have a malady with a fine name. A lady came to me, 
 perhaps a year ago, and gravely told me, " I am suffer- 
 ing from polarization of the cerebro-spinal axis." She 
 was sure this was her malady. A certain doctor who 
 was educated in Europe had carefully examined her 
 case, and assured her that the malady was " polariza- 
 tion of the cerebro-spinal axis." The doctor advised a 
 European trip, with the use of iodide of potassium and 
 bromide of potassium. She wished me to examine her 
 case and tell her what I thought of it. After a few in- 
 quiries, I said, " It 's the backache. You must take off 
 your corsets, keep your feet warm, and go to bed at nine 
 o'clock." She soon got well, but I think was never 
 altogether satisfied with giving up that grand name for 
 plain backache, or with exchanging iodide of potassium 
 for abandonment of corset, or bromide of potassium for 
 bed at nine o'clock. 
 
 Cerebro-spinal meningitis is not, as many people 
 
 4
 
 74 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 seem to think, a specific disease, like small-pox, but 
 exhaustion accompanied by irritation or inflammation 
 of the membranes of the brain and spinal cord. It is a 
 logical result of our past mode of life. We breathe a 
 bad air, live in the shade, neglect exercise, keep bad 
 hours, and rush things generally. Naturally, our heads 
 and backs become exhausted, and one now and then 
 takes on a little congestion of those parts and dies. 
 The same disease has prevailed among the exhausted for 
 hundreds of years, but now a new and grand name has 
 been invented for it. No one who leads a sensible life 
 will be likely to suffer from an attack of this malady. 
 
 ISN'T IT CURIOUS? 
 
 MY dear friend Dr. M. was one of the most acute 
 physicians I have ever known. His diagnosis seemed 
 often to verge upon clairvoyance. A peculiar kind of 
 sore throat prevailed during the winter of '68. It was 
 a modified diphtheria. Not many died, but the affec- 
 tion was most disagreeable, and cases often lasted 
 several weeks. Dr. M. prescribed for nearly two 
 hundred. I asked him about his prescriptions. He 
 described his usual course, and I saw that it involved 
 quite a number of drugs. Happening to call at the 
 doctor's one evening, I learned that Mrs. M. and the
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 75 
 
 four children had all been seized with the prevailing 
 epidemic. The doctor soon returned and I said, point- 
 ing to his sick group, 
 
 " More business, doctor ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. M., " but he never gives us any- 
 thing." 
 
 " How is this, doctor ? " I asked. 
 
 " If my family were the family of some one else," he 
 replied, " I should prescribe fifty times or more, and 
 make a bill of a hundred dollars ; but as I am satisfied 
 that warm extremities, a good atmosphere, and very 
 simple food is all there is of it, I shall not afflict my 
 family with doses and caustic." 
 
 I learned, upon a subsequent inquiry, that the doc- 
 tor's family took no drugs, and he assured me that they 
 did better than the average. I urged the doctor to 
 give me his candid opinion about it, and he confessed 
 that he thought medical treatment generally interfered 
 with the recovery of the patient. When I asked him 
 how he could conscientiously go on, he replied, "I 
 have thought of this matter very seriously for years, 
 and have concluded that I must take the world as 
 it is, and not as the ideal world of which I some- 
 times dream. The people will be doctored, and I hon- 
 estly believe that I hurt them less than most physi- 
 cians, and that, if they were to pass out of my hands, 
 they might go into those of others who would injure
 
 76 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 them more. My family must have a support. I am a 
 doctor. Now you have my reasoning. Knowing what 
 I do, I should not choose the profession of medicine if 
 I could start in life again; but it is too late to con- 
 sider that, and all that is left to me is to do as little 
 harm and as much good as possible." 
 
 I said, "It seems to me that no profession offers 
 such an opportunity for usefulness as the medical ; and 
 if I could start in life a hundred times, I should choose 
 it every time. But I would not drug my patients. I 
 would convince them that drugs were poisons, and 
 spend my life teaching the people how to avoid dis- 
 ease." 
 
 " yes," said Dr. M. " I have cherished such 
 an ambition at various times during my professional 
 career, and I have tried it among the more intelligent 
 of my patients. I will give you a case. You remem- 
 ber Mrs. D., the writer? Well, she came here to 
 spend the summer with her sister, and soon after 
 her arrival suffered the severest attack of neuralgia 
 I have ever witnessed. I made hot applications to 
 the back of her neck and the side of her face till she 
 was comfortable ; and, giving her a few doses of sooth- 
 ing medicine, I left, with the promise to call in the 
 morning. I found her quite easy, and resolved not to 
 drug her exquisite brain any more. I directed the 
 nursing, and at the end of about a week she was well.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 77 
 
 Then I told her how she might avoid all future attacks. 
 At her request I wrote out the suggested regimen. 
 She paid me forty dollars. I believe that was six years 
 ago. She has spent a portion of every summer since 
 in this neighborhood. I met her the other day, and 
 she told me that she had not suffered a single attack 
 from her old enemy since she began to follow iny ad- 
 vice, and that she was greatly indebted to me. Now, 
 sir, that advice cost me probably more than two hun- 
 dred dollars. I could go around among my ' patients 
 and talk to them about the laws of health in a way 
 which would simply destroy my means of living. I 
 could not buy bread and clothes for my children. I 
 have no doubt it would be very noble and philanthropic, 
 and all that sort of thing, but I can't afford it, and 
 have made up my mind not to go into any moral hero- 
 ics and play the reformer, but do as well as I can under 
 the circumstances, always making sure that my wife 
 and children have something to eat. Whatever may 
 come, that is my first duty. Besides all this, if I were 
 to pursue this reformer policy, my professional brethren 
 would call me a quack ; and when that cry gets started, 
 even the people whom I have served well would for- 
 sake me. No, my friend," said Dr. M. to me, "I am 
 not made of the great reformer stuff, and must get 
 along in the old orthodox way."
 
 78 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 DOCTORS PAINTED BY ONE OF THEMSELVES. 
 
 ONE of the cleverest of our medical writers thus 
 frankly expresses his opinion of his own craft, and 
 of medicine-taking generally. " I declare," says Dr. 
 James Johnson, " my conscientious opinion, founded on 
 long observation and reflection, that if there was not a 
 single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, 
 chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, 
 there would be less sickness and less mortality than 
 now obtains. When we reflect that physic is a ' con- 
 jectural art,' that the best physicians make mistakes, 
 that medicine is administered by hosts of quacks, that 
 it is swallowed by multitudes of people without any 
 professional advice at all, and that the world would be 
 infinitely more careful of themselves if they were con- 
 scious that they had no remedy from drugs, these and 
 many other facts will show that the proposition I have 
 made is more startling than untrue. But, as it is, 
 drugs will be swallowed by all classes, rich and poor, 
 with the hope of regaining health and prolonging life, 
 and also with the expectation of being able to counter- 
 act the culpable indulgence of the appetites and pas- 
 sions."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 79 
 
 HOW TO GAIN A REPUTATION. 
 
 NOTHING helps a doctor like mysteries. A man has 
 a pain in the head and back. He calls on the doctor. 
 He explains his symptoms. Now, suppose the doctor 
 says, " Yes, I see. Pain in the head and back, tired. 
 You, sir, must rest ; go to bed early for a few evenings ; 
 you must let up, rest ! You are exhausted, that 's 
 all." Now, that won't satisfy you ; there is no science 
 about that. You know all that yourself. You went 
 to the doctor to learn something about your case, and 
 if all he can tell you is, that you are tired and have got 
 the backache, what 's the use of the accumulated medi- 
 cal wisdom of three thousand years ? Any child could 
 tell you that you are tired and have the backache. 
 
 But suppose the doctor carefully examines the back 
 of your head, and your spine, and asks a dozen ques- 
 tions about the precise location of the pain, what time 
 in the day it appears, etc., all sorts of nice, ingenious 
 questions, and then, after some moments of profound 
 thought, he tells you that he is sorry to say that this is 
 a rare case. It is exactly like one reported by a distin- 
 guished German physiologist. The sufferer was a well- 
 known military man. The doctor then proceeds to 
 write a prescription in Latin. There are half a dozen 
 ingredients, and he informs 'you that the prescription is
 
 80 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 an exact duplicate of that which was used for the Ger- 
 man general, with the exception of a single ingredient, 
 which he adds because of the difference in climate. 
 Now, don't you know that you rather think that this 
 doctor knows what 's what ? And although you " con- 
 found his big names and Latin nonsense," still it looks 
 as though the accumulated wisdom of the three thou- 
 sand years was something after all At any rate, this 
 cerebro-spinal axis doctor is miles ahead of the back- 
 ache chap. 
 
 AND YET HE WAS NOT HAPPY. In 1871, Dr. Wil- 
 liams sued the Cambrian Railway Company for ser- 
 vices rendered to Mr. Dashwood and Miss Dashwood, 
 who had been injured on defendant's road. By request 
 of the defendant, the plaintiff submitted the particulars, 
 and swore to their correctness. Among the items for 
 Mr. Dashwood were 755 doses of medicine, 73 lotions, 
 and 100 pills and powders, in seven weeks. 
 
 THE way to cultivate a good walk is to swing your 
 arms freely and practise carrying a weight on your 
 head. Let it be some heavy weight like a foot-square 
 bag filled with grain. When about your house, carry 
 this half an hour morning and evening, swinging your 
 arms freely while walking with the weight.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 HOW MUCH SHALL WE EAT? 
 
 SIR JAMES CLARKE thought that one of the most 
 fruitful sources of consumption was excessive eating. 
 He says, " By a too stimulating diet the stomach 
 becomes disordered, the secretions impaired,- the 
 circulation unbalanced, the skin dry and harsh ; 
 and often, as a consequence, tuberculous disease 
 results." 
 
 An eminent American author affirms that, "where 
 all the arts of cookery are brought into requisition to 
 tempt the appetite, it not unfrequently produces con- 
 sumption." And again, " Superabundant and exciting 
 food produces a morbid condition of the body, and de- 
 rangement of its functions, rapidly wasting its vitality. 
 Children overfed are never healthy. Their excessive 
 fulness and redness of face, though often exhibited 
 by fond parents with pride, indicate an unhealthy 
 condition. If there is the least consumptive taint, 
 such feeding hastens it into activity." Again he says, 
 " It is a false notion that the scrofulous and tuberculous 
 require high feeding. This often develops the very 
 evil it is designed to remedy." 
 
 Dr. Hunt declares, " Our own nation is proverbial 
 for gormandizing, which is already beginning to dete- 
 riorate the energies of the American people." 
 
 4*
 
 82 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Dr. Muzzey says, " Much feeding is likely to be fol- 
 lowed by disease." 
 
 Lola Montez declares that "the ordinary fare of a 
 fashionable lady is sufficient to destroy the brightest 
 and smoothest skin." 
 
 I could quote from a great number of well-known 
 physicians in the same vein. 
 
 How shall we determine the necessary quantity of 
 food? 
 
 Dr. Phillips and Dr. Paris recommend that "the 
 dyspeptic should carefully attend to the first feeling of 
 satiety." 
 
 A score of eminent physiologists have advised weigh- 
 ing the food. 
 
 Professor Hitchcock advises that we should eat only 
 of one dish, or, as he explains it afterward, one course. 
 
 The celebrated Dr. Johnson offers the following on 
 this point: "Whenever a meal is followed by an in- 
 aptitude for mental or corporeal exertion, we have 
 transgressed the rules of health, and are laying the 
 foundation for disease." 
 
 The famous Dr. Cheyne says, " If any man has eaten 
 or drunk so much as renders him unfit for the duties 
 and studies of his profession, he has overeaten." 
 
 Many expedients have been resorted to to assist in 
 securing moderation ; but, when the food is good and 
 the social atmosphere pleasant, nine people in ten go 
 too far.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 83 
 
 I have a rule which has proved valuable. I have 
 recommended it to many others, to whom it has like- 
 wise proved of great value. It is this: "Before you 
 take the first mouthful, place upon your plate all you 
 are to eat, and eat but twice a day." 
 
 This, for the most obvious reasons, is greatly superior 
 to any of the rules I have named, and, I may add, to 
 all that have been given. This rule accomplishes all 
 that the practice of weighing does, without the embar- 
 rassment and annoyance which weighing involves. It 
 is better than the rule of Dr. Johnson and others, 
 namely, watching while you are eating for the first in- 
 dication of satiety, for it is simply impossible for a dys- 
 peptic, with his morbid appetite, to watch, or halt when 
 he does discover that the food fails to give the gratifica- 
 tion of the first moment. This is indeed the great diffi- 
 culty, to use calm judgment and moral firmness in 
 the midst of the pleasures of a delicious meal. I am 
 free to confess that I have rarely done it myself, and 
 think I may without harsh judgment say I do not 
 know of half a dozen persons who can. 
 
 Besides, with this rule, you always avoid the dessert, 
 and the condiments, which, in the shape of extra salt, 
 mustard, pepper, etc., are almost sure to find their way 
 to your plate during the meal. What an immense gain 
 it would prove to us all if the dessert could be abolished ! 
 Ninety-nine people in a hundred get enough, and most 
 of them too much, before reaching it.
 
 84 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A gentleman who has for many years been a con- 
 stant sufferer from excessive eating body and mind 
 always in an irritable condition has relieved himself 
 entirely through the rule I have named, and writes 
 with enthusiasm, "I believe that a large number of 
 persons are prepared to give with heartiness the same 
 testimony." 
 
 I CANNOT say that you should never drink at meal- 
 time. You may drink if you are thirsty. If you are 
 really thirsty, or if your system needs water, you should 
 take it before you begin to eat, or you may take it while 
 you are eating. But you must be sure that it is not a 
 mere habit of drinking to swallow the food, as that is a 
 very bad habit. If you are really thirsty, the water will 
 be pumped out of your stomach in a very few moments, 
 and the process of digestion will go on. 
 
 ICE-CREAM is not particularly bad, if it be eaten 
 very slowly. If the question is, "Does ice-cream 
 belong to the best class of foods ? " I should say no. 
 The best class of food includes the grains, meats 
 with cooked vegetables, and fruits. If one wishes to 
 eat so as to get the most enjoyment and work out 
 of his body, let him confine himself to the best 
 class. A great many people are constantly prospect- 
 ing about the great field of possible foods, as if it
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 85 
 
 were their mission to investigate the whole subject 
 for the jjood of the race. 
 
 NEW BEEAD. I have recently had my attention 
 drawn to the unwholesomeness of new bread. I am sat- 
 isfied that new bread raised with yeast is about the 
 most unwholesome article of food that we eat. To many 
 persons it is worse even than mince-pie, ounce for 
 ounce. Bread should be at least twenty-four hours old 
 before it goes into the stomach. 
 
 A SCROFULOUS person should eat beef, mutton, 
 cracked wheat, and oatmeal, and avoid trash of any 
 kind whatever. The food should be eaten slowly, and 
 thoroughly masticated. The supper should be very 
 small, or if possible take nothing for the third meal. 
 
 " JOHNNY, my dear, can't you eat some more ? " 
 
 " No, mother ; I am so full, I can't swallow another 
 mouthful." . . 
 
 " Johnny, could n't you eat a little more if you were 
 to stand up ? " 
 
 Not only do mothers stuff their children into fevers 
 and bowel diseases, and numberless other troubles, but 
 they lay the foundation for that craving appetite which 
 in all their future life leads to so much mischief.
 
 86 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 The cure is to be found in extremely plain food. 
 Little Carrie comes to see us occasionally, and I am 
 always interested with the wise mother's management 
 of her food. From the beginning she has given her 
 bread without butter, and potatoes without butter. Her 
 favorite dinner is boiled mealy potatoes, and nothing 
 on or with them ; no cake, or pie, or sweetmeats. The 
 child is perfectly satisfied, and is a wonder of health 
 and strength. 
 
 FAT FOLKS AND THIN FOLKS. 
 
 CLESAR says to Antony, 
 
 " Let me have men about me that are fat, 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights ; 
 Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look, 
 He thinks too much ; such men are dangerous." 
 
 A story is told of an Irish tallow-chandler who made 
 candles with the fat of Englishmen during Cromwell's 
 invasion. His candles were remarkably good. When 
 the times became more tranquil, his customers com- 
 plained that his candles fell off in quality. He apolo- 
 gized by saying, " I am sorry to inform you that the 
 times are so bad that I have been short of Englishmen 
 a long time." 
 
 Obesity has been regarded in all ages, and by nearly 
 all people, as a great misfortune. Some of the Gentoos
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 87 
 
 enter their dwellings by a hole in the roof, and if a 
 person is so fat that he can't get in, they regard him as 
 an outlaw, swelled out big with sin. In China obesity 
 is considered a blessing. In that great country a man's 
 mind is measured by his corporeal bulk. 
 
 Over Dr. Stafford, who was enormously fat, they 
 placed the following epitaph: 
 
 "Take heed, good traveller, and do not tread hard, 
 For here lies Dr. Stafford, in all this churchyard." 
 
 Over a corpulent chandler they inscribed : 
 
 "Here lies in earth an honest fellow, 
 Who died by fat, and lived by tallow." 
 
 Dr. Beddoes was so stout that a lady friend used to 
 call him the " walking feather-bed." 
 
 At the court of Louis XV. there were two very fat 
 noblemen, cousins. The king rallied one of them on 
 his corpulency, and added, " I suppose you take little 
 or no exercise ? " 
 
 " Your Majesty will pardon me," replied the Duke, 
 " for I generally walk two or three times around my 
 cousin every morning." 
 
 Many remedies have been resorted to : vinegar and 
 other acids have been used. Dr. Fleming advised the 
 swallowing of a quarter of an ounce of common Castile 
 soap every night. Darwin thinks that salt and salt 
 meat are efficacious.
 
 88 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Mr. Banting, an Englishman, became very fat, and 
 strove by all sorts of means to rid himself of his en- 
 cumbrance, and at length hit upon a method, which 
 he took great pains to recommend to others. This was 
 to live exclusively on meat. In 1863, Mr. Banting 
 published a pamphlet giving the secret of his relief. 
 He tells us that the sorts of food which he particularly 
 advises fat people to avoid are " butter, sugar, potatoes, 
 milk, and beer." He urges that there need be no stint 
 in quantity. The only thing requiring attention is the 
 quality. He argues with much force and spirit against 
 sugar and other sweet things. He thinks that saccharine 
 matter is of all food most fattening. Banting's system 
 has attracted considerable attention. Thousands of the 
 waddling Germans have tried it, but now few believe 
 in it ; not that it will not reduce the flesh, for it will 
 certainly do that, but because it reduces it by pro- 
 ducing a diseased condition, particularly of the kidneys. 
 Many grave cases of disease of the kidneys produced by 
 the Banting system are reported from Germany. 
 
 The only safe and effective treatment of obesity is a 
 reduction in the quantity of the usual food, an increase 
 of exercise, and a reduction of the hours of sleep. This 
 should be gradually pushed until the reduction in 
 weight is one to two pounds a week. This cannot fail, 
 and will invariably improve the health.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 89 
 
 CHATS WITH YOUNG FOLKS ABOUT AMUSE- 
 MENTS. 
 
 I THINK that theatres are the most popular of 
 the city amusements. They are very numerous and 
 very grand. The newspapers, fences, and buildings 
 are covered with descriptions of them. A great num- 
 ber of well-paid people perform in them, and fortunes 
 are realized by the proprietors. Nearly all this ocean 
 of money which pours into the coffers of the theatres 
 conies from the pockets of young people who are so 
 hungry for amusements. 
 
 I have attended the theatre several times lately to 
 observe. The young folks don't seem very happy. 
 Getting into a position where I could watch their 
 faces, I have not been able to detect much real enjoy- 
 ment. Indeed, after the first hour they looked dull 
 and dissatisfied. At the close I have placed myself 
 in the lobby and' listened to their remarks as they 
 passed out. They have not enjoyed it. 
 
 There is so little genuine pleasure in the theatre, 
 that I wonder that our young people continue to flock 
 to it. It is not my purpose to discuss the large expense 
 nor the morals of the theatre. I am only considering 
 what are its claims as a place of amusement. I do not 
 urge the execrable atmosphere which one must breathe 
 for hours, and which always leaves one's brain a little
 
 90 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 muddled the next day or longer. I only ask, Does 
 the theatre really satisfy the longing for amusement 
 among the young? It seems to me that the unprej- 
 udiced observer must conclude that it is a dull, stu- 
 pid, unsatisfactory institution. Its immense patronage 
 shows how poor are our resources. 
 
 Let us see. There 's dancing. Nothing could be 
 more delightful. But then they have so abused it that 
 all good people oppose it. They dance at such un- 
 seasonable hours, and then several concomitants of 
 the ballroom are so bad, that good people denounce 
 dancing itself. If dancing could be generally managed 
 as it was at the Lexington institution, begun at half 
 past seven o'clock each evening, and closed at half past 
 eight o'clock, and engaged in without a change of dress, 
 no one would find evil in it, and it would become 
 the most delightful family and neighborhood amuse- 
 ment imaginable. The old and young, parents and 
 children, mingle in a most charming spirit. It is the 
 best school of graceful manners, and is, altogether, if 
 managed wisely, the very best of the amusements. 
 My mother taught me that dancing was a dreadful sin. 
 She would exclaim, " O, they dance their way down to 
 hell ! " I did not really find out that she was mistaken 
 till I was more than thirty years old, but since then I 
 have tried to make up for lost time, though I have 
 never attended a ball in my life.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 91 
 
 Battledore and graces are capital fun and exercise 
 for in-doors, and ball base-ball especially and cro- 
 quet are fine out-door amusements. And then these 
 delightful books ! How any one, even boys and girls, 
 can be drawn to the theatre when they have Dickens, 
 Eggleston, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain at home sur- 
 prises me ! 
 
 The other night I asked a number of young people 
 to drop in at our rooms, and hear Cornelia read a few 
 chapters from Mr. Eggleston's last story. They were 
 just the sort of young folks that you see running about 
 the streets a little after seven o'clock every evening in 
 eager pursuit of amusements. As soon as they all 
 arrived, I said, " Now arrange yourselves to your lik- 
 ing, pairing off just to suit you." At nine o'clock I 
 suggested an adjournment. " No, no ! " was heard 
 from every part of the house. At ten o'clock I refused 
 to have our reader taxed any further, and then they 
 were interrogated about their enjoyment of the evening. 
 
 " I never, never enjoyed an evening so in all my 
 life," was the general testimony. 
 
 " Would you like to come again ? " 
 
 " 0, please, to-morrow night ! " 
 
 The next night they were all there, and several extra 
 ones were brought along. 
 
 "You don't mean to say that you have enjoyed this 
 as well as the theatre ? "
 
 92 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 " Yes, a million times better," said one enthusiastic 
 girl. 
 
 SKATING is fashionable. It is a good exercise if taken 
 in the open air. The rink is a rather doubtful institu- 
 tion. The atmosphere, without sunshine, gives a good 
 many colds. The rink will quickly pass out of fashion. 
 
 As a means of exercise, battledore or graces or bean- 
 bags are worth ten times as much as skating under 
 even the most favorable circumstances. What you 
 want is something for the arms and chest, and not more 
 for the legs. Let girls play these fine arm and chest 
 games during the cold season in the largest room in the 
 house, with open windows. And, dear girls, loosen the 
 strings and give your lungs fair play. 
 
 BASE-BALL. 
 
 A CAPITAL exercise. A charming recreation. Activ- 
 ity, endurance, .quick eyes, steady nerves, pluck, force, 
 these are all wonderfully reinforced by this game. 
 What a pity that it should fall into the hands of gam- 
 blers ! Only five years ago thousands of our best 
 young men were members of base-ball clubs. Now 
 they have retired from the field, or perhaps they go to 
 witness matches between peregrinating professionals, 
 who play for a purse and the championship. Then it
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 93 
 
 was simply a means of health and innocent enjoyment. 
 Now thousands of dollars are bet upon a match be- 
 tween the " Eed Legs " and the " Green Legs." It 
 would be worth more than a constitutional amendment 
 if we could go back to the true uses of this national 
 game. 
 
 PELEG STANDISH. 
 
 Tins gentleman was born of parents in New Hamp- 
 shire, and came to the city to seek his fortune twenty 
 years ago. Peleg was then twenty years old. He 
 prospered. At forty he was rich. He retired. I don't 
 speak of his going to bed. He retired from business. 
 Then he went to Europe. Five years was the time 
 named when he left, one year in Great Britain, one 
 in France, one in Eome, and two in Germany to finish 
 the education of his daughters. After four months 
 they returned, and Mr. Standish called upon me with 
 reference to his health. 
 
 "I have caught the dyspepsia," was his opinion. 
 Mr. Standish is a particularly bright man, and seems to 
 know when he is comfortable. In the course of a long 
 conversation he gives me his opinion of going to 
 Europe. 
 
 " 0, it 's jolly ! " he said. " It 's delightful. There is 
 nothing like it. In the first place, you gasp for two
 
 94 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 weeks in a dry-goods box without any hole in it, mis- 
 erably sick, your wife sick, your daughter sick, vomit- 
 ing, retching, groaning. Your wife cries out, ' Peleg, 
 O Peleg, can't you do something for Mary? dear 
 me ! that poor child will die, I am sure ! O mercy, 
 do hear her ! ' Such are the delights of a trip across 
 the ocean. You go to France. Now, the French jab- 
 ber is all very well, I have no doubt, to those who get 
 the hang of it. My girls thought they had caught it, 
 and I have heard them say to their teachers here, 
 ' Will you give me my good uncle's hat ? ' first-rate, but 
 good gracious ! you ought to have seen their eyes 
 stick out when those coach-drivers went into their 
 powwow. Well, I stood that sort of thing till I came 
 near dying with what the girls call the onweeg, and I 
 just took my crowd and made a rush for the sauer-kraut 
 chaps. Well, sir, we tried their guzzle and chokers till 
 we could n't swallow, and then I just went for Eng- 
 land, where I could live without the onweeg, or what- 
 ever you call it. I wanted to come home then, but the 
 girls declared they should not be able to look anybody 
 in the face after being gone only six weeks ; and so I 
 waited till I began to get the dyspepsia, and then we 
 vomited our way back home. Now, if you can get 
 this iron wedge out of my stomach, I propose to go 
 at something, if it 's nothing but running a peanut- 
 stand."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 95 
 
 LINE UPON LINE. 
 
 You need not fear, at least for the present, any ex- 
 cess of zeal in health questions. Look about you. How 
 much attention is given to health ? There are very few 
 persons who deny their appetites with reference to their 
 health. 
 
 I know a middle-aged gentleman in this neighbor- 
 hood who has the management of one of our railroads. 
 He came about four years ago to get some advice about 
 his health. Late hours, tobacco, rich food, and over- 
 work had nearly wrecked him. Our interview lasted 
 several hours, and he went home resolved. Now he is 
 one of the happiest, because one of the healthiest, of 
 men. If the entire stock of his railway had been pre- 
 sented to him, it would have been nothing compared 
 with the few simple ideas about his health. Do you 
 suppose he is the only person in the country who could 
 be enriched in this simple way ? To a greater or less 
 extent, three fourths of. the population between six 
 years and forty years of age are waiting to receive the 
 greatest of earthly blessings, a dear conception of the 
 sources of health. 
 
 Extract of the speech of Lord Derby, at Liverpool, 
 April 10, 1872:- 
 
 " I am deeply convinced that no sanitary improve-
 
 96 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ment worth the name will be effected, whatever acts 
 you pass or whatever powers you confer upon public 
 officers, unless they can create a real and intelligent in- 
 terest in the matter among the people at large. In the 
 first place, you can't get laws effectually put in force 
 where they interfere with the profits or convenience of 
 individuals, unless they are supported by opinion. In 
 the next place, whatever administrative measures can 
 do for the public health, and they can do a great 
 deal, they can never supersede the necessity for per- 
 sonal and private care. It is no good providing pure 
 water for drinking, if those who are meant to consume 
 it prefer less innocent fluids. It is no good purifying 
 the atmosphere from smoke and foul vapors, though 
 that is one of the objects which we ought to keep 
 most steadily in view, if when people have got clean 
 air they won't let it into their houses. The State 
 may issue directions, municipal authorities may exe- 
 cute them to the best of their power, inspectors may 
 travel about, medical authorities may draw up reports, 
 but you can't make a population cleanly or healthy 
 against their will, or without their intelligent co-opera- 
 tion." 
 
 Extract from the speech of the Rt. Hon. B. Disraeli, 
 at Manchester, April 3, 1872 : 
 
 " After all, the first consideration of a minister should 
 be the health of the people. A land may be covered
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 97 
 
 with historic trophies, with museums of science and 
 galleries of art, with universities and with libraries, the 
 people may be civilized and ingenious, the country may 
 be even famous in the annals and action of the world ; 
 but if the population every ten years decreases, and the 
 stature of the race every ten years diminishes, the his- 
 tory of that country will soon be the history of the 
 past." 
 
 TO CUKE BAD DIGESTION. 
 
 EAT but two meals a day, if this can be made con- 
 venient. If it cannot, then let the third be very light 
 and very plain. Eschew pastry always, eating only 
 plain food, as beef, mutton, bread, and the like, the 
 bread home-made Graham, if possible. Masticate every 
 mouthful thoroughly ; be not less than half an hour at 
 each meal. Drink moderately of water or weak tea or 
 coffee, but never sip of either when food is in the 
 mouth. Bathe quickly the skin all over in the morn- 
 ing three or four times in the week, rubbing the 
 skin vigorously. Exercise abundantly in the open 
 air.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 HEALTH KULES BY JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 THE great apostle wrote upon many subjects. Health 
 was prominent among them. He published a work 
 under the title of " Primitive Physic ; or, An Easy and 
 Natural Method of curing most Diseases." From his 
 rules I have selected the following: 
 
 1. A pure air is very important. 
 
 2. Tender people should have those who lie with 
 them, or are much about them, sound, sweet, and 
 healthy. 
 
 3. Every one, ambitious of good health, should be as 
 clean as possible in their houses, furniture, and clothes. 
 
 4. The great rule in food is to suit the quality and 
 quantity to our digestion. 
 
 5. All pickled, smoked, salted, and high-seasoned 
 food is unwholesome. 
 
 6. Nothing conduces more to health than abstinence 
 and plain food, with due labor. 
 
 7. For studious persons, about eight ounces of animal 
 and twelve of vegetable food in twenty-four hours is 
 sufficient. 
 
 8. Water is the most wholesome of all drinks, most 
 quickens the appetite and strengthens the digestion. 
 
 9. Strong, and more especially spirituous liquors 
 are a certain though slow poison. Experience shows
 
 FIVE MINUTE CHATS. 99 
 
 there is no manner of danger in discontinuing them at 
 once. 
 
 10. Coffee and tea are extremely injurious to persons 
 with weak nerves. 
 
 11. Tender persons should eat only a very light sup- 
 per, and that full two or three hours before going to bed. 
 
 12. Such persons ought to retire to bed invariably by 
 nine o'clock, and rise from four to five in the morning. 
 
 13. Walking is the best exercise for those who are 
 able to bear it, and riding is the best for those who are 
 not able to bear walking. 
 
 14. We may strengthen any weak part of the body 
 by constant exercise. Thus the lungs may be strength- 
 ened by loud speaking or by walking up an ascent, the 
 digestion and nerves by riding, the arms and hands by 
 strongly rubbing them daily. 
 
 15. The studious ought to have stated times for exer- 
 cise, at least two or three hours a day, one half before 
 dinner, the other before going to bed. 
 
 16. Those who read or write much should learn to do 
 it standing, otherwise it will impair their health. 
 
 17. The fewer clothes any one uses by day or night 
 (provided he is kept warm), the hardier he will be. 
 
 18. Exercise should never be taken on a full stomach, 
 it should never be continued to exhaustion, and when 
 we are done, we should be careful not to cool off too 
 suddenly.
 
 100 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 19. The flesh-brush is highly beneficial, especially in 
 stimulating a part which is cold and inactive. 
 
 20. Cold bathing is of great advantage to health. It 
 prevents many diseases, promotes perspiration, acceler- 
 ates the circulation of the blood, and secures against 
 colds. 
 
 21. All violent and sudden passions dispose people 
 to acute diseases. Slow and lasting passions, such as 
 grief and hopeless love, bring on chronic diseases. 
 
 22. The love of God, as in general it is the sovereign 
 remedy for all miseries, so in particular it prevents 
 bodily disorders. And by the unspeakable joy and 
 perfect calm, serenity, and tranquillity it gives to the 
 mind, it becomes most powerful of all the means of 
 health and long life. 
 
 Of the hygienic writings of medical men, from Hip- 
 pocrates down, I have been a careful reader, and I have 
 not found among their rules of health anything equal 
 to the above, by John Wesley. If one were to start 
 out in pursuit of information upon the laws of health, 
 and he should consult thirty-six persons, twelve doc- 
 tors, twelve clergymen, and twelve intelligent grand- 
 mothers, the doctors would give him the least knowl- 
 edge. No other class of educated people know so little 
 of the laws of health. If you are sick, and wish to 
 know which pill to swallow, the doctor is the only per-
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 101 
 
 son who can give you the needed information. But if 
 you are slightly indisposed, and wish to know how to 
 avoid being sick, or you are well, and wish to know 
 how to keep so, the first intelligent person of mature 
 years you may happen to meet will give you more prac- 
 tical wisdom than your own family physician. The 
 doctor will try in all sincerity, but he does n't know 
 about it himself ; how can he inform you ? The pro- 
 verbially bad personal habits of medical men do not 
 come of exceptional recklessness, but of exceptional 
 ignorance. Looking on the sick side of a man, they 
 always come to know less about the well side of him 
 than other folks. 
 
 NASAL CATARRH. 
 
 A RADICAL error underlies nearly all medical treat- 
 ment. A salt-rheum appears on the hand. An ignorant 
 doctor says, " It is a disease of the skin." He applies 
 an ointment. The eruption disappears. An ulcer ap- 
 pears on the ankle. The ignorant doctor says, " It is a 
 disease of the ankle." He applies a salve. The sore 
 disappears. There is a discharge of matter from the 
 ear. The ignorant doctor says, " The ear-passage is 
 diseased." He prescribes an injection. The discharge 
 stops. A case of nasal catarrh is presented. The 
 ignorant doctor says, " This nose is sick." He prescribes
 
 102 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 a snuff. The discharge stops. In every case the ap- 
 parent relief is temporary. The difficulty soon returns, 
 and it is worse than before. Harm has been done. 
 Often, other difficulties have been added. In every 
 one of these cases the ignorant doctor has entirely mis- 
 taken the seat of the malady. Of course his prescription 
 is a blunder. 
 
 Salt-rheum is not a disease of the skin. It is a 
 disease of the system showing itself in the skin. Ca- 
 tarrh is not a disease of the man's nose. It is a disease 
 of the man, showing itself in his nose. The blood 
 which is now in my brain is, before I am done writing 
 this sentence, back in my heart, and off on a visit to 
 my feet, and now it is back in my heart again, and now 
 it is distributed to my liver, stomach, kidneys, every 
 part. Every part of the body is fed every moment from 
 the same blood. Every atom of every organ and tissue 
 is obtained from that blood, and every minute all this 
 blood comes back to the heart to be mixed and inter- 
 mixed. Now, do you suppose that one part of the 
 body can draw away from the rest, get up a disease and 
 carry on an independent operation of its own, on its 
 own responsibility ? 
 
 What I have said is not new. This dependence of 
 local upon general disease is a common idea with the 
 people. A young man begins business with a large 
 capital He falls into dissipation. In ten years it
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 103 
 
 exhausts his fortune. When at last we see him beg 
 for bread, we do not say this exhibition of his poverty 
 is his financial disease. His financial constitution has 
 been ruined. The begging is only an unpleaaant ex- 
 hibition of that ruin. 
 
 During this course of dissipation, the young man not 
 only ruins his fortune, but ruins his health. His lungs 
 fall into consumption. A doctor may tell you it is a 
 disease of the lungs. But it is no more a disease of 
 the lungs than was begging a malady of the broken- 
 down merchant. In both cases it is only a local ex- 
 hibition of the constitutional trouble. In brief, a local 
 disease in a living body is an impossibility. Every 
 disease must be systemic before it can assume a local 
 expression. In other words, every local pathological 
 manifestation is an expression of systemic pathological 
 conditions. 
 
 But to return to nasal catarrh. A man has a ca- 
 tarrhal discharge from his nose. He is an editor, and 
 mostly confined to sedentary habits. His digestion is 
 weak, bowels constipated, head dull, and general con- 
 dition altogether unsatisfactory. He comes to me with 
 a long story about his catarrh, and finally wishes to 
 know if I have any confidence in the advertised cures 
 for this disgusting affliction ; would be willing to take 
 anything or do anything if he could only get rid of the 
 horrible nuisance, etc.
 
 104 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 " Will you do exactly what I will advise for a week ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I would n't mind standing on my head for that 
 length of time, if I could only reduce myself to the 
 decent use of one pocket-handkerchief a day." 
 
 " Eat a piece of beefsteak half as large as your hand, 
 one baked potato, and one slice of bread, for your break- 
 fast ; a piece of roast beef as large as your hand, with 
 one boiled potato, and one slice of bread, for dinner ; 
 take nothing for supper, and go to bed at half past eight 
 o'clock. Sleep, if possible, half an hour before dinner. 
 Drink nothing with your meals, nor within two hours 
 afterward. Drink as much cold water on rising in the 
 morning and on lying down at night as you can con- 
 veniently swallow, and you may add draughts of cold 
 water, if you wish, before eating your meals. Live four 
 to six hours a day in the open air, riding in the saddle 
 and walking. Bathe frequently, and every night on 
 going to bed rub the skin hard with hair gloves. In 
 less than a week one handkerchief will do you. And 
 yet you have n't touched your nose in the way of treat- 
 ment." 
 
 To cure nasal catarrh you have only to make your 
 stomach digest well, only to make yourself healthier. 
 Your nose will quickly find it out, and adapt itself to 
 the better manners of its companions.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 105 
 
 THROW PHYSIC TO THE DOGS. 
 
 MEDICINES cannot essentially relieve a case of low 
 vitality. When a man's lungs, heart, stomach, and 
 other vital organs are too small and inactive, as is the 
 case in most instances of debility, what nonsense to 
 give him drugs ! What the poor fellow wants is pure 
 air, sunshine, and exercise. Millions of dollars are 
 expended every year for indescribable compounds 
 which are sure cures for debility. It is important that 
 during the warm weather he should live out-doors, 
 bathe frequently, exercise much in the garden, and in 
 other ways which shall insure exposure to fresh air 
 and sunshine, without being so hard as to involve 
 much exhaustion. It is particularly necessary that the 
 lungs should receive the largest possible supply of pure 
 air at night. If he have adequate bedclothes, he can 
 have open doors and windows with great profit. Fill- 
 ing the lungs and thumping the chest and abdomen 
 will do much good. Cheerful society, with an oft-re- 
 peated hearty laugh, will also be beneficial. When the 
 cold weather comes on, it is of the first importance 
 that he should occupy rooms heated by open fires. 
 Stove-heat is a poison to him. So far as possible, the 
 same habits I have advised for the summer should 
 be kept up during the cold weather. All this 
 
 5*
 
 
 106 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 must be done, not only when there is inclination, 
 but in a systematic way and under - a conviction of 
 duty. 
 
 PURIFY THE BLOOD. 
 
 To cure " pimples and flesh-worms," you must purify 
 your blood. This is not to be done by " shaking before 
 taking " and swallowing the miserable swills known as 
 patent medicines. It is to be done by living on plain, 
 nutritious food, breathing a pure air day and night, 
 sleeping enough, exercising freely, and keeping your 
 skin thoroughly open by frequent baths in soap and 
 water. There is no other way in the world to purify 
 your system but this. Swallowing poisons won't do it. 
 Gorging yourself with mineral waters will not. God 
 has furnished the true physicians for this and other 
 maladies, Dr. Sunshine, Dr. Cleanliness, Dr. Pure 
 Air, Dr. Temperance, Dr. Exercise. These gentlemen 
 will cure you, and then you will stay cured. 
 
 I THINK there can be no doubt that our people are 
 becoming larger, healthier, and longer-lived. I believe, 
 next to our general prosperity and success, the climate 
 has most to do in developing this gradual improve- 
 ment.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 107 
 
 WORTH KNOWING. 
 
 CHILBLAINS are always susceptible of relief, and gen- 
 erally of cure. The treatment consists of putting them 
 morning and evening in water. Perhaps while the 
 suffering is greatest the putting them in water may 
 be much more frequent, say once in two or three hours. 
 The feet are always to be gently and thoroughly rubbed 
 while in the water. The temperature of the water is 
 always to be determined by the feeling in the feet. 
 If cold, the water should be cold; when they burn, 
 the water should be hot. But the great secret of the 
 cure is to be found in wearing soft woollen stockings 
 which are changed for fresh ones every day, and wear- 
 ing shoes with soles so broad that not the slightest 
 pressure is made upon the affected parts. Arctic over- 
 shoes should be worn when the temperature is low, so 
 that the feet shall never become cold. This treatment 
 will never fail to relieve at once, and is certain finally 
 to effect a cure. 
 
 I DON'T believe in shoulder-braces. Nature furnishes 
 the needed braces to keep the shoulders in position; 
 and when you use the artificial, these natural ones 
 become weak for want of exercise. The best treatment
 
 108 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 for stooping shoulders is the practice of holding the 
 chin close to the neck, and a half-hour morning and 
 evening carrying a weight on top of the head. The 
 greater the weight, the greater the good. Some people 
 cany a hundred pounds, and it helps largely to make 
 them straight. 
 
 BILIOUS DERANGEMENT. The best treatment for 
 bilious derangement, speaking in general terms, is the 
 following : Drink no coffee ; a cup of black-tea at 
 breakfast is admissible. The best breakfast, however, 
 is bread and milk, with perhaps cracked wheat and 
 syrup. For dinner, use mutton, beef, or fish, with 
 potatoes and coarse bread. Never eat any dessert un- 
 less it be simple fruit. Go without supper altogether. 
 Take a hand-bath every morning, in water of agreeable 
 temperature, and after a sharp friction thump the stom- 
 ach and abdomen during two or three minutes. Retire 
 and rise early. Sun your bed thoroughly, and air the 
 bedroom day and night. Follow this advice faithfully, 
 and your stomach will soon acquire a sweetness and 
 healthy tone that will fully compensate you for the 
 little trouble and self-denial. All ordinary affections 
 of the stomach and liver are successfully treated by 
 the above.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 109 
 
 HOW TO GET RID OF DUST. 
 
 THE good of gymnastics and other physical exercises, 
 within doors, is in part counteracted by dust in the air 
 of the room. Our lungs are delicate ; our breathing 
 full and rapid ; every part of the lungs is filled with 
 the irritating powder. We who train muscles have 
 long sought a cure. / have found it ! 
 
 The floor is clean. But the black clothes show the air 
 is still full of dust. It comes from the cracks between 
 the boards. When washing the floor, put into each pail 
 of hot water molasses and glue, half a teacup of each. 
 Every particle of dust will stick fast. Now dance, or 
 stamp your feet, as in the new gymnastics. No dust 
 will rise. 
 
 One of my halls was entirely unusable ; pupils were 
 choked with dust ; must have a new floor. But the 
 molasses and glue expedient occurred to me. Tried it. 
 Perfect success. Have now used it two years. Thou- 
 sands of halls and other rooms are constantly poisoning 
 lungs with dust. The new expedient will, if wisely 
 and for a while frequently used, arrest it all. 
 
 Carpets play an important part in the production of 
 consumption. The amount of dust they set afloat is 
 immense. Our sensitive lungs only need this irritation 
 to arouse the latent malady. When the fashion changes
 
 HO FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 from the carpet to the mosaic floor, which may be made 
 almost as cheaply as the common floor, our lungs will 
 be greatly improved. 
 
 Such a floor, made of alternate strips of dark and 
 light colored woods (producing a very pretty effect), 
 may be washed occasionally with molasses and glue- 
 water, or with molasses alone in the water. It will be 
 almost as free from dust as a snowbank. 
 
 Our eyes, noses, throats, and lungs will then be com- 
 paratively free from irritation. 
 
 COLD BATHING. 
 
 JUST now I am sorry to see there is a reaction 
 against daily cold bathing. A medical man of my 
 acquaintance cautions his patients against too frequent 
 bathing, for fear the oil may be removed from the skin. 
 He tells them that twice a month during the winter 
 and twice a week during the summer are quite enough 
 for anybody. A well-known writer has recently cau- 
 tioned the world against the removal of the skin oil by 
 too frequent bathing. 
 
 This is an entire misapprehension. In hydropathic 
 establishments the patients are sometimes bathed three 
 or four times a day, yet never lose the oil of the skin 
 in consequence. Pugilists, in preparing for the prize-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE GHATS. HI 
 
 ring, are bathed two or three times a day, and rubbed 
 with rough towels by the strongest arms. Heenan was 
 bathed three or four times a day, and was rubbed by 
 McDonald and Cusick with all the power of their 
 strong arms, fifteen minutes at a time, and with the 
 roughest towels and brushes, and yet the account says 
 that when he appeared in the ring his skin was as 
 beautiful as a baby's. 
 
 If cold water were used without soap, a bath every 
 hour, with the hardest friction, would only increase the 
 secretion of oils. 
 
 A more frequent objection one urged by the pa- 
 tients themselves is, that they can't get up a reac- 
 tion. A lady said to me one morning, " I have tried 
 this cold bathing, but it always gives me a headache ; 
 besides, I can't get warm for an hour." 
 
 Many others have made the same objection. Now, 
 this is all because you don't manage right. If you will 
 manage as follows, the want of reaction and consequent 
 congestion of the head and chest will never occur 
 again. Purchase a bathing-mat, or make one by sew- 
 ing into the edge of a large piece of rubber cloth a 
 half-inch rope ; on rising in the morning spring into 
 the middle of it, and with an old rough towel folded 
 eight or ten inches square, apply the water as fast as 
 your hands can fly; then with rough towels rub as 
 hard as you can bear on, until the skin is as red as a
 
 112 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 boiled lobster. This will take but five minutes, and 
 leave you in a delightful glow. 
 
 I have never met any one who, taking the bath in 
 this rapid and vigorous way, was not satisfied with it. 
 
 OUR HAIR. 
 
 THE Creator covered the human skull with hair. It 
 is a very important protector of the brain. The Crea- 
 tor covered a part of man's face with hair. It is an 
 important protector of the throat and lungs. The eyes 
 likewise, say some physiologists. 
 
 Did you ever observe that curious protuberance in a 
 man's neck? They call it "Adam's apple," from the 
 old notion that when Eve gave the apple to Adam, he 
 was so frightened that, instead of masticating it thor- 
 oughly, as he should have done, he swallowed it whole, 
 and it stuck in his throat. His descendants have in- 
 herited the lump. 
 
 This peculiar projection in a man's throat gives extra 
 length to his vocal chords, so that his voice may be 
 deep and low. His vocal box is thus all out-doors, 
 and requires the protection of the hair. In a woman's 
 throat there is no such prominence. Her vocal box is 
 buried in the soft parts, and requires no extra covering. 
 Then there is no doubt that it was designed that man
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 113 
 
 should do the rough, outside, dusty work of the world, 
 while in the main woman should stay at home to take 
 care of her little ones. 
 
 The beard about the mouth and nose among men en- 
 gaged in dusty work catches and holds a vast amount of 
 dust which would otherwise enter and irritate the lungs. 
 
 Men become bald ! Why ? Because they wear close 
 hats and caps. Women, are never bald. Sometimes, 
 from long-continued headache, heat in the scalp, bad 
 hair-dressing, and some other causes, women may have 
 bare spots here and there; but with all these causes 
 combined, you never see a woman with a bare, shiny, 
 bald head. And you never see a man lose a hair below 
 where the hat touches his skull. It will take it off as 
 clean as you can shave it down to exactly that line, but 
 never a hair below, not if he has been bald fifty years. 
 The common black stiff hat, as impervious as sheet- 
 iron, retains the heat and perspiration. The little hair- 
 glands, which bear the same relation to the hair that 
 the seed wheat does to the plant above ground, become 
 weak from the presence of the moisture and heat, and 
 finally fail to sustain the hair. It falls out, and bald- 
 ness exists. A fur cap I have known to produce com- 
 plete baldness in a single winter. 
 
 A man with a good head of hair needs very little 
 protection where the hair grows. Women, who live 
 much within doors, and who are therefore peculiarly
 
 114 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 susceptible to the cold, oil their hair and plaster it 
 down hard and flat upon their skulls, so as to destroy 
 nine tenths of its power as a non-conductor, have worn 
 for years postage-stamps of bonnets stuck on the back 
 of their heads, exposing the whole tops of their skulls, 
 and then, going out of furnace-heated parlors, have 
 ridden for hours in a very cold temperature without 
 taking cold and without complaint. 
 
 Man, with his greater vigor and habits of out-door 
 life, and with his hair not plastered down, but thrown 
 up loose and light, could no doubt go to the north pole, 
 so far as that part of his person is concerned, without 
 any artificial covering. And yet we men wear thick 
 fur caps, and what amounts to sheet-iron hats, and do 
 not dare step out in a chilly atmosphere a moment lest 
 we take cold. It is silly, weak, and really a serious 
 error. The Creator knew what he was about when he 
 covered a man's skull with hair. It has a very impor- 
 tant function in protecting the brain. Baldness is a 
 serious misfortune. It will never occur in any man 
 who will wear such a hat as I do, a common black 
 high silk hat with five hundred holes through the top, 
 so that there shall be more hole than hat. This costs 
 nothing ; the hatter will do it for you when you pur- 
 chase your hat. If the nap be combed back the wrong 
 way, and if after the holes are made it be combed the 
 right way, no one will ever observe the peculiarity.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 115 
 
 The hat will wear quite as long, the hatters say con- 
 siderably longer, because it is dry instead of moist; 
 in brief, there is not a single objection to it, while it 
 will certainly prevent baldness and keep the top of the 
 head cool, and prevent much headache. 
 
 While discussing this subject of our hair, I would 
 remark that the back of the neck should be protected 
 in the winter against cold and in the summer against 
 great heat. Nothing can accomplish this uniformly 
 and perfectly but the hair. The custom of shingling 
 off the hair from the back of the neck is unphysiologi- 
 cal, and it should in both sexes be allowed to fall low 
 enough to cover the nape or meet the usual dress. 
 
 DANDRUFF IN THE HAIR. 
 
 A CORRESPONDENT asks by what means this nuisance 
 may be prevented, and if it has already made its 
 appearance, how it may be removed. 
 
 As usual, it is much easier to prevent than to cure. 
 
 The prevention consists in the avoidance of sharp 
 combs and brushes, and daily bathing the head with 
 cold water. 
 
 Numberless cases of dandruff have been produced by 
 scratching the head with sharp combs and brushes. If 
 any one doubts it, let him try the same practice upon
 
 116 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the back of his hand. He will find in a few days bran- 
 like scales, closely resembling dandruff, thrown off in 
 considerable quantity. 
 
 When the difficulty already exists in the hair, it is 
 to be removed by the same simple means which will 
 prevent it. 
 
 I do not intend to deny that certain heads are dis- 
 posed to this branny excretion, but these constitute but 
 a small part of the cases of dandruff. 
 
 OUR SKULLS. 
 
 HERODOTUS visited a battle-field where the dead 
 bodies of the Egyptians on one side and the Persians 
 on the other were collected in separate heaps, and he 
 was struck with the difference between the skulls of 
 the two nations. While the skull of an Egyptian was 
 so thick and strong as to be fractured with difficulty, 
 the skull of the Persian was so thin and frail that it 
 was broken by a small pebble. 
 
 Herodotus thought that this remarkable difference 
 was owing to the fact that the Egyptians went with 
 bare heads, while the Persians wore enormous turbans. 
 
 The head has an abundant protection in the hair. 
 If this be removed by close hot caps and hats, a serious 
 harm may be done to the brain in depriving it of one
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 117 
 
 of the most important of its protections. The Persian 
 and Turkish turban and our fur caps and close hats 
 seriously affect the strength and protecting power of 
 the skull, leading to those impressions on the brain 
 from external heat and cold which result, in advanced 
 life, when the powers run low, in congestions of the 
 head, and not unfrequently in fatal apoplexy. 
 
 LADIES, I am glad you have abandoned the habit of 
 covering your ears with your hair. It was a bad habit. 
 Excluding the air from the ear-passage produced va- 
 rious troubles, and among them changed the ear-wax 
 so as to produce premature deafness. And then how 
 funny they used to look without ears ! 
 
 ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 THE great defect of our atmosphere is excessive dry- 
 ness. The dew-point of England is 15 or 20 degrees 
 higher than that of New England. The results are seen 
 in the contrast between the plump body and smooth 
 skin of the Englishman, and the lean, juiceless body, 
 and dry, cracked skin of the Yankee. It is also shown 
 in the well-known difference in the influence of house 
 heat upon furniture. Our chairs, tables, sofas, and 
 wood-work warp and shrink, while nothing of the sort 
 occurs in England.
 
 118 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 On the western side of the Rocky Mountains bron- 
 chitis and consumption are almost unknown. In great 
 part this immunity is attributable to the remarkable 
 humidity of the atmosphere. The dew-point on the 
 Pacific Coast is very high. 
 
 As we cannot change the amount of moisture in the 
 atmosphere of the country, we must limit our practical 
 efforts to the air of our houses. If we use a stove, its 
 entire upper surface may be made a reservoir for water. 
 Ornamental work of but little cost may be used to con- 
 ceal it. The furnace may be made to send up, with its 
 heat, many gallons of water daily, in the form of vapor. 
 
 AIR-TIGHT STOVES. 
 
 DURING a recent visit to friends in Western New 
 York and Michigan, I was struck, and not a little 
 pained, at their method of heating their houses. Surely 
 a person like myself, accustomed to the atmosphere 
 of sleeping-cars, and visiting much in houses heated 
 by furnaces, is not likely to be particularly sensitive ; 
 but the atmosphere in the houses of my Western 
 friends was too much for me. How they could stand 
 it was a mystery to me. They were, to be sure, red- 
 eyed, and sometimes livid-cheeked and dull in thought ; 
 but how they could gather about a great air-tight stove,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHAT 8. 119 
 
 with shut draught, tight windows and doors, and sit for 
 two or three hours in an atmosphere of seventy-five to 
 eighty degrees, without any change of air, is to me 
 simply inconceivable. But then I must not forget 
 that men saturate themselves with tobacco, and keep 
 it up just for the good of it. 
 
 Congestion of the head, neuralgia, susceptibility to 
 colds, and numberless cases of bronchitis and consump- 
 tion, come from air-tight stoves. They are among our 
 worst enemies to health. AN OPEN FIRE is NUMBER 
 
 ONE AMONG HOUSE BLESSINGS. 
 
 CARBONIC-ACID GAS. 
 
 THIS gas, or choke damp, as it is vulgarly called, is 
 the source of infinite mischief. No other single agency 
 injures the health of men so widely and seriously. 
 This gas comes principally from the lungs of men and 
 animals, and from combustion. A load of wood weigh- 
 ing a ton is drawn to the door. It takes a span of 
 horses to do it. It is burned in the stove, and all that 
 is left of it is in the form of ashes, and may be carried 
 away in a barrel on a man's shoulder. Perhaps the 
 weight is fifty pounds. The nineteen hundred and 
 fifty pounds which have disappeared have all gone up 
 the chimney and out into the atmosphere in the form 
 of carbonic-acid gas.
 
 120 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A candle weighs four ounces, but when it is burned, 
 there is almost nothing left. It has disappeared in the 
 form of carbonic-acid gas. Put a man in a pork-barrel, 
 head him up tight, and drive in the bung. "Wait a 
 few minutes. Now loosen the bung, take it out, and 
 peep in. If you happen to look into the man's face 
 you will find it nearly black. The man is dead. He 
 was suffocated. You see the way it happened was 
 this. The man at first could breathe well enough, 
 and unless he knew about such things, he said to him- 
 self, " Well, this is a little cramped, but it is not so bad 
 after all." But pretty soon he began to find it was 
 hard work to breathe. Then he began to feel dizzy, 
 and then came a terrible pressure in his head ; then 
 a fearful agony for a moment in his heart ; then a few 
 struggles and gasps, and all was over. Just take a 
 good look in his face, if you have the stomach for it, 
 and you will see how terrible was his agony during the 
 last moments. What killed that man ? The carbonic- 
 acid gas which he produced in his own lungs. If when 
 you first opened the bung-hole you had put your mouth 
 to it and tried to breathe the air, you would have found 
 out at once what killed him. . We take pure air into 
 our lungs, and when we breathe it out it contains three 
 or four per cent of this poisonous gas. Now, if we 
 take this same air back into the lungs and breathe it 
 over again, when it comes out of our lungs the second
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 121 
 
 time, it is so poisonous that it can't be taken Lack the 
 third time without mischief. 
 
 In a room twelve feet square, if three persons are 
 sitting and they have one gas-burner, which will con- 
 sume the oxygen and create carbonic-acid gas about 
 as fast as the three pairs of lungs, the air will become 
 poisonous in a few minutes, unless there is an opening 
 to let the poisoned air out and the pure air in. The 
 air in most churches and theatres is simply abominable. 
 Babies in the bottoms of cradles, ladies under thick 
 veils, passengers in sleeping-cars, nine tenths of our 
 people in their bedrooms, are poisoned with this car- 
 bonic-acid gas. Now, does not the statement with 
 which I began, namely, that " carbonic-acid gas is the 
 source of infinite mischief," seem reasonable ? 
 
 THAT RIDICULOUS LITTLE GAS-BILL. 
 
 A WORTHY butcher amassed a fortune. Of course 
 he built a big house in a fashionable street. I say 
 of course, because he was an American, and that's 
 what all Americans do when they get rich. He built 
 a very big house ; there were about thirty rooms in it, 
 which I am sure you will think were enough, when I 
 tell you that Uncle Jack and his wife occupied it all 
 alone ; they kept no servant. Mrs. Uncle Jack said, 
 
 6
 
 122 FIVE^MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 " I don't want no hired gal sloppin' and wastin' 
 round ; I kin do all the work for me and my old man 
 yit awhile." 
 
 Their parlors were got up under the supervision 
 of an architect who had grand ideas, and said par- 
 lors were stunning. The chandeliers were particularly 
 grand. The visitor invariably was shown "them 
 gilted chandeliers." There were more than a hundred 
 gas-burners in the house, and the gas company natu- 
 rally expected big bills. But the quantity burned 
 during the first quarter was eight hundred feet, during 
 the second quarter five hundred feet, and during the 
 fourth quarter one hundred feet. The gas officers got 
 mad ; they wrote Uncle Jack a note to warn him that 
 if he didn't burn at least a thousand feet a quarter, 
 they would shut him off, for they would not take 
 account of his meter for the amount he was consum- 
 ing. One of the officers suspected that Jack had laid 
 a side pipe, and was using gas without running it 
 through the meter, and, to test it, called upon him in 
 the evening, and found him and his wife sitting in 
 the little back kitchen with a tallow dip. 
 
 When this was reported, there was a laugh all over 
 town, and it certainly was very funny, with that great, 
 splendid house, with those magnificent parlors, all 
 empty, and old Uncle Jack and his wife dimly seen 
 in a little back kitchen, sitting humped up in the dim
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 light of a tallow dip. Let any one go into the city's 
 principal gas-office and introduce the subject of econ- 
 omy in gas, and Uncle Jack's hundred feet will be 
 sure to figure in the conversation, and with some 
 remarkable embellishments, if Charley D. happens to 
 be present. 
 
 We all laugh at Uncle Jack and his tallow dip in 
 the back kitchen, but is not that about the way people 
 generally manage ? Take any fashionable street, and 
 how do you find the largest rooms in each house, 
 the pleasantest, the sunniest, the best located, the 
 most available in every way, do you find them 
 occupied by the family ? No ! it is the grand draw- 
 ing-room which is used twice a year for a large gath- 
 ering, and to receive an occasional caller. The family 
 crawl down into the basement, and mount to the 
 chambers overhead, but they are careful not to intrude 
 upon the glories of their grand drawing-room. 
 
 Now pray, good folks, take down the heavy dra- 
 peries, roll up the shades, let in a flood of sunshine, 
 and go it ; let the children have the run of the grand 
 place too. During the bad days, when they can't get 
 out doors, it will do wonders for their spirits and 
 health. What are your houses for ? What are the 
 grand drawing-rooms for? Are they for a few fash- 
 ionable callers, who don't care a fig for you or your 
 house ? Or are they for the happiness and welfare of
 
 124 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 your own dear ones, whose health and enjoyment are 
 the highest object of your life ? Show-parlors are a 
 nuisance and ought to be abated. 
 
 THE best time for exercise is not easy to determine 
 for any particular person, without knowing something 
 of his bodily conditions. Some general directions may 
 be given. The hour should be as far removed from the 
 time of eating as possible. If the meals are taken at 
 seven, one, and six o'clock, the best time is eleven in 
 the morning. After this, the best time is four P. M. The 
 evening from eight to nine is not bad, but invalids are 
 not generally much improved by exercise either before 
 breakfast or after supper. 
 
 "ALFRED IS SO DELICATE." 
 
 "ALFRED is so delicate," writes an anxious mother 
 to me, to which I reply : " Your son should be taken 
 out of school and put at work His nervous system 
 will not bear the strain of college. But at some work 
 in the open air, that of a gardener or nursery-man, 
 for example, he would do well. You must choose be- 
 tween a useful, vigorous manhood in some such healthful 
 occupation, and having him buried at twenty with the 
 proud consciousness that he is full of Latin and Greek."
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 125 
 
 DISEASES OF ARTISANS. 
 
 GILDERS are subject to mercurial affections. They 
 suffer from giddiness, asthma, and frequently from par- 
 tial paralysis, which often induces a peculiar kind of 
 stammering. As might be supposed, they frequently 
 surfer from unpleasant ulcers in the mouth, which is a 
 true salivation. 
 
 Miners in the quicksilver mines suffer from vertigo, 
 palsy, and convulsions, and can retain their health but 
 a few months. 
 
 Pottery-glaziers, who use lead largely, suffer a con- 
 dition very similar to that described above, with the 
 addition of dropsy, loss of teeth, and enlarged spleen. 
 Palsy of the limbs, especially of the arms, is a common 
 effect of poison from lead. Consumption is frequently 
 among these workers. 
 
 Glass-blowers are the victims of those affections pro- 
 duced by sudden vicissitudes of temperature, rheu- 
 matism and various inflammations. Their eyes are 
 weak, while they are generally thin and delicate. 
 
 Stonecutters inhale the sharp particles, which are 
 apt to produce disease of the lungs. 
 
 Plasterers suffer from the gases disengaged and from 
 excessive moisture. They breathe with difficulty, have 
 wan, pallid visages, and digest badly.
 
 126 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Filers are short-lived. "Whether the metal be brass 
 or iron, the fine sharp particles make their way into 
 the lungs, where they develop disease, sometimes asth- 
 ma, sometimes consumption. 
 
 Workers in wool and cotton breathe a close, un- 
 changed atmosphere, while their lungs are filled with 
 the irritating dust of the material upon which they 
 work. 
 
 All in-door occupations, with the present imperfect 
 notions about ventilation, are more or less mischievous. 
 Out-door occupations farming, gardening, and other 
 similar employments afford, with an intelligent com- 
 prehension of the food question, the best opportunity 
 for health and long life. Driving a stage or express- 
 wagon, with frequent leaving for the delivery of pack- 
 ages, travelling through the country on foot as a book- 
 agent, these and similar employments are perhaps 
 not inferior to farming and gardening. 
 
 TOO GREAT AN HONOR. 
 
 THE great plague was imported into England in some 
 goods from Holland, in 1664. In July, August, and 
 September of that year the deaths ranged from 1,000 to 
 7,000 per week, and 4,000 died in one single night. 
 About 100,000 died in London alone, and the infection
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 127 
 
 was carried by the frightened Londoners fleeing into 
 every part of the kingdom. 
 
 When the plague appeared in Arabia, the Arabs, 
 though predestinarians, fled into the desert, and when 
 remonstrated with for this attempt to thwart the will 
 of God, they alleged as an excuse that, though the dis- 
 temper was sent from Heaven, they felt so conscious of 
 their utter unworthiness of this special mark of grace, 
 that they were impelled to decline the honor for the 
 present, and that they had resolved to wait until they 
 were more worthy of the special attention of the great 
 God. 
 
 ABOUT QUACKS. 
 
 JOHN SMITH is clear-headed about his business. He 
 knows about politics and religion ; he is a capital school- 
 committee man, but he is a perfect 'idiot in everything 
 that concerns his health. The mock -auction man can't 
 humbug him, but he will swallow the biggest kind of 
 tomfoolery in the shape of a quack medicine. 
 
 To illustrate this I will tell you a little story. Nine- 
 teen years ago, finding myself very tired, as the warm 
 weather carne on, I invited my wife to take a drive 
 through Canada. With our beautiful mares Katy and 
 Jenny we crossed on a ferry-boat at the mouth of the 
 Niagara Eiver, and at the end of three weeks found
 
 128 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ourselves at Ottawa, not then the beautiful capital of 
 the Dominion, but even then one of the most pictur- 
 esque and interesting towns in the world. We stayed 
 there a number of days, making delightful little trips 
 in the neighborhood. One evening, at the hotel, we 
 became acquainted with an intelligent Scotchman and 
 his wife, and during our chat it happened to come out 
 that I was a medical man, whereupon the lady told me 
 the most stunning fact about a doctor that I have ever 
 heard. She said : " There is a travelling physician 
 here at the house just now who is getting quite a 
 reputation. He is the most extraordinary doctor you 
 ever heard of. He has n't washed his hands in twenty 
 years, and such hands you never saw. They are cov- 
 ered all over with an incrustation as thick as a heavy 
 overcoat cloth. He stirs all of his medicines with those 
 hands, and declares that the virtue of his medicines 
 depends upon the stirring with his hands, and upon his 
 not washing them. He says that if he should wash 
 them they would lose their power. The thumb of his 
 right hand he never bends, and I really believe the 
 crust on that thumb is at least a quarter of an inch 
 thick. It is with that thumb he stirs the medicines for 
 the most difficult cases. Now, doctor," continued this 
 intelligent lady, "do you really think there can be 
 anything in it ? " 
 
 I sought an interview with this wonderful doctor. 

 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 129 
 
 He showed me his hands, and explained things. He 
 added one piece of information, namely, that the right 
 thumb had not been washed in twenty-seven years, 
 while the remainder of the hands had not been washed 
 in twenty-two years. I carefully examined his hands. 
 I told him that I thought he might add fifty years. He 
 asked me if I supposed he would go about the country 
 lying. I was interested in this doctor, and took some 
 pains to inquire about his success. I learned from in- 
 telligent and reliable people that he was doing a very 
 large and profitable business, and much of it was among 
 intelligent people. I suppose I have told that story 
 (and it is true in every particular) to more than one 
 hundred people, and nearly half of them have very 
 seriously asked me if I really supposed there was any- 
 thing in it. 
 
 The ignorance, stupidity, the idiotcy, of intelligent 
 people in regard to medicines and matters of health is 
 simply astounding. In nothing is the need for the 
 spread of intelligence so pressing. The sacrifice of 
 health and life from the cupidity and ignorance of 
 quack doctors, joined to the helpless blindness of the 
 people, is something dreadful. 
 
 AN Eastern dervish was once asked by a wealthy 
 Mohammedan, " Of what service to society is an order 
 
 6*
 
 130 FIVE -MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 of men who employ themselves in speculative notions 
 of divinity and medicine ? " 
 
 " If you were more cautious and temperate in your 
 meals," answered the dervish, " if you would learn to 
 govern your passions and desires by a due attention to 
 abstinence, you all might be sages, and have no occa- 
 sion for dervishes among you. Your appetite and ali- 
 ment impair your understandings." 
 
 Willich, who gives this anecdote, says :" It is in 
 infancy and early age that the foundation is laid for 
 indigestion and the many diseases arising from it 
 which are found now in almost every family." 
 
 IN birth, a thin membrane sometimes appears over 
 the child's face and head. This is known as the child's 
 caul. It is often carefully preserved and highly prized. 
 To keep this about the person, it is believed, will 
 guard against accident and secure good fortune. The 
 following are advertisements cut from the London 
 " Times " : - 
 
 "A child's caul for sale. Apply, etc. 
 
 " A child's caul to be disposed of ; a well-known preservative 
 against drowning, etc. Price, ten guineas. 
 
 " To Mariners, etc. To be sold, a child's caul Price, fifteen 
 guineas. Apply, etc. 
 
 " To be sold, a child's caul, to save gentlemen trouble. Price, 
 thirty pounds. Apply, etc."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 131 
 
 A CHAT ABOUT NATURE AND THE DOCTORS. 
 
 NATUEE, upon which we now depend so generally for 
 cures, was, in the opinion of physicians, formerly an 
 intruder and a nuisance in the sick-room. Dr. Eush is 
 reported to have said : " As to Nature, I would treat it 
 in the sick-chamber as I would a squalling cat, open 
 the door and drive it out." We now treat, for example, 
 small-pox without medicines. We give the patient 
 pure air, clean linen, keep his skin as clean as possible, 
 and give him simple water as a drink, in fact, leave 
 him to Nature ; and when we see him covered all over 
 with loathsome sores, and then trust Nature alone to 
 cure him, and find her successful, we pat Nature on the 
 head, and exclaim, " Well done ! " In brief, we have 
 fallen into the habit of thinking that God is nearly as 
 wise as the graduate of a medical college. This may 
 be a prejudice, but it is getting to be quite common. 
 
 Formerly, when a man broke his leg, the doctor put 
 on the most wonderful salves and ointments to make 
 the ends of the bone unite. In the autobiography of 
 Dr. Dodimus Duckworth we learn that he was called 
 in the night to a traveller who had fallen off his load 
 and been run over. The doctor examined the leg, and 
 found that it was " smashed all to pieces." He imme- 
 diately whipped out of his saddle-bags a box of most
 
 132 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 " amazin' intement," and applied it thoroughly to the 
 crushed limb. Dr. Duckworth called early in the 
 morning, and learned, with great horror as to his fee, 
 but with joy as to the "virtues of that heavenly 
 intement," that the man had stripped off the bandages, 
 harnessed his horses, and started on. 
 
 Nowadays, when a man's leg is broken, we place the 
 ends together and simply hold them still. Lo and be- 
 hold, they grow together, and after a few weeks we 
 find the man walking about as good as new. Can any- 
 thing be more disgusting? Not a healing thing has 
 been applied, and yet invisible fingers have ingeniously 
 knit the broken ends together, and the bone is as 
 strong as ever. 
 
 Formerly, in a military hospital, the air was thick 
 with the odors of washes, liniments, and ointments, 
 which were constantly applied to the wounds and 
 fractures. The attendants went about loaded and be- 
 smeared. Now we visit the wards of a military hos- 
 pital, and find one man with a broken leg, one with a 
 frightful tear through his face, another with a terrible 
 gash in his flesh, and so on for a thousand poor fellows 
 after a great battle, and not a wash or liniment among 
 them. They give the sufferers go.od air, good food, and 
 keep them clean. That 's all. They put on nothing 
 healing. And good mother Nature is busy day and 
 night (she never sleeps) knitting, hardening, smoothing,
 
 CHATS. 133 
 
 healing, mending, and restoring to health, strength, and 
 comeliness, all, except those who are so badly mangled 
 that she thinks it on the whole better to throw them 
 out as not worth repairing. 
 
 Let all the doctors that ever lived try to heal a sim- 
 ple cut in the flesh without Nature. We will suppose 
 the man is dead, and there is a slight incision in his 
 hand. Now let the wise doctors all have a chance. 
 Let each apply his ointment, salve, or liniment. Let 
 them bring the cut surfaces together, and hold them 
 there with adhesive plaster. Do you think the cut 
 will heal? 
 
 In one of the streets of our city there are ten cases 
 of fever. Ten doctors are employed. One is what is 
 called a calomel doctor, one is a homceopathist, the third 
 a steam doctor, the fourth a cold-water doctor, and so 
 on. Each of these doctors will solemnly assure you 
 that the methods of the others are dangerous, very 
 dangerous ; that although the patient may pull through, 
 the chances are, etc., etc. 
 
 The steam doctor surrounds his patient with steam- 
 ing-hot blankets and fills him with scalding-hot drinks. 
 The cold-water doctor wraps his patient with cold wet 
 sheets and fills him with ice-water. The homoeopath 
 gives the hundred millionth of a grain of, say, mer- 
 cury, while the calomel doctor poisons every tissue of 
 his patient's body. But, strange to say, the patients
 
 134 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 all recover. What do you suppose cured them? Do 
 you think the hot things cured in one case ? Then 
 what do you say of the patient who was filled and 
 packed with ice ? Do you say that the three drachms 
 of calomel cured one ? Then what do you say of the 
 homo30path who gave but the hundred millionth part 
 of a grain ? Does not this look as though the patients 
 got well in spite of the treatment ? We have not a 
 doubt of it. And a thousand-fold better than our 
 opinion, the leading men, the best thinkers in the pro- 
 fession in nearly all ages, as they have ripened in wis- 
 dom, have expressed the opinion that medicines were 
 unnecessary and only mischievous. When the distin- 
 guished professor in the medical department of Harvard 
 University declared, in his elaborate address before the 
 Massachusetts Medical Society, that if medicines, as 
 now used, were thrown into the sea, it would be better 
 for mankind and worse for the fishes, he uttered the 
 inmost conviction of the better part of the profession, 
 though they chided him greatly for it at the time. 
 
 But the people must not be too hard on the doctors. 
 How can we tell you the truth ? You come with head- 
 ache and dulness, and ask us to give you something to 
 take. Now, we know very well that what you need is 
 less food and more breath and a clean skin. But we 
 can't afford to tell you that, because you see the next 
 time you had headache and dulness, you would pre-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 135 
 
 scribe for yourself. Next month you have some other 
 ailment which needs rest, more sleep, skin-friction, and 
 a reduction of food. Suppose we were to advise just 
 these things, and nothing more. The next time you 
 would manage it yourself. In six months you would 
 pass from our hands into the ranks of those hygienic 
 families who never call a physician. Any doctor 
 would ruin his practice in a year or two if he were 
 to be perfectly frank with his patients. We cannot 
 afford it. We will try not to forget the good ad- 
 vice about the air, food, etc., but we must give you 
 something, even if it is nothing more than a bread pill, 
 to which we will direct your thoughts just enough to 
 keep you in the faith. We hope you will pardon this 
 little trick, for, candidly, without it the doctors would 
 soon have to cry, " Othello's occupation 's gone." 
 
 NATURE AND THE OLD WRITERS. 
 
 THE way some medical writers of the olden time 
 talk about nature reminds one of the story of the Eng- 
 lishman's opinion of the Czar. Mr. Bull had spent a 
 year in St. Petersburg, in the service of a railway com- 
 pany, and had several times met the Czar. His Maj- 
 esty had actually spoken to him, and B. was nearly 
 crazy about it. On the way back to England he
 
 136 FIVE- MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 walked the deck, gesticulated, and repeated, " The 
 Czar is great ! The Czar is great ! " A fellow-passen- 
 ger heard this till he was tired of it, and, stopping the 
 Englishman, said, " The Czar may be great, but God is 
 greater ! " 
 
 "O yes," said Mr. B., "to be sure; but then you 
 know the Czar is young yet!" 
 
 ABOUT NURSING THE SICK. 
 
 HAVING had a somewhat large experience in the 
 treatment of the sick, I shall venture to give some 
 advice to nurses. 
 
 If your patient has engaged a medical friend, follow 
 his every injunction with the utmost fidelity. 
 
 Treat the advice which old Mr. Brown or old Mrs. 
 Smith may give as an unwarrantable interference. 
 
 When the doctor finds that his patient has in his 
 absence taken some wonderful panacea, or has had 
 some skunk's oil, which is so " powerful good," nibbed 
 on, he is false to the dignity of his profession if he 
 does not bolt at once. 
 
 While it is not to be doubted that your immense and 
 accurate observations in the " goose-oil " field are im- 
 measurably valuable to the world, I take the liberty to 
 remind you that "many cooks spoil the broth." So
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 137 
 
 long as the patient will continue to employ a doctor 
 who is sure to give him ten times as much medicine as 
 he can well stand, even your invaluable " yarbs " will 
 do harm. Of course we all know your motives are the 
 best ; still, even this will not prevent the big doses 
 from killing him. 
 
 If you are anxious to do something for the sufferer, 
 rub him with your naked hands more or less hard, as 
 he can bear, and in almost every possible case you will 
 do him great good. 
 
 In the name of oxygen, which is the great life- 
 principle of the animal body, let me beg you to give 
 the sick person a full and constant supply of fresh air. 
 If you keep him well covered, he can never take cold 
 by having the windows open day and night. If the 
 wind blows upon him, rub his face and neck with your 
 naked hands frequently, and there can never be a mis- 
 chievous impression made there. 
 
 Eemember that although a well man may live on in 
 a room with imperfect ventilation, a sick one must 
 have the help of a pure tonic atmosphere. 
 
 Remember that when typhoid fever attacks an army, 
 and there is a deficiency of hospital accommodations, 
 those who lie in an open shed or exposed to the dews 
 and storms do much better than those who enjoy the 
 average hospital facilities. 
 
 It is very doubtful if there is a single possible dis-
 
 138 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ease in which the patient should not have cold water 
 ad libitum. 
 
 Every sick-room should have two narrow beds, and 
 the patient should be changed from one to the other 
 frequently. The beds should be narrow, that the du- 
 ties of the nurse may be performed with ease to the 
 patient and to herself. Suppose the case be typhoid 
 fever. In two or three hours the sheets, mattress, and 
 blankets are filled with poisonous exhalations from the 
 sick man. These poisonous gases become a source of 
 serious irritation. Suppose that every three hours the 
 sufferer is lifted into a fresh bed, and the hot, impure 
 bed is taken apart and exposed to the sun or to a 
 draught of pure air. I know of nothing in the nursing 
 of the sick so comforting and so curative as this 
 change of beds, with a frequent use of soap and 
 water all over the skin. None but a sensitive fever 
 patient who has enjoyed this constant change can ap- 
 preciate its renovating and refreshing effects, and none 
 but the intelligent medical man, who knows the rapid 
 accumulation of poisonous effluvia from the feverish 
 body and its mischievous reaction on the patient, can 
 appreciate its remedial influence. 
 
 This advice is particularly applicable to patients 
 suffering from active, acute diseases. But it is appli- 
 cable in a degree to every sick person, for every dis- 
 eased body eliminates large quantities of morbid mat- 
 ter which rapidly accumulate in the bed.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 139 
 
 What a piece of business it is to let a patient lie in 
 bed a week without even a change of sheets, and dose 
 him one day with a cathartic to make his bowels move, 
 and the next day with an opiate to make them quiet, 
 the next day with another dose to make them move 
 again, and on the fourth day another opiate to make 
 them quiet ! Now, in the name of the sick and suffer- 
 ing, I beg to know when doctors will stop playing this 
 farce. 
 
 Not to discuss the question whether the sick should 
 ever take drugs, I want to say that every person should 
 be bathed frequently. There is not a possible excep- 
 tion to this rule. If the sick one has fever, as almost 
 every sick person has, there is urgent reason for the 
 frequent use of the bath. 
 
 MECHANICAL APPARATUS IN THE TREATMENT 
 OF SPINAL CURVATURES. 
 
 AMONG civilized peoples curvatures of the spine are 
 becoming common. They are especially prevalent in 
 the United States. There are two principal varieties, 
 the forward curvature, and the sideways curvature. 
 The forward is seen in stooping shoulders, and the 
 sideways in a sideways bending of the trunk. Of a 
 hundred cases of decided curvature, ninety-nine belong 
 to the forward and one to the sideways class.
 
 140 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Every case of curvature of the spine is more or less 
 dependent upon muscular weakness. Generally, a lack 
 of muscle is the cause of the deformity. 
 
 The spine is like the mast of a ship, held in position 
 by stays. Cut away the ropes, and the mast will soon 
 give way. The mast has no power to support itself ; so 
 the spine has no power to support itself, it must be 
 kept in position by the muscles. 
 
 A large majority of cases of spinal curvature among 
 grown people may be remedied, and I need not say 
 that every case when cured is cured by developing the 
 muscles. When a mast is found leaning to one side, 
 the ropes must be strengthened on the weak side. So 
 when a spine is found bent, it can only be straightened 
 by strengthening the muscles on the weak side. 
 
 The people do not know about this dependence of the 
 spine upon the muscles, and certain enterprising medical 
 men, taking advantage of this ignorance, have intro- 
 duced various mechanical contrivances for pressing 
 against the projecting portion of the ribs, and drawing 
 back the shoulders. These contrivances they have sold 
 in immense numbers, at immense prices. All this 
 waste in money might be borne, but the injury to those 
 who have worn the machinery is incalculable. Xot 
 only are they not improved in form, but the appa- 
 ratus prevents the play of the muscles, and the real 
 difficulty is thereby increased. It requires but little
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 141 
 
 thought to comprehend the uselessness and inevitable 
 mischief of an apparatus which is put around the chest, 
 and so tightened that any considerable pressure is 
 made upon the prominent point. If ten pounds' press- 
 ure be made upon the projecting point, just ten pounds' 
 pressure must be made on the opposite side of the chest ; 
 and although the pressure on the opposite side may be 
 disturbed, it must compress the chest sadly, and arrest 
 the growth of the muscles, to say nothing of the inter- 
 ference with respiration and other vital functions. 
 
 Stevens tells us of an attempt by a company of 
 Arabs to draw a large stick of timber out of the water. 
 It required one hundred men to pull it out. First, ten 
 men would take hold and pull awhile, then ten oth- 
 ers, and so on. After an hour's pulling in this way, 
 they gave it up as impracticable. This illustrates a 
 principle which is seen in the treatment of a curvature 
 of the spine by pressure. This young woman had a 
 straight spine four years ago. The muscles were weak. 
 The curvature began. Nature resisted. It was com- 
 paratively easy to resist then, when the spine was 
 nearly straight. But the mischief would go on. Na- 
 ture loses her advantage. Her power of resistance 
 becomes less and less, and the deformity is at length 
 painfully obvious. To speak quite within bounds, it is 
 now twenty times more difficult for nature to correct 
 this fault than it was just after it began. Now, a press-
 
 142 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ure which is quite hard enough to check the circula- 
 tion in the muscles, but which produces no effect 
 whatever upon the bony deformity, is kept up month 
 after month, perhaps day and night. 
 
 The people, not knowing that the position of the 
 spine depends entirely upon the strength of the mus- 
 cles, are readily caught with the notion that the way 
 to cure a lateral curvature, for instance, is to apply 
 pressure to the projecting ribs. They don't see that 
 the pressure on one side must be exactly equalled by 
 pressure on the other. In other words, that in order to 
 produce five or ten pounds' pressure on the projecting 
 ribs, the chest must be ruinously squeezed. Thousands 
 have been crippled and spoiled by this absurd press- 
 ure, and I have never known a case cured by it. 
 
 The people do not see that in order to straighten the 
 spine by pressure, it must be ten times as great as it is 
 possible to make it, and leave the breath of life in the 
 poor victim. 
 
 The only really effective treatment is exercise. The 
 best exercise is found in carrying a weight upon top 
 of the head. This weight may be the graduated iron 
 crown, or, if you please, simply a bag of beans. For a 
 girl, it may range from ten to eighty pounds. By car- 
 rying the weight with the chin drawn in close to the 
 neck, and the spine quite erect, more will be done to 
 cultivate the muscles which hold the spine erect in
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 143 
 
 half an hour, than by any calisthenic or other similar 
 exercise would be accomplished in a dozen half-hours. 
 If the spinal curvature is lateral, it is well to have the 
 hand on the defective side carried constantly up on the 
 weight to steady it. This position of the arm on the 
 defective side straightens the spine for the time being, 
 and thus contributes to that change in the interverte- 
 bral substance which must be accomplished before the 
 spinal column can resume its natural position ; besides, 
 in this position the muscles develop much more rap- 
 idly. 
 
 Shoulder-braces have been much advised. I suppose 
 that a million pair of shoulder-braces are yearly sold 
 in this country. If they hold the shoulders back, and 
 thus dispense with the muscles which should keep the 
 shoulders in position, they are about as likely to im- 
 prove the muscles appointed to perform the task, as a 
 sling about the neck which carries the arm is likely to 
 improve the muscles of the arm. The weight on the 
 head is the best treatment for stooping neck and shoul- 
 ders. As much as you can carry on the head, half an 
 hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening, 
 will soon give you an erect posture, and make you 
 walk like a very queen.
 
 144 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 NINE WAYS' TO COMMIT SUICIDE. 
 
 1. WEAR narrow, thin shoes. 
 
 2. Wear a " snug " corset. 
 
 3. Sit up in hot, unventilated rooms till midnight. 
 
 4. Sleep on feathers in a small, close room. 
 
 5. Eat rich food rapidly and at irregular times. 
 
 6. Use coffee, tea, spirits, and tobacco. 
 
 7. Stuff yourself with cake, confectionery, and sweet- 
 meats, and swallow a few patent medicines to get rid 
 of them. 
 
 8. (Marryifa fashionable wife and live beyond your 
 incomer) 
 
 9. Employ a fashionable and needy doctor to attend 
 you in every slight ailment. 
 
 CHAT "WITH MOTHERS. 
 
 IN the management of your little ones, nobody 
 doubts your love, nobody doubts your readiness to sac- 
 rifice yourselves for them ; but your methods, the wis- 
 dom of your service, may often justly be questioned. 
 
 At this time I ask your attention to a suggestion or 
 two in regard to your methods of feeding your babies. 
 You know how vital regularity is with us grown people.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 145 
 
 We may take the plainest food, and in moderate quan- 
 tity ; if no attention be paid to times and seasons, our 
 digestion will soon be deranged. A man may eat 
 nothing but beef and stale bread, the two best articles 
 of food with which we are acquainted, and he may 
 take them in proper quantities, but in a month he will 
 have dyspepsia, if he constantly changes the hours of 
 his meals. It is not the kind of food we eat at the 
 railroad stations, but the irregularity of the hours of 
 eating, which so deranges our stomachsj Now, we all 
 know this to be true of ourselves, grown-up, matured, 
 tough people ; we believe it to rest upon a physiologi- 
 cal law. And, in view of this law, let us consider how 
 you feed your baby. You put it to your breast when- 
 ever it is uneasy. No matter what makes it cry ; if it 
 is hungry, or cold, or has a pin stuck in its back, or is 
 surfeited and has the colic, no matter what may be 
 the cause of its crying or worrying, you treat it with 
 the same remedy, a dose of milk. The little thing 
 does not know that milk is bad for it, and so it goes on 
 sucking. It has learned to do but one thing, to 
 suck ; and in its eagerness to get relief it will do that 
 thing fifty times a day. In this way it is made fever- 
 ish and thirsty. Its little pulse will run up to a very 
 high rate. It is suffering with thirst. Like all crea- 
 tures with thirst, it needs water. Nothing could be 
 worse than milk. It is poison even to a strong man 
 
 7
 
 146 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 with a fever. What do you give your baby with a 
 fever ? One thing, and one only, and that is milk. 
 Milk, milk, is the food and drink of every baby, given 
 to it five, ten, twenty, or fifty times a day, just as it 
 happens. At night it is coaxed to dine every time it 
 wakes up. 
 
 A baby six to twelve months old should be nursed 
 about eight o'clock in the morning, and it should have 
 time to get all it wants. Every three hours, till bed- 
 time or nine o'clock at night, it should have a good 
 meal, which should be given with perfect regularity. 
 During the night, nothing whatever. In a month the 
 baby will not only become accustomed to this, but 
 upon this system the little chap will flourish as he 
 never did before. More than half of the stomach and 
 bowel diseases, fevers and fits, from which babies suffer 
 and die, come from irregularity and excess in feeding 
 them. 
 
 A MOTHER'S DUTY. 
 
 CONSIDER it your religious duty to take out-door 
 exercise without fail each day. Sweeping and trotting 
 around the house will not take its place ;" the exhilara- 
 tion of the open air and change of scene are absolutely 
 necessary. O, I know all about Lucy's gown that is 
 not finished, and Tommy's jacket, and even his coat,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 147 
 
 his buttonless coat thrown into your lap, as if to add 
 the last straw to the camel's back ; still I say, up and 
 out. Is it not more important that your children in 
 their tender years should not be left motherless, and 
 that they should not be born to that feeble constitution 
 of body which will blight every blessing ? Let buttons 
 and strings go. You will take hold of them with more 
 vigor when you return, bright and refreshed; and if 
 every stitch is not finished at such a moment, still 
 remember that "she who hath done what she could" 
 is entitled to no mean praise. Your husband is un- 
 doubtedly the best of men, though there are malicious 
 people who might answer that that was not saying 
 much for him. Still, he would never, to the end of 
 time, dream of what you are dying of. So accept my 
 advice and take the matter in hand yourself. 
 
 OUR LITTLE PEOPLE. 
 
 THE fearful mortality among our children, and the 
 still more fearful suffering among the unnumbered lit- 
 tle ones to whom death is denied, render the subject 
 .of the management of children one of general and 
 painful interest. 
 
 That a feeble, suffering child may, by a wise hygiene, 
 be made vigorous and happy, many glad mothers will
 
 148 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 warmly testify ; and that of the host who yearly perish, 
 thousands might be preserved, we all believe. 
 
 No thoughtful reader of history, no discriminating 
 observer, no intelligent physiologist, can entertain a 
 doubt that the child in utero is influenced for good or 
 evil by surrounding circumstances. Not only may 
 general integrity of physical, mental, and moral con- 
 stitution be implanted in the new-born child with 
 absolute certainty, but an extraordinary susceptibility 
 of culture in any special department may be conferred 
 upon the being before it begins its independent exist- 
 ence. I have scores of interesting facts with which to 
 illustrate the potency of pre-natal impressions, but my 
 present purpose is to speak of the management of the 
 child after its birth. 
 
 If upon his first appearance the little chap cry 
 lustily, bathe him in water a little cool, using soap 
 freely. If, on the contrary, his cry and movements be 
 rather feeble, use tepid water. Be rapid, but gentle. 
 He should be exposed to the air but a few moments. 
 The wiping should be done by wrapping the little red 
 stranger in warm soft towels, and then passing your 
 hands gently over the towels. 
 
 The skirt-bands must be left very loose. To give 
 the baby's lungs and heart fair play, you must leave 
 the dress about the chest and waist so loose that if the 
 child be held up by the shoulders, its entire dress,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 149 
 
 except as sustained by the shoulders, will fall to the 
 floor. With such a dress, other things being equal, the 
 little one will part with that characteristic dark red color 
 with which it begins life in about half the usual time. 
 The soft bones surrounding the small feeble lungs, now 
 for the first time beginning to move, are so placed that 
 under the slightest pressure they give way, and the 
 capacity of the lungs is reduced. Any one acquainted 
 with the anatomy and physiology of the thorax of a 
 new-born babe must be shocked when he sees the 
 nurse employing the strength of her fingers in pinning 
 the bands of the skirt about the body of the poor little 
 helpless one. I have in many cases seen the respira- 
 tion and the pulse of a baby immediately and decidedly 
 affected by enlarging the skirt-bands. 
 
 Among the blunders in the management of our 
 precious little ones, I must mention the common prac- 
 tice of leaving their arms naked. This is a most 
 absurd and mischievous fashion. That grand, wise old 
 man, Dr. John C. Warren, whose memory is so sacred 
 to those of us who were his pupils, said, with solemn 
 earnestness, in one of his lectures : 
 
 " Gentlemen, the mothers of Boston kill five hundred 
 babies yearly by allowing their arms to go naked. 
 Gentlemen, take the glass part of a thermometer out 
 of the tin frame, and put the bulb in a baby's mouth ; 
 watch the tube ; soon the mercury will rise to ninety-
 
 150 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 eight degrees. Now take the bulb out of the baby's 
 mouth, and if the weather be cool, put it in its hand, 
 and close the little hand upon it. Don't be in a hurry. 
 The mercury will soon begin to sink. It will go down 
 and down until it reaches sixty degrees. The small 
 naked arm and hand are very cold as compared with 
 the chest ; and when the cold currents of blood come 
 back from the cold arms and hands, they play the mis- 
 chief. Gentlemen, I said five hundred babies are sac- 
 rificed yearly by this absurd vanity ; I might have 
 doubled the number without danger of exaggeration." 
 
 I may add that in a delicate child there is the same 
 reason for protecting its hands that there is for protect- 
 ing its feet. As the baby has both feet and hands in 
 the mother's lap, there is as good reason for protecting 
 one as the other. Whenever we adults take to walking 
 with our hands on the cold wet earth, we shall be com- 
 pelled to wear the thick shoes and stockings on our 
 hands ; while if we carry our feet up high from the 
 ground as we now carry our hands, we may wear the 
 kid gloves on them. 
 
 During the cold season, saying nothing of the hands, 
 I insist that the arms shall be covered with at least 
 two thicknesses of woollen.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 151 
 
 THE BABY'S NIGHT-GOWN. 
 
 THE baby's night-gown should be white flannel. The 
 red flannel many mothers fancy may poison its skin. 
 The old-time red dyes were well enough, but the pres- 
 ent reds should not be worn next the skin by either 
 old or young. They are particularly mischievous to 
 the delicate skin of our little people. All of the mod- 
 ern dyes are poisonous. If there are any exceptions, 
 I have not been able to learn the fact, although I have 
 taken pains to question those who are engaged in the 
 dyeing business. The little ones should have white 
 flannel next their skins day and night. It is the only 
 proper material to place next the skins of any human 
 being day or night, no matter in what climate or at 
 what season of the year. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to add, that the superiority of flannel 
 is greater during the summer than during the winter. 
 In the hottest weather, a single thickness of flannel 
 for a night-gown will give the baby abundant protec- 
 tion, whereas if it wears cotton next the skin, it is soon 
 wet with perspiration, and then there must be two or 
 three more thicknesses over it to furnish the protection 
 against a breeze, which a single thickness of flannel 
 next the skin could afford. Our little people should 
 have their night-dresses made with drawers closed at
 
 152 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the bottom. With this dress, and lying upon a fresh 
 straw pillow, with the same for the little head, and 
 sleeping in a well-ventilated room, the small shaver 
 will have a chance, even in the hottest season, not only 
 to sleep sweetly, but to grow. Besides these and other 
 considerations which I will not name, the woollen dress 
 serves, by its mechanical irritation, to keep up a better 
 circulation in the skin. 
 
 Don't rock them either in crib or chair. The motion 
 is an unhealthy one. Try it yourself ! Eock yourself 
 half an hour steadily, and see how you feeL I am glad 
 that rockers are going out of fashion. They have 
 injured thousands of our little people. 
 
 Many adults can't ride backward in the cars or in a 
 carriage. When you have your baby out for a ride in 
 his little carriage, don't push him backward. I have 
 often noticed the little passengers as they were jolted 
 along backward, off one curbstone and up another, 
 turning their eyes this way and that in a painfully 
 bewildered way. The only avenue to their souls which 
 is fairly opened is that through the eyes. Pray don't 
 set that one all topsy-turvy. 
 
 Don't bounce it on your knee, or give it that great 
 toss up and down in your hands. No one but a first- 
 class circus-tumbler can stand such nonsense. How 
 many fatal diseases of the head have originated in this 
 common practice of the nursery I know not, but am
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 153 
 
 certain the number must have been very large. And 
 I have no doubt that a still greater number must have 
 been hurt who have contrived to survive the stupid 
 blunder. 
 
 If you think your baby lacks exercise, rub and knead 
 its little naked body gently, but thoroughly, morning 
 and evening. This will do wonders in giving the little 
 fellow not only much from your vital magnetism, but 
 will contribute to its circulation and the activity of its 
 abdominal viscera. 
 
 LET THE BABY SLEEP ALONE. 
 
 THE baby should never be allowed to sleep in the 
 bed between the parents. Several good objections must 
 occur to every one ; I need name but one. It must, 
 when thus placed, constantly inhale the poisonous 
 emanations from the bodies of the two adults. It 
 should sleep in a crib by the side of its mother's 
 bed. The best bed at all seasons of the year is one 
 of oat-straw. The straw should be changed and the 
 tick washed as often as once in two weeks. This gives 
 little trouble, and involves little or no expense, while 
 the perfect cleanliness and sweetness contribute not 
 a little to the baby's health. During the cold season 
 a woollen blanket should be spread over the straw bed 
 to increase the warmth. For covering, woollen blan- 
 
 7*
 
 154 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 kets should be used, and all these blankets should be 
 frequently washed. 
 
 Does he kick off the bedclothes ? Then fasten them 
 on the sides of the crib with tapes or little knobs. The 
 little chap may then kick ever so obstinately, he can't 
 uncover himself. 
 
 I forgot to speak of this in connection with the bed. 
 The proximate, if not the original, cause of a large 
 proportion of deaths among American babies is some 
 malady of the brain. When we suppose the death to 
 result from dysentery or cholera infantum, the imme- 
 diate cause of the death is an affection of the brain 
 supervening upon the bowel disease. The heads of 
 American babies are, for the most part, little furnaces ! 
 What mischief must come from keeping them buried 
 twenty hours out of every twenty-four in feather pil- 
 lows ! It makes me shiver to think of the number of 
 deaths among these precious little ones which I have 
 myself seen, where I had no doubt that cool straw 
 pillows would have saved them. 
 
 The hair pillow is inferior to straw, because it can- 
 not, like straw, be made perfectly clean and fresh by a 
 frequent change. Do not fail to keep their little heads 
 cool. 
 
 The common baby cap for the baby's head has been 
 mostly abandoned. I am glad of it. It certainly 
 increases the heat of the head, and if worn during
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 155 
 
 the day, it must likewise be worn at night, which 
 increases the perspiration about its head and neck, 
 and thus increases its susceptibility to colds and other 
 kindred affections. Besides, the hair, which is na- 
 ture's covering, grows better when no artificial cover- 
 ing is used. 
 
 During the greatest heat of summer the child may 
 often be laid on the naked canvas generally found 
 stretched across the bottom of the crib. And if the 
 baby's head be allowed to rest on the same canvas, 
 which may be raised a little for that purpose by a joint 
 in the frame on which the canvas is nailed, it will be 
 found a great luxury. The canvas, with a fresh sheet 
 and a soft flannel night-gown, make a perfect sleeping 
 arrangement for the hottest nights. 
 
 And what a luxury it is, if you can afford the space, 
 to have two cribs, so as to change from one to the 
 other during the hot season. A change of the straw 
 pillow on which the little body lies, and likewise of 
 that which supports the head, will do very well with- 
 out a change of cribs, if the crib be entirely open at 
 the sides. And this, I must say, is very desirable, 
 giving, as it does, an opportunity for a perfect venti- 
 lation of every part of the bed. 
 
 It is unnecessary to condemn the practice of putting 
 a veil over the baby's face, to keep away the flies. I 
 have seen a baby put down in the bottom of a box
 
 156 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 in July, and then, down in there, its little face covered 
 with a thick green veil to keep the flies away. It 
 does keep the flies away, true enough, but at the same 
 time it keeps away the fresh air. 
 
 The number of little ones killed by overheated and 
 unventilated nurseries in this country annually is fright- 
 ful. God alone can number them. 
 
 BABY'S FIRST STEPS. 
 
 THERE is very little lime in the bones of a new-born 
 child, and the practice of teaching them to bear their 
 weight and walk early often produces curved legs. 
 
 By all means discourage any premature attempts at 
 walking on the part of the child, if you wish to avoid 
 the risk of this deformity. 
 
 A GREAT step is gained, says that fine moralist, 
 Charles Julius Hare, when a child has learned that 
 there is no necessary connection between liking a thing 
 and doing it.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 157 
 
 A WOED 'TO CHILDREN. 
 
 DEAR children, listen, while I tell you something 
 which deeply concerns your welfare. The subject is 
 the shape of your bodies. God knew the best shape. 
 He created us upright, in his own image. 
 
 None of the inferior animals walk upright. 
 
 God fitted all the great vital organs in your bodies 
 to an erect spine. Do your shoulders ever stoop for- 
 ward ? If they do, the lungs, heart, liver, and stomach 
 fall down out of their natural places. Of course, they 
 can't do their work well. To show how this is, I will 
 tell you that when you bend forward you can take only 
 about half as much air into the lungs as you can when 
 you stand up straight. As I have said, God has so ar- 
 ranged the great organs in the body, that they can't do 
 their duty well except when the body is straight. O, 
 how it distresses me to see the dear children, whom I 
 love so much, bending over their school-desks, and 
 walking with their heads and shoulders drooping ! My 
 dear ones, if you would have a strong spine and vigorous 
 lungs, heart, liver, and stomach, you must now, while 
 you are young, learn to walk erect. 
 
 If a boy were about to leave this country for Japan, 
 never to return, and were to come to me, and ask for 
 rules to preserve his health, I should say, " I am glad
 
 158 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 to see you, and will give you four rules, which, carefully 
 observed, will be pretty sure to preserve your health." 
 He might say to me, " Four are a good many ; I fear 
 I may forget some of them; give me one, the most 
 important one, and I promise not to forget it." I 
 should reply, "Well, my dear boy, if I can give you 
 but one, it is this: 
 
 "Keep yourself straight, that is, sit up straight; 
 stand up straight ; walk up straight ; and, when in bed 
 at night, don't put two or three pillows under your head, 
 as though intent on watching your toes all night." And 
 I believe that in this I should give the most important 
 rule which can be given for the preservation of health 
 and long life. 
 
 My dear children, don't forget it 
 
 CONDUCT OF CHILDREN BEFORE VISITORS. 
 
 I SOMETIMES indulge in a pair of new trousers. A 
 few weeks ago a pair of light drabs came home, and 
 on the next evening they were worn in making a call 
 upon a dear friend in a distant part of the city. Little 
 Eddie always has a piece of bread-and-butter between 
 the different hours. On that particular evening he 
 had a large piece, and I rather think buttered on both 
 sides. Samuel Johnson, Esq., the renovating artist,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 159 
 
 affirms his conviction that while the grease can be 
 removed, he fears that the shade of drab will be so 
 changed that the pants will look worse than now. 
 They shall be hung up as a memento of dear little 
 Eddie's fondness for refreshments. 
 
 There are few weaknesses which surprise us like 
 the indifference of parents to the noise and familiari- 
 ties of their children. Much of the fondling of chil- 
 dren by visitors is a matter of necessity. The stout 
 little democrats will keep the peace only on condi- 
 tion that visitors give their entire time to them. 
 Suppose you prefer to converse with the father and 
 mother, they cry out, "Say, Mr. Smith! say, say, 
 Mr. Smith ! M-i-s-t-e-r S-m-i-t-h, s-a-y ! Mr. Smith ! 
 Why?" 
 
 The mother will remark now, that " the dear little 
 fellow has such an inquiring mind ; it is ' why, why, 
 why,' from morning till night." 
 
 Occasionally children may be found who cry "Why?" 
 because they really want to know something. In that 
 case, unless the conversation between the adults is 
 particularly important, the visitors and all should 
 stop to explain. " Eddie is a sweet, darling cherub," 
 but it should never be forgotten, in the absence of a 
 contrary decision by the Supreme Court, that gro 
 people have rights that children are bound 
 respect.
 
 160 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 The writer has a hundred times been one among the 
 "groan" people, where parents have failed to recog- 
 nize this law of human society. It may be proper to 
 remark in regard to this " why," so much repeated by 
 children, that while it is often the voice of a real and 
 eager curiosity, it is much more frequently the noisy 
 cry of vacancy. The most inferior children are not 
 long in finding out that the best means of securing 
 the attention of older persons is this " why, why ? " 
 
 Let one of the ladies or gentlemen present express 
 an opinion in reference to the tendencies in the pres- 
 ent social life of France, and one of these little apple- 
 headed chaps will set up a regular scream of " Why ? 
 why? why?" 
 
 I used to visit at a beautiful home where there were 
 no children. After a separation of twelve years, the 
 old intimacy has recently been renewed. Two noble 
 boys and one sweet little girl have been added since 
 our former visiting-days. With my love for children, 
 the presence of the bright little ones would add an 
 attraction to my friend's home, but for one unhappy 
 hallucination. My friends have been seized with a 
 mania for giving their children the advantages of 
 society. They argue that the way to make children 
 smart is to bring them forward. To visit that house 
 now is like going to the theatre. The little ones are 
 the actors, we adults look on and listen. We might
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 161 
 
 perhaps get in a word edgewise now and then, but I 
 have noticed that the children do not like any by-play. 
 The best way is to give one's self exclusively and 
 unreservedly to the children. Thus all struggle is 
 avoided, peace is secured, and the parents are delighted. 
 How much better than to battle with the lusty, deter- 
 mined youngsters for a chance to speak or to hear 
 your friends ! How can parents be so blind ? If your 
 visitors are well-bred, they will show no irritation ; 
 they will not tell you that they called to chat with 
 you about matters of interest to men and women, and 
 not to jabber baby-talk, but their silence will prove 
 that " my 'eetle dolly," or " my 'eetle doggy," are not 
 especially interesting subjects to them, and they will 
 soon take their departure. 
 
 Parents prefer this talk to any other. They are 
 happy in the sweet voices. They are deeply interested 
 in every trouble or joy, no matter how trifling. These 
 darlings are more dear to them than all other treasures, 
 but yet it might prove difficult to find any one who 
 would take them as a gift. 
 
 Our loving Father has given to parents, for the 
 wisest of reasons, this absorbing love for their children. 
 But recalling how little interest they take in other 
 people's children, they must not expect that other 
 people are likely to feel much in theirs. Children are 
 the most beautiful and interesting creatures on earth ;
 
 162 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 but as little men and women taking part in general 
 society, they are, except in those leisure hours when 
 we can give ourselves up to their prattle, simply nui- 
 sances. 
 
 CAUGHT IN A SCHOOL-TRAP. 
 
 A LITTLE girl of twelve writes me from Batavia, 
 N. Y., that she can't go to school because she has 
 so much headache. Well, my poor child, I fancy you 
 are caught in what I call the "school-trap," which 
 consists of a room of moderate size, packed full of 
 children, without provision for constant change of 
 air. I don't think I can help you much. Nearly all 
 school-girls suffer more or less from headache, and 
 nothing can be done to relieve them until the school- 
 rooms are perfectly ventilated. Of course you must 
 avoid grease, doughnuts, buckwheat-cakes, candies, 
 sweetmeats, coffee, and tea. 
 
 Now that we know how to ventilate school-rooms, 
 it is unpardonable in the managers that our young 
 folks while at school should be poisoned with a foul 
 atmosphere. 
 
 MOTHERS, never cease your exhortation to Jonathan 
 and Jerusha Ann to stand, sit, and walk erect.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 163 
 
 THE AIR WE BREATHE. 
 
 OUE first, constant, and imperative need is pure air. 
 If we lack this, we have nothing. Upon this vital 
 point, intelligent people are sadly and wilfully stupid. 
 A large majority of the cars, theatres, halls, parlors, 
 and churches are dens of poisons. It must be a strong 
 attraction which can draw me to a public hall. In 
 lectures before lyceums, I quarrel with the managers 
 about the atmosphere of the hall. I return from church 
 sincerely doubting whether I have not committed sin 
 in exposing myself in a poisonous atmosphere. The 
 eminent Baudeloque declared it as his conviction, that 
 the lack of proper ventilation in our dwellings is the 
 principal cause of scrofula. He believed, if there be 
 pure air, bad food, improper clothing, and want of 
 cleanliness will not produce scrofula. Sir James Clark 
 expressed the opinion that the bad air of our nurseries, 
 sitting-rooms, and bedrooms produces an immense 
 amount of scrofulous disease. 
 
 As a medical man, I have visited thousands of the 
 sick, but have never found one hundred of them in a 
 pure atmosphere. Among the well, not one in a hun- 
 dred sleeps in a well-ventilated room. The air of our 
 close, furnace-heated houses produces fits in our cats 
 and dogs, and would kill our horses or cows in a few 
 months.
 
 164 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 God has provided this immense atmospheric ocean, 
 a hundred miles deep, with its winds and very hurri- 
 canes, an exhaustless fountain of life and health ! 
 What a shame to our civilization that we should expend 
 thousands of dollars in erecting splendid houses, and so 
 contrive them as to compel ourselves to breathe, instead 
 of the pure air of heaven, a vile mixture with the 
 poisonous excretions of our own bodies and the poison- 
 ous gases emanating from our gas-burners and fires. 
 
 VENTILATION OF HALLS. 
 
 AT a lecture recently I was one of two thousand 
 auditors. The hall was handsome, light, brilliant; 
 lecture fine ; in brief, everything delightful except the 
 ventilation, that was execrable. Next morning I 
 could eat well, walk well, and, in a general way, could 
 say that " I am very well, thank you," but my nerves 
 were irritable and my temper unamiable. I found 
 it difficult to think. No human being can spend two 
 hours in a crowded, unventilated hall, and escape next 
 day these slight effects on his brain and nerves. I 
 know of but one theatre where a man can prudently 
 spend an evening. I do not know a single hall 
 where even the best lecture will not cost more than 
 it comes to. I dare not speak of the churches, be-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 165 
 
 cause we might hurt the feelings of many good people. 
 We will simply add that a twelve-horse engine will ven- 
 tilate the largest room on this continent. Every archi- 
 tect knows how to do it. As most of these large places 
 are now heated by steam, the additional coal required 
 to run the engine would cost, say, one dollar. We had 
 a complimentary ticket to a lecture the next evening 
 by Mr. Froude ; would not go : could n't afford it. If 
 we could have heard the lecture in a pure atmosphere, 
 we would cheerfully have given ten dollars to hear it. 
 Why don't the managers of theatres, halls, and churches 
 ventilate them ? Fifty thousand dollars for ornamen- 
 tation and not a penny for air ! No means have ever been 
 discovered of ventilating a crowded hall without the use 
 of steam-power. It may be expensive, but it is cer- 
 tainly the duty of managers of theatres and proprietors 
 of public halls to introduce it as soon as possible. 
 
 ROYAL ALBERT HALL. 
 
 THE finest thing I saw in Europe was the new Albert 
 Hall, at the upper end of Hyde Park. Add to the hall 
 itself the art crescent and the splendid gardens, and this 
 exhibition is most satisfactory. 
 
 My first visit to Albert Hall was on the occasion of 
 the first public meeting of the Society of Telegraphic 
 Engineers. It was a grand occasion. Mr. Pierce,
 
 166 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 known, I suppose, to all the telegraphic fraternity, gave 
 an exhaustive history of the telegraph, in which, by the 
 way, our American Morse found not even mention, 
 except in the list of a dozen inventors of recording in- 
 struments more or less valuable ; he, it seems, having 
 had no part whatever in inventing the telegraph. 
 
 " To whom," asked Mr. Pierce, " are we indebted for 
 this matchless invention ? " And, with an air of tri- 
 umph, he three times pronounced the names of two 
 Englishmen. I have forgotten them. 
 
 But what I particularly wanted to say was, that 
 Albert Hall strikes me as the beginning of a new order 
 of public halls. So far as I know, the world has never 
 seen, before the building of Albert Hall, a very large, 
 and at the same time artistic, convenient room for con- 
 certs, lectures, and other great gatherings, one adapted 
 to music, in which Nilsson's most delicate trills are dis- 
 tinctly heard by ten or twelve thousand people, and in 
 which as many persons can hear the voice of a good 
 lecturer. . Such is Albert Hall. The conception was 
 . Prince Albert's, whose untimely death, I really believe, 
 was a greater misfortune to the English nation than was 
 the death of Lincoln to America. Very tender these 
 Englishmen are in reference to every suggestion known 
 to have been made by the dead Prince, whose remains 
 are now sacredly guarded at the beautiful mausoleum 
 in Windsor Park. He it was who thought that the
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 167 
 
 great city needed an immense hall, where the people 
 could assemble to listen to music and lectures. After 
 his death it only needed to be mentioned, and from all 
 parts of the kingdom subscriptions flowed in. Scores 
 of people who might not visit the metropolis once a 
 year subscribed each a thousand pounds. 
 
 I saw nothing in Europe which so deeply interested 
 me. My bump of reverence for what is merely old is 
 not, I fear, up to the prescribed level ; for, if you believe 
 me, this Albert Hall, with its modern freshness and 
 beauty, with its comfortable sittings for thousands of 
 the people, impressed me more than Westminster Abbey, 
 with all its sacred chapels, filled with the awfully sacred 
 remains of a lot of old kings and queens, whose lives, 
 for the most part, were cheap and vulgar and mean to 
 the last degree. 
 
 You will of course understand that in order to bring 
 ten or twelve thousand people within hearing of a single 
 voice, they must be piled up highly. In Albert Hall 
 they pile them up five stories high, but with perfect 
 ventilation and competent elevators. I greatly prefer 
 the upper stories, both for seeing and hearing. 
 
 Ah ! I wish the great American cities would build 
 such halls. Think of halls so large that the very highest 
 class of concerts and operas may be offered to the pub- 
 lic for ten cents, and other good things in proportion. 
 That will be a great and beneficent revolution in our 
 public amusements and instructions.
 
 168 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 OPEN FIRES w. STOVES AND FURNACES. 
 
 AMONG health topics, this is one of the most impor- 
 tant. In this latitude perhaps no other is so vital 
 
 In fitting up a house for my family, I should begin 
 with, "An open fire is number one among house bless- 
 ings." If it were at all practicable, it should be of 
 wood, in one of those great, generous, old-fashioned 
 fireplaces ! How it fills the family group with a com- 
 fortable, social spirit ! To supply the draught the air of 
 the room is momentarily changed. The carbonic acid 
 and other excretions of the animal body cannot accumu- 
 late ; the room cannot smell close, even when crowded. 
 
 Strange the people will not have this delightful sun 
 in their homes at any cost or sacrifice. And pray, 
 now, why not have it all back again ? If a small part 
 of the money we spend in various foolish fashions were 
 given to the reintroduction of this good old-fashioned 
 blessing, how much healthier and happier we all 
 should be ! 
 
 Next to an open wood-fire, the open coal-grate is the 
 best means of warming and ventilating. And if, with 
 a good draught, the coal used be bituminous, it is a 
 very excellent fire. 
 
 There has been a fearful "increase of consumption, 
 bronchitis, headache, and some other affections, since
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 169 
 
 the general introduction of stoves and furnaces. If 
 with the higher degree of heat, the doors and windows 
 are kept open during the entire season, as may be easily 
 and comfortably done, the evil would not be so great, 
 but, as generally managed, it is the gravest mistake in 
 our physical life. 
 
 If in the window-shutter of a dark room you open a 
 small aperture, and look in the jet of light as it streams 
 through the room, you will discover that the air is full 
 of floating motes. The air of our houses is always 
 crowded with these. In their ordinary condition they 
 are not mischievous, but after they have been exposed 
 to contact with a heated surface, they do poison us. 
 Millions of these carbonized particles come from the 
 stove or furnace to poison our lungs and blood. 
 
 If you would have good throat, lungs, and nerves, sit 
 by an open fire, and keep as far as possible from stoves 
 and furnaces. If you cannot escape those evils, wear 
 more clothing, especially upon the feet and legs, and 
 keep the doors and windows open. 
 
 Most people, even many intelligent reformers, have 
 the idea that to sleep in a cold room is good, essen- 
 tial to health. It is an error. It is better to have an 
 open fire in your bedroom. The atmosphere is not 
 only by this means constantly changed, but you will 
 keep the window open, which will add greatly to the 
 needed ventilation. But more than this, with the fire 
 
 8
 
 170 PIPE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 you will have fewer bedclothes over you, which is a 
 gain, as a large number of blankets not only interferes 
 somewhat with the circulation and respiration, but pre- 
 vents the escape of those gases which the skin is con- 
 stantly emitting. Even furnace or stove heat with an 
 open window is better than a close, cold room. Inter- 
 change with the external atmosphere depends upon the 
 difference between the temperature of the air within 
 and that without. 
 
 But let us have the open fire. Let us go without 
 silks, broadcloths, carpets, and finery of all kinds, if 
 necessary, that we may have this excellent purifier and 
 diffuser of joy in all our houses. In my own house I 
 have ten open grates, and find the expense is frightful, 
 and if it were in any other department of housekeep- 
 ing, I should feel I could not afford it ; but in this I 
 do not flinch, so important do I deem the open fire. 
 
 A QUESTION SETTLED. Cut flowers and growing 
 plants are healthful in sleeping-rooms. I am surprised 
 that a question on this point should ever have been 
 raised. Indeed, a window full of plants is a real, posi- 
 tive source of health, as well as of pleasure.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 171 
 
 A CHAT WITH CLEEGYMEN. 
 
 MK. H., a well-known clergyman, came to consult 
 me about his throat, and began by telling this story : 
 
 " I worked on a farm till I was twenty-two, when I 
 was converted, and immediately resolved to study for 
 the ministry. Up to that time I had never been sick, 
 and, like my father and brother, possessed remarkable 
 endurance. We used oxen, and indulged that un- 
 earthly habit of yelling at them all day long. The 
 neighbors who lived full two miles away declared that 
 they heard me from morning till night. I remember 
 that one old man in the neighborhood said, when he 
 heard that I was studying for the ministry, 'Well, 
 there is one thing about that chap ; he '11 make 'em 
 hear anywhere in the country. When he gets into the 
 pulpit, if he yells as loud as he does at them cattle, 
 they '11 hear him all over heaven and all through 
 t'other place too.' 
 
 " And now," continued Mr. H., " I have been preach- 
 ing seventeen years ; and although I have had no 
 attacks of sickness, I have gradually lost my health 
 and strength, till preaching one sermon a week com- 
 pletely exhausts me. I don't feel like speaking loud 
 before Wednesday ; and besides this, I have lost my 
 legs, until I can't walk two miles without complete
 
 172 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 exhaustion. My church has given me a year's vaca- 
 tion, and now I come to ask what I had better do." 
 
 "First," I said, " I '11 tell you what not to do. Don't 
 go to the Holy Land. The dirt and discomfort which 
 you must encounter there won't help you, while the lack 
 of opportunity to use your faculties, physical and mental, 
 is every way unfavorable. This climate is an excellent 
 one, this society is exceptionally good ; so I advise you 
 to remain here, and, after visiting a week or two with 
 friends, go back to your work and follow this regimen : 
 
 " 1. Go to bed at nine o'clock every night, and sleep 
 half an hour in the middle of the day. 
 
 " 2. Eat a good beefsteak or mutton-chop, with stale 
 bread and butter ad libitum, for breakfast, with a cup 
 of weak coffee. For dinner, at two o'clock, take a large 
 dish of oatmeal or cracked wheat. Eat no supper. 
 
 " 3. Bathe your skin in the morning with cold 
 water, and rub it hard with rough towels. On going to 
 bed at night rub yourself all over with hair gloves. 
 
 " 4. Work five hours a day out-doors in some reg- 
 ular employment, like that of farming or that of a 
 carpenter. Keep up your habit of morning study. 
 
 " 5. Don't be extra good, I mean to say, don't be 
 solemn and reserved. Be jolly. Have a good time. 
 Even if you think this life a weary pilgrimage, act, for 
 the sake of your health, as though the world were a 
 pleasant home, and designed for happiness rather than 
 misery."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 173 
 
 Mr. H. engaged with one of his parishioners, a car- 
 penter, and bargained to begin at nine o'clock every 
 morning and work till two. He was to have what he 
 could earn, which, at the end of a month, was thought 
 to be a dollar a day. Within three months he could 
 frame timber as well as the best of them. 
 
 The only disagreeable result from this prescription is 
 this : since Mr. H. got well (and he declares that he 
 was never so well in his life) he has taken to preaching 
 this sort of table and out-door work to his people, and 
 thus, you see, deprives me of the opportunity to repeat 
 this prescription to others at five dollars a head. In 
 this way my famishing family is deprived of that 
 bread which, but for this clerical interference, I would 
 supply to it from the sweat of my brow. 
 
 American clergymen should be the healthiest men 
 in the country. Their life healthwise may easily be 
 made the ideal one. 
 
 IF you thrust your hand in the fire, you must not 
 blame Providence for the suffering. And if you drink 
 strong tea and coffee, eat every indigestible thing, sleep 
 on feather-beds, toast yourselves by hot stoves, and 
 neglect to keep clean, when you get a fever and are 
 brought down to death's door, do not, we beg, insult 
 God by asking why he should thus visit you.
 
 174 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A CHAT ABOUT WORK AND STUDY. 
 
 MANY of the most notable results of human thought 
 have come from the brains of men whose hands were 
 busy with work. 
 
 It is a source of general congratulation among edu- 
 cators that in the Cornell University an experiment in 
 combining manual labor with intellectual training is in 
 progress. 
 
 The greatest success is not attained by long research 
 within college walls, but from continued observation 
 of every-day life. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin was obliged, as a journeyman 
 printer, to be a very slow and careful reader of books. 
 In this way he thoroughly digested what he read ; a 
 slow but gradual development of power was the result. 
 He was a workingman and a philosopher. 
 
 Eobert Stephens and his son Henry were laborious 
 printers and also learned men. The father wrote a 
 thesaurus of the Latin language, and, De Thou says, 
 "did more to immortalize the reign of Francis I. than 
 all the monarch's own most famous exploits." The 
 son wrote a thesaurus of the Greek language, the re- 
 sult of twelve years' hard application and study, which 
 is well known among the learned. 
 
 Brindley, the famous engineer, worked as a carter,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 175 
 
 ploughman, and millwright till the age of manhood. 
 His observations in this last trade aided him in the 
 construction of the Bridgewater Canal, with its tun- 
 nels, aqueduct, and locks. 
 
 Berwick, the successful engraver on wood, and au- 
 thor of the "History of Quadrupeds," studied from 
 early boyhood the habits of animals, and these observa- 
 tions caused his attempts at drawing, in which he after- 
 wards became proficient. 
 
 Watt's steam-engine, if not the unavoidable, was at 
 least a natural,- result of his thoughts and pursuits. 
 
 Ferguson, while he watched his father's sheep, stud- 
 ied astronomy, and early in life had his thoughts busy 
 with mathematical problems. 
 
 The life of Eittenhouse was very similar. He drew 
 geometrical diagrams on his plough, and studied them 
 as he turned the furrows. 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy was the son of a poor wood- 
 carver, and himself an apprentice to an apothecary. 
 We can hardly suppose that with his excessive vanity 
 he would have added as much to science had he been a 
 gentleman's son. 
 
 Columbus, while leading the life of a seaman, be- 
 came the best astronomer and geographer of his age. 
 It was under the same circumstances that Cook ac- 
 quired his scientific and literary accomplishments. 
 
 Homer was a poor man, and wandered from place to
 
 176 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 place, observing the customs and countries he after- 
 ward described in his two poems, especially in the 
 " Odyssey." 
 
 The success of the " Georgics," Virgil's most finished 
 poem, is due to the writer's knowledge of rural life. 
 
 Milton was an accomplished man of the world, 
 knew much of men and countries, and displayed an 
 especial fondness for athletic sports. 
 
 It is difficult to believe that some of the finest speci- 
 mens of the dramatic poetry of Ben Jonson were writ- 
 ten during the leisure that comes to a laboring mason, 
 and in the intervals of inactivity in a soldier's life. 
 
 Burns worked for years as a farmer, and from his 
 intimate communion with nature came the inspiration 
 of many of his sweetest songs. 
 
 Scott, in all his writings, shows the careful observer 
 of men and things, and by his fidelity of description 
 lias given an added charm to history. 
 
 Dante wrote his " Inferno " after an engagement in 
 civil strife in which he was defeated and proscribed. 
 
 Descartes, while a soldier, laid the foundation of his 
 mathematical discoveries. 
 
 Cervantes, as a soldier, was detained five years a 
 captive in Algiers. 
 
 Giffard's early life was one of privation and hard- 
 ship. 
 
 It was the persevering use of bodily exercise that
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 177 
 
 overcame the natural defects in Demosthenes's voice, 
 and in the bodily organization of Cicero. Plato led a 
 life of vicissitudes, and for many years followed the 
 example of his illustrious master Socrates. Pythagoras 
 in early life became proficient in gymnastic exercises. 
 When eighteen, he received the prize for wrestling in 
 the Olympic games. When Greece could afford him 
 no more, he travelled, and in this way added vast and 
 varied information to his already well-stored mind. 
 He advocated and carried out views which it would be 
 well for those interested in introducing this feature to 
 imitate. 
 
 Many of the best historians describe the scenes 
 in which they themselves were busy actors. Among 
 many, these names may be mentioned : Herodotus, 
 Xenophon, Polybius, Julius Caesar, Sir Walter Ealeigh, 
 Frederick the Great, De Thou, and Clarendon. 
 
 It is a matter of great regret that the most reason- 
 able and natural system of education should have been 
 so long neglected. 
 
 To MY PURITAN FKIENDS. Ptead novels ? Why, 
 how long have you been asleep ? Every good thing is 
 taught in this way nowadays. Not only is love, but all 
 sorts of social, moral, and religious principles and du- 
 ties are taught by this method. All the great religious 
 teachers, Jesus included, have taken advantage of this 
 
 8*
 
 178 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 passion for stories among men. We will not say that 
 the story is the most acceptable form of instruction for 
 the most advanced minds, but for the great mass of 
 minds it is altogether the most agreeable and suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 THE BODY AMONG THE GREEKS. 
 
 IN a conversation with President Felton, the bodily 
 training of the Greeks came up for consideration. He 
 remarked that among that people, so wise in all which 
 concerns the physical man, there were two widely dif- 
 ferent systems of training, one adapted to the athlete, 
 the other to gentlemen and men of learning. The for- 
 mer resulted in immense development of muscle and 
 crude strength, while the latter resulted in a wonderful 
 grace, agility, and beauty. The former produced the 
 great wrestlers, but was deemed unfavorable to intel- 
 lectual genius ; while the latter was resorted to as the 
 surest means of securing that delicate susceptibility 
 and elastic vigor which characterized the Greek poet 
 and orator. A prodigious abnormal development of 
 muscle the result of long-continued, special, intense 
 training destroys the balance between mind and body, 
 and while it produces a splendid animal, leaves the 
 brain with less than its share of power. Plato says, 
 " Excess of bodily exercise may render us wild and un-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 179 
 
 manageable, but excess of art, science, and music makes 
 us faddled and effeminate. Only the right combination 
 makes us wise and manly. 
 
 NOTHING so expands the mind, gives clearness to the 
 ideas, elasticity to the form, and health to the system, 
 as early rising and a walk before breakfast. If your 
 sluggard be not a dolt already, he is in a fair way to 
 become one. Women would gain rosy cheeks by get- 
 ting up before or about daybreak, and men secure 
 health of body and mind. There are many of both 
 sexes, however, who never see the sun rise unless it be 
 when returning from a ball. 
 
 HAVE you no enemies ? If not, we are sorry for 
 you. There is no stimulus toward a high and noble 
 career like the criticisms and hatred of enemies. 
 
 IMPORTANT TO CLERGYMEN. 
 
 FROM the many movements which are made by the 
 larynx in speaking, we infer that it is a matter of great 
 importance that the neck in health should be always 
 loosely dressed. Tight cravats are sure to obstruct the 
 proper function of this organ, and bring on irritation 
 which may end in bronchitis or consumption.
 
 180 FIVEr-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 IBISH LADIES. 
 
 HAPPENING to be in Queenstown, Ireland, one even- 
 ing in July last, I was invited to attend a grand ball. 
 I had been doing some of the interior districts of Ire- 
 land, and was so tired that at first I was rather inclined 
 to excuse myself. But before deciding, I asked a ques- 
 tion or two. 
 
 " Is it a big thing ? " 
 
 " Never anything so grand in town ! " 
 
 " What class of women ? " 
 
 " The first class ; the very best from Queenstown, 
 Cork, in fact, the most beautiful women in the 
 world." 
 
 I knew how the common women of Ireland looked. 
 I had seen hundreds of them about Killarney selling 
 " mountain dew and goat's milk," and, in fact, for some 
 time had seen nothing else. But I had seen the com- 
 mon class only, the servants, pedlers, and peasants. 
 I had not seen the aristocracy. I made up my mind to 
 go. I thanked the gentleman, and began at once on 
 my hair. 
 
 The number of ladies was about one hundred and 
 fifty. Their dress was like that of American ladies on 
 similar occasions, only a trifle more so, sleeves a little 
 shorter, corsage a little lower. The ladies were remark-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 181 
 
 ably self-possessed, quiet, and graceful, and I think on 
 the whole averaged prettier than I have ever seen for 
 the number on such an occasion. Some of our navaLoffi- 
 cers were present in their stunning uniforms, and were 
 honored with marked attention and the sweetest smiles. 
 
 I have written all this in order to say something 
 about the physical development of those Irish ladies. 
 The Irish girls we have seen in America have full 
 chests, large, fine arms, and are altogether plump and 
 vital. When an American lady has shown me her 
 arms, candle-dips, No. 8, and has asked, " How can 
 I get such arms as Bridget's ? " and I have said, " Work, 
 work as she does, and you will have her arms," the 
 lady has generally said, " 0, that is not work ; that 
 comes from climate ! I tell you, if I had been brought 
 up in Bridget's climate, I should have had her fine bust ; 
 but this terrible, dry American air takes all the juices 
 out of us." 
 
 My curiosity was on tiptoe to see how Irish ladies, 
 brought up in this moist, even climate, but without 
 work, would look. I have said there were one hun- 
 dred and fifty ladies present. They were certainly 
 very pretty and very prettily dressed, but now, taking 
 the witness-stand, I testify that I have never in Amer- 
 ica seen one hundred and fifty young women together 
 with arms so small and chests so flat and thin. They 
 belonged to the idle class, and all the world over women
 
 182 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 of the idle class have spindle arms and thin chests, 
 unless they become merely fat, which, with their weak 
 rnugcles, is a sad embarrassment. 
 
 Elegance, education, rank, aspiration, prayer, these 
 will not produce a strong, full, muscular body. They 
 are not the appointed means. Exercise, exercise I work, 
 work ! this produces strong muscles, full chests, and 
 physical beauty. Work is the appointed means. 
 
 WILL SHE MAKE A GOOD WIFE? 
 
 SOME women are indignant at this question, as if that 
 were all women were made for. " Will he make a good 
 husband ? " That question is comparatively rare. " Will 
 she make a good wife ? " is full of man's egotism and 
 selfishness. We don't wonder that the question fills a 
 woman of high spirit with shame and anger. Miss B. 
 declares, " I never would marry a man who could ask 
 such a question. Never ! " 
 
 But, really, do not most women suggest the inquiry ? 
 Their dress, their manners, their conversation, their 
 absence of occupation, their indefinite waiting, waiting, 
 waiting for something, does not all this constantly 
 suggest matrimony ? And how can you blame men for 
 interpreting what is so obvious, and asking, not, Will 
 she make a good physician or teacher or mechanic or
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 183 
 
 accountant or watch-cleaner or gardener or merchant or 
 grocer ? but, Will she make a good wife, ? If women 
 were all training for a single trade or profession, it 
 would be natural to question the probability of their 
 success in that trade or profession, would it not ? And 
 as women generally do train for a single occupation, 
 that of matrimony, why should it be thought coarse, 
 selfish, and egotistic in a man to think of her probable 
 success in her own chosen occupation ? 
 
 When women shall break through these chains which 
 bind them, and find a broad liberty in a thousand em- 
 ployments, they will, like men, wait for the promptings 
 of their hearts in choosing a partner for life, and not 
 follow matrimony as a trade. 
 
 WOMEN sleep by far too little. Sleeplessness is one 
 of the most fruitful causes of the paleness and nervous- 
 ness so characteristic of American mothers. You will 
 excuse us, sir, but permit us to ask whether your wife 
 is not still busy with the care of your family for six 
 hours after your day's work is done ? And then, when 
 your children cry at night, don't you turn over your 
 lazy two hundred pounds for another good sleep, and 
 let that little, thin, pale wife get up and worry by the 
 hour with the little ones ? And now, forsooth, you 
 wish to know whether it is not bad for her to lie till 
 eight o'clock in the morning !
 
 184 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 OPEN THE CAGE DOOR. 
 
 DR. B. resided in this country. At the time I 
 became acquainted with the family the doctor was 
 about seventy years old, and beginning to break. His 
 family consisted of two sons and seven daughters. I 
 don't think the sons were anything wonderful, 
 indeed, I should say that both of them were rather be- 
 low par, but four of the girls were remarkably bright. 
 Owing to certain physiological peculiarities in. the 
 mother, the daughters were endowed with special and 
 striking talents. One of them had a perfect passion for 
 the profession of medicine, another was " crazy about 
 machinery," and still another had a decided taste for 
 farming. Each of them would give the world if she 
 only dared, but what would folks say ? The daughters 
 ranged from twenty-six to forty-two, and not one mar- 
 ried. A little flutter of expectation had been excited 
 in the heart of the poor, overworked father two or 
 three times, but up to the time of which I speak the 
 whole seven girls were still on the father's hands. 
 One of the sons told me that not one of the girls had 
 had a nibble in three years, and that they were pretty 
 much discouraged. The hostler informed me, in a 
 confidential whisper, that " Miss Alice had more sense 
 than the doctor and the two boys all put together, and
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 185 
 
 that Miss Carrie and Miss Viney were smarter 'n light- 
 ning ; but," added John, with a significant wink, " I 
 reckon the old man would be mighty glad to git shet 
 of a few on 'em ; for," added the good-natured hostler, 
 "it takes a heap o' money to clothe and feed a lot 
 like that, even though they be girls ; and then, you 
 know, these girls with high notions spend lots." 
 
 After I had visited at the doctor's two or three 
 times, and had heard the ladies talk about the great 
 busy outside world in that vacant sort of way which I 
 have observed among convicts in prison, the whole 
 thing became so painful to me that I discontinued my 
 calls. What is there, I used to ask myself, about the 
 prejudices of society against women in Constantinople 
 or Salt Lake City or in any other part of the world, 
 which is more cruel than this prejudice among us that 
 says to an unmarried woman of the better class, If you 
 do anything except stay at home and wait for a man, 
 you shall be ostracized ? We educate our women. 
 We give them large and noble views of life. But when 
 they graduate from the college, we say to them, with 
 uplifted hand of warning, " Beware, beware ! If you 
 stir out of your mother's drawing-room, except in 
 corsets, long skirts, frills, and feathers, all ready to 
 charm the beaux, or if you engage in any occupation 
 except that of fascination, you shall be marked off the 
 genteel, fashionable list."
 
 186 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 THE WEAKNESS OF OUR GIRLS. 
 
 WE have in this city an army of dependent, unmar- 
 ried women, who, if brought up individually, would, 
 in reply to certain questions, answer as follows : 
 
 " What can you do ? " 
 
 " 0, most anything you please ! " 
 
 " But tell me particularly." 
 
 " Why, I can do all sorts of work." 
 
 " Well, there 's dentistry, teaching, type-setting, 
 watch-cleaning, engraving, and " 
 
 " 0, 1 don't mean such things, but I can do any com- 
 mon work ! " 
 
 " Can you cook ? " 
 
 " Well, not much ; and then, I don't like cooking." 
 
 " Can you do fine needlework ? " 
 
 " No, but then I can do plain sewing." 
 
 " Can you make men's shirts ? " 
 
 " O no, I can't do that ; but then I can sew on pil- 
 low-cases and sheets, if you will show me just what 
 you want me to do." 
 
 " Can you do chamber- work ? " 
 
 "A little, but then I don't like going out to ser- 
 vice." 
 
 " I don't see, then, that you can do anything but a 
 little plain sewing, and for that you want a superin-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 187 
 
 tendent. There are at least five hundred occupations 
 in this city which women could follow and earn an 
 independent living thereby. You come seeking em- 
 ployment, and finally inform me that with superintend- 
 ence you can do a little plain sewing, a thing which 
 a young man can learn in three days." 
 
 OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN. 
 
 THE Woman's Club in Boston undertook to count 
 the women in that city who were living or starving by 
 needlework. I believe they found about eighteen thou- 
 sand. 
 
 In my work, " OUR GIRLS," published some time ago, 
 I brought forward more than a hundred occupations 
 to which women are perfectly adapted, but to which 
 they have not been as yet introduced. I take the 
 liberty to quote a word from that work about watch- 
 cleaning : 
 
 " Let us speak first of watch-cleaning. What are the 
 qualifications of a good watch-cleaner ? Nimble, sensi- 
 tive fingers, neatness, and carefulness. 
 
 " Now, put your finger there, and let me show you 
 a watch-cleaner. He works in a window only two 
 squares from my residence. He weighs about two hun- 
 dred and twenty pounds, and has a fist big enough to
 
 188 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 knock down an ox. The whole thing looked so comical 
 to me, I thought one day I would go in and plague him 
 a little. So, after a little chat about watches in general, 
 I said, 
 
 " ' By the way, it has occurred to me that women might 
 work at watch-cleaning.' 
 
 " ' Women ! ' said he ; ' why, they could n't clean 
 watches. They have n't the skill, they have n't the me- 
 chanical genius for it, sir. I don't go in for none of your 
 "woman's rights," sir. I think women should attend 
 to their own business.' 
 
 " ' And, pray, what do you regard as their business ? ' 
 
 "'Why, staying at home in their own sphere and 
 attending to their domestic concerns, taking care of 
 their children and keeping their husbands' clothes 
 mended.' 
 
 " I saw at once that the case was altogether too deep 
 for me, so I simply remarked, ' Yes, to be sure, of course ; 
 and is it not strange that they should not be willing to 
 stay at home and rock their babies, especially the 
 seventy thousand in the State of Massachusetts who 
 can never expect to have husbands ? ' 
 
 " Cleaning watches is a business that should at once 
 pass into the hands of women. The opinion that they 
 have not the requisite mechanical capacity to take a 
 watch to pieces and put it together again is the opinion 
 of a goose. They can do the work quicker and better
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 189 
 
 than men. It is an employment that naturally belongs 
 to them. 
 
 "In the watchmaking establishment at Waltham 
 several hundred bright, intelligent young women find 
 employment and good pay. 
 
 " There is a manufactory in England where five hun- 
 dred women are employed in making the interior chains 
 for chronometers. They are preferred to men on account 
 of their being naturally more dexterous with their fingers, 
 and therefore being found to require less training. 
 
 NO TIME. 
 
 I HA.VE often heard girls say that, if they had time, 
 they would read certain books or study certain sci- 
 ences that had been recommended to them. Now, 
 when I see such girls day after day absorbed in stick- 
 ing holes through a ptece of cloth, and sewing them 
 up again with linen floss, or spending precious moments 
 in hurtful gossip with companions as idle as them- 
 selves, I long to say to them : . 
 
 " The hours that you waste in this worse than useless 
 manner could be employed to such advantage as to 
 make you noble, talented, intelligent women, instead of 
 the silly, empty-headed creatures that your present 
 way of passing your time will surely develop."
 
 190 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 SADDLE EXERCISE. 
 
 THAT consumptive or dyspeptic who does not im- 
 prove when spending two or three hours a day in the 
 saddle must be a bad case. This remark is applicable 
 to men only. A woman twisted round, that both legs 
 may come on one side, with her stove-pipe hat and 
 veil and chignon and corset and a long skirt, is quite 
 another affair. She may pretend that she enjoys this 
 excruciating performance ; but if so, it is for the same 
 reason that young ladies enjoy the first sea- voyage, 
 because it is fashionable. 
 
 Worshipful Jenkinses have contributed not a little 
 to the passion for the saddle among ambitious young 
 ladies. One of them delivers himself thus : 
 
 " She sits with an air of dignity, which the occa- 
 sional inclination forward, and the easy curve of her 
 bridle arm contrasting with the pendent portion of the 
 whip one, prevents from appearing stiff or constrained. 
 And then her hat and feathers, her worked collar, and 
 braided coat studded with small buttons, give an air of 
 out-door adventure made wonderfully interesting by 
 her sparkling eye and the rich carnation of her cheeks, 
 while her falling ringlets shade the deep suffusion of 
 her temples. Let us suppose a fair companion thus 
 mounted and equipped, adding to the charm of her
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 191 
 
 appearance the additional fascination of a ready smile 
 and a playful remark, and who shall resist her power ? " 
 
 Many a young lady who had indulged in this carnation 
 and suffusion slush has come to ask me about the wisdom 
 of riding on horseback. For ten years and more I have 
 had one uniform answer for all such applicants : 
 
 " If you wish to ride where people are likely to see 
 you, and must wear the close-fitting waist and corset, 
 high stiff hat, and other fashionable paraphernalia, I 
 earnestly advise you against the saddle." 
 
 I have never known this exercise, taken in such a 
 manner, to improve a young lady's health, but I have 
 traced several cases of lateral curvature of the spine to it. 
 
 While the saddle is the best exercise in the world 
 for a man, especially one in consumption or severe 
 dyspepsia, I have no hesitation in saying that until 
 women can ride astride, with free, healthful dress, they 
 should let it alone. 
 
 WOMEN'S SHOES. 
 
 WOMEN are not- more hardy than men. They walk 
 on the same damp, cold earth. Their shoes must be as 
 thick and warm. Calf or kip skin is best for the cold 
 seasons. The sole should be half an inch thick ; in 
 addition there should be a quarter of an inch of rubber. 
 The rubber sole I have used for years ; would not part
 
 192 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 with it for a thousand dollars. It keeps out the damp, 
 prevents slipping, and wears five times as long as 
 leather of the same cost. For women's boots it is in- 
 valuable. But rubber shoes should be discarded. They 
 retain the perspiration, make the feet tender, and give 
 susceptibility to cold. 
 
 Stand on one foot, and mark around the outspread 
 toes. Have your soles exactly the same width. Your 
 corns will leave you. The narrow sole is the cause of 
 most of our corns. A careful study of the anatomy of 
 the foot, and the influence of a narrow sole, will satisfy 
 every inquirer. The heel should be broad and long. 
 
 Wear thick woollen stockings. Change them every 
 day. 
 
 Before retiring, dip the feet in cold water. Eub them 
 hard. Hold the bottoms at the fire till they burn. 
 Bathe them when taking the general bath in the morn- 
 ing. Do they perspire or emit an unpleasant odor? 
 Wash with soap twice a day. In a month the difficulty 
 is removed. 
 
 TO A COLD-FOOTED LADY. 
 
 MADAM, allow me to prescribe for you. I have had 
 a long experience in the management of delicate women, 
 and believe I can give you some important advice. For 
 the present I prescribe only for your feet.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 193 
 
 1st. Procure a quantity of woollen stockings, not 
 such as you buy at the stores under the name of lambs' 
 wo*ol, that you can read a newspaper through, but the 
 kind that your Aunt Jerusha in the country knits for 
 you, thick as a board, that will keep your feet dry and 
 warm in spite of wind and weather. 
 
 2d. If you want to be really thorough, change them 
 every morning, hanging the fresh ones by the fire during 
 the night. 
 
 3d. Procure thick calf-skin boots, double uppers and 
 triple soles, and wear them from the first of October 
 till the first of May. Make frequent applications of 
 some good oil blacking. 
 
 4th. Avoid rubbers altogether, except a pair of large 
 rubber boots, which may be worn for a little time 
 through snow-drifts or a flood of water. 
 
 5th. Hold the bottoms of your feet in cold water 
 half an inch deep, just before going to bed, two or three 
 minutes, and then rub them hard with rough towels 
 and your naked hands. 
 
 6th. Now, madam, go out freely in all weathers, and, 
 believe me, not only will your feet enjoy a good circu- 
 lation, but as a consequence of the good circulation in 
 the lower extremities, your head will be relieved of all 
 its fulness and your heart of its palpitations. Your 
 complexion will be greatly improved and your health 
 made better in every respect. 
 
 9
 
 194 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 PATENT SHOES. 
 
 A PATENT for a new shoe has been issued. An agent 
 of the invention called to explain it and get a letter 
 of approval. First, an extensive circular was shown. 
 This I found was intended to give the philosophy of 
 the invention. The agent followed with an hour of 
 earnest exhortation. In the first place, there was the 
 fashionable shoe, with its narrow sole, pointed toe, 
 high, contracted heel, etc. These deformed the toes, 
 produced corns, weakened the ankles, and spoiled the 
 legs. To all this I fully assented. Then came the 
 explanation of the new invention. This was very 
 long, and had reference to the osseous structure of the 
 heel, and the arch of the foot and the toes, and the 
 ligaments, longitudinal, oblique, transverse, and other- 
 wise; of the action of this part upon that part, and 
 that part upon this part, and the need of support at 
 this point, while that portion was acting thus and so 
 upon this portion. I heard it all with a sincere de- 
 sire to learn something. 
 
 The longer I live, the more I learn to respect the 
 wisdom of the Creator. The human foot is perfect in 
 its service until we begin to support and fix it. All 
 that is wanted is liberty. The matter of ornamenta- 
 tion is another question ; but as to a " scientific shoe,"
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 195 
 
 your feet simply need room, and they will take care 
 of themselves. You might as well talk of a scientific 
 pitcher to hold a quart of soft-soap. All that is 
 needed is that the pitcher should be big enough to 
 hold it. The foot asks for room. Having that, it will 
 take care of all the scientific questions without your 
 assistance. 
 
 ABOUT CORNS. 
 
 WITHIN three blocks of my Boston residence there 
 are eleven corn-doctors. Some of them employ a 
 number of operators, and do an immense business. 
 A large majority of adults, among the better classes, 
 suffer from corns, or other maladies of the feet. Walk- 
 ing, the best of all exercises, would be indefinitely 
 increased if our feet were healthy. 
 
 Prompted by sufferings in my own person, and by 
 sympathy with the sore-footed cripples about me, I 
 have studied this subject of the feet with much care 
 and interest. 
 
 Let me give you the result of my observation and 
 thought : The sole is too narrow ! It has long been 
 suspected that a narrow soul was the great trouble in 
 this world. The particular suffering under considera- 
 tion, I am sure, all, or nearly all, comes from a too 
 narrow sole.
 
 196 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 My friend Mrs. C., on reading the chapter in " Our 
 Girls " devoted to " Boots and Shoes," came to say, 
 that although she was a great sufferer from corns, and 
 a general sore and crippled condition of feet, her shoes 
 were, nevertheless, enormous, twice as large as her 
 feet. She wished I would see if it was not so. I 
 examined the shoes and agreed with her that they were 
 too large. As she stepped, her foot rocked over first 
 on this side and then on that. Now it pressed over 
 on the outside, rubbing down over the edge of the sole, 
 and touching the ground, and perhaps, if the ground 
 was at all uneven, on the very next step her boot 
 would rock over on the other side of the sole. Such 
 friction between the little toe and the big toe joints 
 against the upper leather must inevitably produce 
 corns. I think the majority of shoes are too large. 
 
 Mrs. C. wished me to accompany her to the shoe- 
 maker's and see what I could do for her relief, for 
 really life was becoming a torture. We went to her 
 own shoemaker. Curiously enough, his name is Shoe- 
 maker. Mrs. C. hobbled to a seat, and declared, "I 
 won't try to walk again, there ! " 
 
 Her shoe was removed, and Mr. Shoemaker marked 
 around her foot, while she was standing upon it. We 
 measured the mark and found that it was exactly 
 four inches. That was the width of her foot, when 
 she stepped on it, without a shoe. Then we measured
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 197 
 
 the sole of the shoe she had been wearing, and found 
 it two and a half inches. Here was the secret of the 
 whole trouble. 
 
 A pair of shoes were made for her at once, with soles 
 four inches broad. Now she can walk for hours without 
 a pain in her feet. 
 
 There are millions of poor sufferers in the country, 
 who are limping and hobbling through the world, who 
 might be perfectly relieved and cured by the same 
 means. 
 
 A WOMAN'S OBJECTION TO THE BEST EXERCISE. 
 
 THEN you think that walking fast is undignified, do 
 you ? "Well, I don't know but there is a certain sacri- 
 fice of the highest dignity in quick, nervous walking. 
 I remember to have read in a criticism upon American 
 actors that Hackett, of Falstaff memory, was the only 
 man in America who knew how to walk ; that he was 
 the only one who was never in a hurry. Now, don't 
 you be caught by any such stuff. When you go out to 
 walk for exercise, or in pursuit of any business, put 011 
 the steam, ninety pounds to the inch if you carry a 
 good boiler. If you carry yourself erect and swing 
 your arms freely, it is, on the whole, the best, the most 
 healthful exercise in the world.
 
 198 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 CHANGE OF AIK. 
 
 I PRETENDED to be very busy with my writing, but 
 in fact was all ears for an earnest talk among my lady 
 callers, all about change of air. 
 
 Mrs. F. exclaimed : " I ought to know by this time. 
 I tell you it's bad to go too high up. Better stay 
 down at the foot of the mountain. Even if you go up 
 but a little way, the air will not agree with you half so 
 well." 
 
 Mrs. C. " I am sorry to differ with you, Mrs. F., but 
 I really can't breathe the air down at the foot of the 
 mountain. If you go up as far as that grove where the 
 Captain gathered those beautiful ferns for us, there 
 the air is perfectly delicious." 
 
 Mrs. W. "Well, ladies, I don't see how you can 
 breathe the air on that side of the mountain at all. 
 To me, it 's dreadful. But on the east side the air is a 
 perfect tonic. Next season I advise you to try the east 
 side." 
 
 Mrs. C. " Mrs. W., I am astonished to hear you say 
 so ! I tried the east side once, and the air nearly killed 
 me. I really believe I should have been in my grave 
 if I had stayed there any longer. But on the west side, 
 up there near the grove, the air is delightful ; it really 
 affects one like champagne."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 199 
 
 After hearing this question of atmospheric influences 
 discussed in this scientific way for half an hour, our 
 brave little Miss B. entered, and the ladies appealed to 
 her. 
 
 "Come, Miss B., you have been everywhere; now 
 where do you say the air is. best." 
 
 Miss B. " Wherever I have had the most to do, there 
 the air is best ; though, to be perfectly frank about it, 
 I have never noticed about the air. I don't think I 
 was ever particularly conscious about breathing or the 
 air until I heard all this talk about ' change of air.' The 
 atmosphere you fashionable ladies breathe at the opera, 
 at your parties, in your furnace-heated houses, and in 
 your air-tight bedrooms, I confess is too much for me ; 
 but when I am dressed so that I can breathe, and am 
 busy, mind and body, in the open air, or at home with 
 open windows, I find the air all right in Boston, in San 
 Francisco, in the valley, up on the mountain." 
 
 I sprang to my feet, clapped my hands, and cried 
 out: 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo ! bravo ! my little woman ! I never 
 heard so much sense in so few words, about the hygiene 
 of the atmosphere, in my life. And I will put you 
 into print just as soon as I can, that others may benefit 
 by your wisdom.
 
 200 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 SLEIGH-RIDING. 
 
 SOME forms of it are jolly. A big sleigh, filled even 
 full with loose straw and sixteen rollicking boys and 
 girls all packed in together, with the brag hostler from 
 the village tavern, all swelled out with pride over his 
 team, now, that 's jolly. 
 
 But this getting into a stylish little cramped sleigh, 
 stuck up on a high seat, with fashionable dress and 
 manners, well, I rather prefer Benjamin Franklin's 
 style of sleigh-riding, which, I believe, was to sit in a 
 passage-hall with the doors open at both ends, feet in 
 a pail of ice-water, with some one to jingle the shovel 
 and tongs. Franklin claimed that this method was 
 cheaper and quite as comfortable. 
 
 WOMAN'S DRESS. 
 
 HE who would labor for the physical redemption of 
 woman in America must begin with her dress. The 
 prevailing modes constitute an insuperable obstacle to 
 her physical development. Every humane physiolo- 
 gist has argued, expostulated, and implored. If Ameri- 
 can women should squeeze their feet until those mem- 
 bers were in Chinese fashion, or should place a flat
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 201 
 
 storie on the head until the brains were forced into the 
 back of the neck, we might keep silent ; but while 
 they compress that part of the body which contains the 
 organs of vitality, the heart, lungs, liver, and stom- 
 ach, we must continue to resist their madness. In 
 this part of the body is the fountain of life. The 
 slightest pressure immediately reduces the size and 
 activity of that fountain. He who has thoughtfully 
 studied the inevitable results of the prevailing style 
 of dress at the waist will affect no surprise at those 
 cold feet, that constipation, weak spine, short breath, 
 palpitation of the heart, and congestive headache, which 
 are the average characteristics of the health of Ameri- 
 can women. Given a live woman, a corset, the aver- 
 age tight dress, and the physiologist will deduce the 
 morbid conditions I have named. 
 
 Near my residence are three shops, a rum-shop, a 
 candy-shop, and a corset-shop. I do not know which 
 is the greatest evil. 
 
 My practical suggestion is that, without corsets, the 
 dress-waist should be full and loose, the skirt-bands 
 buttoned about the waist much larger than the body, 
 supported on the shoulders by suspenders, such as 
 gentlemen wear, and attached to the bands at the 
 same points. My own wife adopted many years ago 
 the style I advise, and is greatly delighted with the 
 results. The dress is much more artistic and beauti- 
 
 9*
 
 202 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 fill than the plain waist with the hard iron-like liga- 
 ture at the band. 
 
 After twenty years' study of the subject of health 
 and the causes of disease, if I were permitted to select 
 from our one hundred and one physiological blunders 
 that one which I should most desire to see corrected, I 
 should unhesitatingly name this particular feature of 
 woman's dress. 
 
 THE LENGTH OF THE SKIRT. 
 
 THE most earnest efforts looking toward dress reform 
 have had reference to the length of the skirt. May I 
 be permitted a word on this point ? I think one of 
 woman's first duties is to make herself as beautiful 
 as possible. A long skirt a train even is in fine 
 taste. Among the dress features of the stage, none is 
 so beautiful as the long train. The artist is ever de- 
 lightfed to introduce it in his pictures of woman. I 
 confess I admire it, and that I wish it could be again 
 made common on all dress occasions. For the draw- 
 ing-room it is superb. If it is said that expense and 
 inconvenience are involved, I ask, Are they not in 
 paintings, statuary, etc. ? "When we meet on dress occa- 
 sions, I cannot see why we may not introduce this 
 exquisite feature. 
 
 For church and our usual afternoon sittings, skirts
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 203 
 
 which nearly touch the floor seem to me in good taste, 
 and every way proper ; but for the street, when wet, 
 snowy, or muddy, for the active duties of housekeeping, 
 which involve much running up stairs, for the gymna- 
 sium, for mountain trips, etc., etc., I need not argue 
 with those whose brains are not befogged by fashion, 
 that the skirts should fall to about the knee. If Miss 
 Fastidious suggests that the adoption of such a cos- 
 tume would expose the limbs, you have but to point to 
 what may be seen in wet weather on the streets. The 
 attempt to lift long skirts out of the mud displays the 
 lower extremities much more than the shortest skirts. 
 Nothing is more pitiable than this street exhibition, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, a woman's attempt to go Up stairs with a 
 candle in one hand, a baby in the other, and a bowl of 
 catnip-tea in the other. 
 
 ADVICE TO WOMEN. 
 
 ONE of the gravest mistakes in your dress is the 
 very thin covering of your arms and legs. No physi- 
 ologist can doubt that the extremities require as much 
 covering as the body. A fruitful source of disease 
 of congestion in the head, chest, and abdomen is 
 found in the nakedness of the arms and legs, which 
 prevents a fair distribution of the blood.
 
 204 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A young lady has just asked me what she can do 
 for her very thin arms. She says she is ashamed of 
 them. I felt of them through the thin lace cover- 
 ing, and found them freezing cold. I asked her what 
 she supposed would make muscles grow. " Exercise," 
 she replied. Certainly ; but exercise makes them grow 
 only by giving them more blood. Six months of vig- 
 orous exercise would do less to give those naked, cold 
 arms circulation, than would a single month, w r ere they 
 warmly clad. 
 
 The value of exercise depends upon the temperature 
 of the muscles. A cold gymnasium is unprofitable. Its 
 temperature should be between sixty and seventy, or 
 the limbs should be warmly clothed. I know that our 
 servant-girls and blacksmiths, by constant and vigor- 
 ous exercise, acquire large, fine arms, in spite of their 
 nakedness ; and if young ladies will labor as hard from 
 morning till night as do these useful classes, they may 
 have as fine arms, but even then it is doubtful if they 
 would get rid of their congestions in the head, lungs, 
 and stomach, without more dress upon the arms and 
 
 Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation. 
 Every living thing that has the latter has the former. 
 Put your hand under your dress, upon your body ; 
 now put your hand upon your arm. If you find the 
 body is warmer than the arm, you have lost the equi-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 205 
 
 librium of circulation. The head has too much blood, 
 producing headache or sense of fulness ; or the chest 
 has too much blood, producing cough, rapid breathing, 
 pain in the side, or palpitation of the heart ; or the 
 stomach has too much blood, producing indigestion ; 
 or the liver has too much blood, producing some dis- 
 turbance ; or the bowels have too much blood, pro- 
 ducing constipation or diarrhoea. Any or all of these 
 difficulties are temporarily relieved by immersion of 
 the feet or hands in hot water, and they are perma- 
 nently relieved by such dress and exercise of the ex- 
 tremities as will make the derivation permanent. 
 
 Again I say, the extremities require as much cloth- 
 ing as the body. Women should dress their arms and 
 legs with one or two thicknesses of knit woollen gar- 
 ments which fit them. The absurdity of loose flowing 
 sleeves and wide-spread skirts I will not discuss. 
 
 Do you ask why the arms and legs may not become 
 accustomed to exposure, like the face ? I answer, God 
 has provided the face with an immense circulation, be- 
 cause it must be exposed. 
 
 The underskirts should be no heavier in January 
 than in July, for it is bad to carry a load suspended 
 either at your waist or from the shoulders, and cer- 
 tainly very absurd to think of keeping your legs and 
 hips warm by skirts which hang a foot more or less 
 from them.
 
 20G FIFE-MINUTE GHATS. 
 
 Put on as much lace and ornament as you please, 
 be a very leader of the fashions if you have a fancy 
 for so mean a work, and if you desire it should not 
 be known, no one can discover that underneath these 
 flounces and frills you have a dress which is keeping 
 every part warm, and fulfilling the highest hygienic 
 laws. 
 
 TAKE IT OFF. 
 
 You think the corset may be worn so loose that it 
 will do no harm. If worn so loose as not to interfere 
 with respiration when you lean forward in needlework, 
 then it will make the form look badly. A corset to 
 look well must be worn snug and trim. And then you 
 think the corset is important as a skirt-supporter. It 
 certainly may be of service in this way, but it is not 
 half as good a skirt-supporter as a pair of common 
 gentleman's suspenders. No, girls, the corset is bad, 
 and only bad. It is not only a great enemy to health, 
 but it is the great destroyer of female grace and beauty. 
 A rigid stiffness in the centre of the body makes -all 
 the movements of the entire body stiff and ungraceful. 
 As to the matter of beauty, it 's a question between 
 the Creator and the dress-maker. I take sides with the 
 Creator ; some folks take the other side.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 207 
 
 CLOTHING FOR COLD WEATHER. 
 
 THE usual dress is sufficient in quantity, and often 
 good in quality, but it is very badly distributed. There 
 is too much about the trunk, and too little about the 
 lower extremities. If one quarter of the heavy woollen 
 overcoat or shawl were taken from the trunk, and 
 wrapped about the legs, it would prove a great gain. 
 When we men ride in the cars, or in a sleigh, where do 
 we suffer ? About the legs and feet ! When women 
 suffer from the cold, where is it ? It is about the legs 
 and feet ! 
 
 The legs and feet are down near the floor, where the 
 cold currents of air move. The air is so cold near the 
 floor that all prudent mothers say, " Don't lie there, 
 Peter ; get up, Jerusha Ann ; play on the sofa ; .you 
 will take your death cold lying there on the floor." 
 And they are quite right. If the room be well venti- 
 lated, the air down near the floor is very much colder 
 than it is up about our heads. And it is in that cold 
 stratum of air that our feet and legs are constantly. 
 A few Yankees put them on the mantel-shelf, but the 
 majority keep their feet on the floor. 
 
 Besides this, the feet and legs, on account of their 
 being so far away, and on account of their size, with 
 the air all about them, are disposed to be too cold, 
 even without being in a colder atmosphere.
 
 208 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Under all these circumstances, men wear one thick- 
 ness of wool and cotton, and one thickness of black 
 broadcloth about their legs, and three or four times as 
 much about their chests ; and now they often add an 
 immense pad called a " Chest Protector." And women 
 indulge in a still greater contrast. 
 
 Without discussing this blunder further, I will give 
 you a little practical advice, which my observations 
 and experience during more than thirty years fully in- 
 dorse. 
 
 During the damp and cold season the legs should be 
 encased in very thick knit woollen drawers, the feet in 
 thick woollen stockings (which must be changed every 
 day), and the shoe-soles must be as broad as the feet 
 when fully spread, so that the blood shall have free 
 passage. If the feet are squeezed in the least, the cir- 
 culation is checked, and coldness is inevitable. This 
 free circulation cannot be secured by a loose upper 
 with a narrow sole. If when the foot stands naked on 
 a sheet of paper it measures three and a half inches, 
 the sole must measure three and a half. 
 
 I will suppose you have done all this faithfully, and 
 yet your feet and legs are cold. Now add more wool- 
 len, or, if you are to travel much in the cars or in a 
 sleigh, procure a pair of chamois-skin or wash-leather 
 drawers, which I have found to be most satisfactory. 
 
 I have known a number of ladies afflicted with hot
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 209 
 
 and aching head, and other evidence of congestion 
 about the upper parts, who were completely relieved 
 by a pair of chamois-skin drawers and broad-soled shoes. 
 Three ladies in every four suffer from some congestion 
 in the upper part of the body. It is felt in a fulness 
 of the head, in sore throat, in palpitation of the heart, 
 torpid liver, and in many other ways. It is well 
 known that a hot foot-bath will relieve for the time 
 being any and all of these difficulties. This bath 
 draws the blood into the legs and feet, relieving the 
 congestion above. What the hot foot-bath does for an 
 hour, the broad-soled shoes with thick woollen stock- 
 ings, and a pair of flannel drawers, with a pair of wash- 
 leather drawers added, will do permanently ; of course 
 I am speaking of cold weather. No one hesitates to 
 multiply the clothing about the trunk. Why hesitate 
 to increase the clothing about the legs ? As a prevent- 
 ive of many common affections about the chest, throat, 
 and head, including nasal catarrh, I know nothing so 
 effective as the dress of the lower extremities which I 
 am advocating. 
 
 The bath is a good thing, exercise is a good thing, 
 friction is a good thing ; but, after all, our main de- 
 pendence in this climate must ever be, during the cold 
 season, warm clothing. Already we overdo this about 
 our trunks, but not one person in ten wears clothing 
 enough about the legs and feet.
 
 210 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A WORD TO THE WISE. 
 
 REMEMBER the judicious advice given by that arch 
 adept in " The Art of Shopping," Lady Betty Buybar- 
 gain, to her niece, Miss K. Cutadash. The fair Kitty 
 was ever and anon irritably anxious to be whirled to 
 the door of every Magasin des Modes that her caprice 
 called her to in her aunt's showy carriage, saying, " I 
 assure you that if you go in your carriage, my dear 
 aunt, the people are infinitely politer than they are to 
 their walking customers." "Ay, ay," replied the dis- 
 creet dowager, "what you say may be true enough, 
 dear, and their politeness may be pleasant enough, love, 
 if as my poor, dear Sir Benjamin Buy bargain always 
 used to say if they did n't book it, Kitty ! But they 
 charge for it, my child, they charge for it, dear ! As 
 Sir Benjamin used to say, they put those bows down in 
 their bills ! " 
 
 IS YOUR DAUGHTER A FASHIONABLE 
 BUTTERFLY ? 
 
 I PITY you. But you must not despair. Pray for 
 her and pray with her. Ask the clergyman to call 
 upon her and pray with her. Reason with her, expostu- 
 late, plead, implore. Impress upon her the dignity and 
 decency of human nature. Explain God's purpose in
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 211 
 
 her creation. Hold a butterfly up before her, and elab- 
 orate the distinction between her and it. 
 
 If all these should fail, there comes a moment when 
 it shall be decided whether you are fit to have the di- 
 rection of your child, whether it would not be better 
 were you dead and out of the way, that she might fall 
 into other and wiser hands. You must exercise your 
 authority. You must strip her of these gewgaws and 
 drive her into the kitchen. 
 
 In your relations to her you are charged with solemn 
 responsibilities ; and if you flinch in the persistent em- 
 ployment of any and all reasonable means to rid her of 
 her miserable hallucination, you are false to your child, 
 to society, and to God. 
 
 MOURNING. 
 
 ONE need not speak of the mourning of the heart ; 
 that will take care of itself. I speak of the external 
 signs. There is a strange difference among the nations. 
 Among several of the most advanced people, black 
 dress has been chosen. The great expense, the depress- 
 ing influence upon the spirits, and the bad effect of this 
 color upon the bodily conditions, have been observed 
 and urged against this method of display. 
 
 Black is the worst color for winter and for summer,
 
 212 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 for dry weather and for a damp atmosphere. Alto- 
 gether, the custom of announcing grief through black 
 clothes seems to be the worst method ever devised. 
 
 It is gratifying to hear from intelligent people, as 
 one may not unfrequently, that under no circumstances 
 would they display a mourning dress. I will not say 
 that it is a flat contradiction of the Christian faith, I 
 will not say that it savors of ostentation, I will not 
 say that there is frequently a painful incongruity be- 
 tween the mourning dress and the conduct of the wear- 
 er ; but I will say that a black mourning dress is un- 
 physiological, that it casts a shadow over the spirits of 
 the wearer, and constantly reminds her of the dead friend, 
 and in other ways tends toward depressing the general 
 health and tone. I can't conceive of a grief which I 
 should try to express with crape. By instinct, I should 
 avoid all such announcements. And then, when the 
 prescribed year has passed, the tapering off in the shades 
 of black, and the final bursting out in brilliant colors 
 again, is so absurd, that it seems quite unneceesary to 
 expose one's self to the necessity of advertising this 
 graduated dying out of one's sorrow. 
 
 LIGHT AND HEALTH. As an instance of the value 
 of sunlight, Dupuytren, the celebrated physician, men- 
 tions the case of a French lady whose disease baffled
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 213 
 
 the skill of the most eminent men. This lady resided 
 in a dark room in one of the narrow streets of Paris. 
 After a careful examination he was led to refer her 
 complaint to the absence of light, and caused her to be 
 removed to a more cheerful situation. The change was 
 attended with most beneficial results, all her com- 
 plaints vanished. It is remarkable that Lavoisier, 
 writing in the last century, should have placed light as 
 an agent of health, even before pure air. In fact, where 
 you can obtain abundance of light, it is also gener- 
 ally possible to obtain pure air. In England a similar 
 thing occurs; invalids are almost always shut up in 
 close rooms, curtains drawn, and light excluded. 
 
 TO GIRLS ABOUT TO MARRY. 
 
 OUR dear friend, Professor R, married a beautiful and 
 cultivated lady, full of all womanly sweetness. In con- 
 sulting nie a few months after the wedding about her 
 health, she exclaimed : " I cannot have it so ! I must 
 in some way recover my health. Why did I not attend 
 to it before ? No woman with weaknesses has a right 
 to become a wife ! What can be done ? I would do 
 anything to secure a sweet, healthy condition of my 
 body. Do tell me what to do ! " 
 
 Thousands of women weep bitter tears when, after
 
 214 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the ceremony, they find themselves unfit for the mar- 
 riage relation. Thousands and thousands of men are 
 turned back in their love by finding that, instead of 
 the sweet, perfect being they had fancied, there is de- 
 ficiency and disease. The new husband finds that the 
 beautifully moulded form he had so long admired is 
 only a trick of the dress-maker, and the body which 
 had seemed so sweet and pure is the victim of displace- 
 ments and disease. Thousands and thousands of hus- 
 bands turn away in bitter disappointment. This is the 
 source of numberless heart-breakings among married 
 people. 
 
 There are certain qualities indispensable to a good 
 wife. Health is fundamental. Without this, all ac- 
 complishments are a vain show Nothing whatever 
 can compensate for the lack of good digestion and a 
 quiet nerve. If the queen of his castle sits in the 
 darkness of dyspepsia, or writhes in the agonies of tic- 
 douloureux, the recollection that she shone as the bright 
 particular star at Madame Pompadour's finishing semi- 
 nar}'', or that at Saratoga last season she astonished 
 even the professionals with her execution of Bach's 
 compositions, will not penetrate the gloom of his home 
 with a single ray of light. His house may be filled 
 with servants, but only one being is near and dear to 
 him, and that one petulantly whines, "O, don't light 
 the gas, I can't bear the light ; and please don't walk 
 
 :
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 215 
 
 so heavy. Charles, please don't speak so loud ! O 
 dear me, my head is dreadful ! O dear me, dear me ! " 
 I repeat, health is fundamental. It may not be 
 necessary in the next world, but in this world it is 
 absolutely essential. Without it, high birth, educa- 
 tion, accomplishments, and wealth are all nothing, 
 all a mere mockery. Health is by no means all that 
 enters into the make-up of a wifely success, but with- 
 out it the rarest qualities of head and heart will at best 
 help her to achieve a beautiful failure. 
 
 ONE CAUSE OF ILL HEALTH. 
 
 I ASKED a druggist what particular article or line 
 of goods he sold most of. He replied, without hesi- 
 tation, " Compounds for improving the complexion." 
 
 The number of these preparations is surprising ; they 
 must be generally employed. I have noticed that while 
 nine girls out of ten have a singularly smooth, perfect 
 skin upon the face, the doctor is constantly consulted 
 with reference to roughness and eruptions on other 
 parts of their persons. Girls are not generally as 
 healthy as boys, but the skin of their faces seems much 
 smoother and finer than that of boys. This difference, it 
 is fair to presume, comes of the bottles and boxes found 
 at the apothecaries. I have read, and you have all read,
 
 216 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 of the analyses which careful chemists have made of a 
 great number of these preparations, and in this way we 
 have learned that they are poisonous. Arsenic is a 
 very common ingredient. Not one of them, the analy- 
 sis of which I have examined, is fit to rub on the hu- 
 man skin. ' We all rejoice that the hair preparations, so 
 generally employed to color the hair a few years since, 
 have gone out of fashion. They poisoned us, doing a 
 great deal of harm to the brain and nervous system. 
 These preparations were generally less poisonous than 
 the complexion fluids are, but were taken into the system 
 in the same way, by absorption through the skin. The 
 impression is gaining ground among medical men, that 
 a certain class of nervous affections, too common among 
 our girls, originate in the fluids and powders which 
 they employ to improve their complexions. 
 
 What a gain it would be every way if they would 
 keep their faces clear and bright by frequent bathing, 
 exercise, sunshine, and pure air! As things now go, 
 they are not what they seem ; but if they would depend 
 upon the natural methods, they would not only secure a 
 bright, beautiful face, but they would be bright and 
 happy from top to toe, all the way through, and not 
 simply on a small portion of the surface.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 217 
 
 HOW TO GET WELL. 
 
 A LADY has just left my rooms whose case illus- 
 trates an important idea. Ten years ago she was an 
 invalid. Her malady was obstinate, and at the end of 
 a year's treatment a consultation resulted in the opin- 
 ion that her case was cerebro-spinal irritation, from 
 which she would probably never recover. Six years 
 ago her husband died. His estate proved insolvent. 
 The wife engaged in an active occupation to support 
 her three children. In a year she was well, and has 
 remained so ever since. 
 
 There are two million dyspeptics in America. Nine 
 in ten of them could be cured by work. 
 
 A wealthy clergyman from a neighboring State 
 assured me that he had spent eight years and thirty 
 thousand dollars in seeking a cure for his dyspepsia. 
 He had travelled everywhere and consulted all sorts 
 of doctors. I am afraid he will never forgive me for 
 telling him that six months' hard work would make a 
 well man of him. 
 
 DIOGENES FOUND OUT THE SECRET. 
 
 I DO not advise you to sit in a tub out in the sun- 
 light. But there is no doubt that wise old cynic, 
 10
 
 218 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Diogenes, had found out a very important secret when 
 he showed his appreciation of the light in so marked a 
 manner, and growled out to the great Alexander that he 
 could do nothing for him but " stand out of his sun- 
 shine." 
 
 Seclusion from sunshine is one of the misfortunes 
 of our civilized life. The same cause wKich makes 
 potato-vines white and sickly when grown in dark 
 cellars operates to produce the pale sickly girls that 
 are reared in our parlors. Expose either to the direct 
 rays of the sun, and they begin to show color, health, 
 and strength. 
 
 When in London, some years ago, I visited an estab- 
 lishment which had acquired a wide reputation for the 
 cure of those maladies in which prostration and ner- 
 vous derangements were prominent features, I found 
 in the use made of sunshine the secret of success. 
 The slate roof had been removed and a glass one sub- 
 stituted. The upper story had been divided into six- 
 teen small rooms, each one provided with a lounge, 
 washing apparatus, etc. The patient, on entering each 
 his little apartment, removed all his clothing, and 
 exposed himself to the direct rays of the sun. Lying 
 on the lounge, and turning over from time to time, each 
 and every part of the body was thus exposed to the 
 life-giving rays of the sun. Several London physicians 
 candidly confessed to me that many cases which
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 219 
 
 seemed waiting only for the shroud, were galvanized 
 into life and health by this baptism in the blessed 
 sunshine. 
 
 Many years ago a clergyman who had for years 
 been a victim of dyspepsia, and who had prayed for 
 death as the only door of escape, came at length, 
 through the advice of a mutual friend, to consult with 
 me. I advised the disuse of all medicines, the gener- 
 ous use of cracked wheat and good beef, and much 
 exposure to sunshine. To secure the last-mentioned 
 influence, I directed him to build a close fence, cov- 
 ering a space twenty feet square, in his garden, and 
 plant the earth within with something to occupy his 
 mind. Then when the weather was warm, shutting 
 himself in, he was to busy himself, quite nude, with the 
 cultivation of his vegetables from ten to sixty minutes 
 a day, always indulging in a thorough bath and vig- 
 orous friction before leaving. He was radically cured ! 
 
 I was practising my profession in Buffalo, New 
 York, during '49 and '51, those memorable cholera 
 seasons. I saw at least five cases of cholera on the 
 shady side of the street and houses to one on the 
 sunny side. One eminent physician in New Orleans 
 reports from his own practice eight cases of yellow fever 
 on the shady side of the street to one on the sunny 
 side. 
 
 Who has not read Florence Nightingale's observa-
 
 220 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 tions in the Crimea as between the shady and sunny 
 side of the hospitals? In St. Petersburg the shady 
 side of the hospitals was so notoriously unfavorable 
 to the sick soldier, that the Czar decreed it into 
 disuse. 
 
 The shade trees about our dwellings have done much 
 to make our wives and daughters pale, feeble, and neu- 
 ralgic. Trees ought never to stand near enough to our 
 dwellings to cast a shade upon them. If the blinds 
 were removed, and nothing but a curtain within, with 
 which to lessen on the hottest days the intensity of 
 the heat, it would add greatly to the tone of our nerves 
 and to our general vigor. The piazzas which project 
 over the lower story always make that less healthy 
 than the upper story, especially for sleeping purposes. 
 I am sure I have cured a great many cases of rheuma- 
 tism by advising patients to leave bedrooms shaded by 
 trees or piazzas, and sleep in a room and bed which 
 were constantly dried and purified by the direct rays 
 of the sun. 
 
 AN EXPERIMENT. 
 
 AT the rear end of our parlor it was not very dark. 
 Indeed, we could see to read small newspaper print at 
 the least lighted point. At that point we put a bracket 
 against the wall, and transferred to it a plant from the
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 221 
 
 window. In four days it looked sick ; in two weeks it 
 was yellow ; in five weeks it was apparently dead. 
 Another plant was placed on the centre-table, which 
 was about half-way from the front windows to the 
 position of the first plant. At the end of five weeks 
 that had lost its green, and was evidently failing. The 
 girls in our parlor, who were out not more than an hour 
 a day on an average, except they went to places of 
 amusement in the evening, were as pale, yellow, and 
 sickly as the plants, and we think for the same reason, 
 a lack of full, strong light. 
 
 TO A NERVOUS LADY. 
 
 IT is the opinion of many medical men that sleeping 
 with the head toward the north alleviates nervousness 
 and favors sound sleep. I do not certainly know that 
 it is so, but I have known several cases in which there 
 appeared strong confirmation of the theory ; and, in- 
 deed, I have experienced a considerable addition to my 
 ability to enjoy an entire night of undisturbed sleep by 
 changing the head of my bed from the east to the north. 
 I need not give the philosophy, or what is supposed to 
 be the philosophy, of this theory, as I suppose it is gen- 
 erally known ; but if it were at all convenient, I should 
 always have the head of my bed toward the north.
 
 222 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ABOUT SLEEP. 
 
 A VERY thin young lady, of about thirty years, with 
 a promising beau, came to consult me about her " skin 
 and bones." I had frequently met her when she seemed 
 even more emaciated, but now she " would give the 
 world to be plump." Sitting down in front of me, she 
 began with, " Don't you think, doctor, that I look very 
 old for twenty ? " 
 
 I admitted that she looked rather old for twenty. 
 
 " Can anything be done for me ? What can I take 
 for it ? I should be willing to take a hundred bottles 
 of the worst stuff in the world, if I could only get some 
 fat on these bones. A friend of mine [her beau] was 
 saying yesterday that he would give a fortune to see 
 me round and plump." 
 
 " Would you be willing to go to the Cliff Springs in 
 Arkansas ? " 
 
 " I would start to-morrow." 
 
 " But the waters are very bad to drink," I said. 
 
 " I don't care how bad they are ; I know I can drink 
 them." 
 
 " I asked you whether you were willing to go to the 
 Arkansas Springs to test the strength of your purpose. 
 It is not necessary to leave your home. Nine thin 
 people in ten can become reasonably plump without 
 such a sacrifice."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 223 
 
 " Why, doctor, I am delighted to hear it ; but I sup- 
 pose it is a lot of some awful bitter stuff." 
 
 " Yes, it is a pretty bitter dose, and has to be taken 
 every night." 
 
 " I don't care ; I would take it if it was ten times as 
 bad. What is it ? What is the name of it ? " 
 
 " The technical name of the stuff is ' Bedibus Nine- 
 o'clockibus.' " 
 
 " Why, doctor, what an awful name ! I am sure I 
 shall never be able to speak it. Is there no common 
 English word for it ? " 
 
 " yes. The English of it is, ' You must be in 
 bed every night at nine o'clock.' We doctors gen- 
 erally use Latin. ' Bedibus Mneo'clockibus ' is the 
 Latin for 'You must be in bed every night by nine 
 o'clock.' " 
 
 " 0, that is dreadful ! I thought it was something I 
 could take'' 
 
 " It is. You must take your bed every night before 
 the clock strikes nine." 
 
 " No ; but what I thought was that you would give 
 me something in a bottle to take." 
 
 "Of course, I know very well what you thought. 
 That 's the way with all of you." 
 
 One person eats enormously of rich food till his 
 stomach and liver refuse to budge ; then he cries out, 
 " O doctor, what can I take ? I must take something."
 
 224 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Another fills his system with tobacco until his nerves 
 are ruined, and then, trembling and full of horrors, he 
 exclaims, " doctor, what shall I take ? " I write a 
 prescription for him, Quitibus Chawibus et SmoJcibiis. 
 
 I will suppose my patient is not a classical scholar, 
 as I am sure my reader is, and so I translate it for him 
 into English. He cries out at once, " O doctor, I thought 
 you would give me something to take ! " 
 
 Another sits up till thirteen or fourteen o'clock, leads 
 a life of theatres and other dissipations, becomes pale, 
 dyspeptic, and wretched, and then flies to the doctor, 
 and cries, " doctor, what shall I take ? What shall I 
 take?" 
 
 " Now, madam, you are distressed because your lover 
 has been looking at your ' skin and bones.' " 
 
 " But, doctor, you are entirely " 
 
 " 0, well, we '11 say nothing about him, then. But 
 tell me, what time do you go to bed ? " 
 
 " Generally about twelve o'clock." 
 
 "Yes, I thought so. Now, if you will go to bed 
 every night for six months at nine o'clock, without 
 making any other change in your habits, you will gain 
 ten pounds in weight and look five years younger. 
 Your skin will become fresh, and your spirits improve 
 wonderfully." 
 
 " I '11 do it. Though, of course, when I have com- 
 pany, and during the opera, I can't do it."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 225 
 
 It is regularity that does the "business. To sit up till 
 twelve o'clock three nights of the week, and then get to 
 bed at nine o'clock four nights, one might think would 
 do very well, and that at any rate it would be " so far, 
 so good." I don't think this every other night early 
 and every other night late is much better than every 
 night late. It is regularity that is vital in the case. 
 Even sitting up one night a week deranges the nervous 
 system for the whole week. I have sometimes thought 
 that these people who sit up till eleven or twelve o'clock 
 every night get on quite as well as those who turn in 
 early six nights, and then sit up once a week till mid- 
 night. Eegularity in sleep is every whit as important 
 as regularity in food. 
 
 At length my patient exclaimed, " Doctor, I will go 
 to bed every night for six months before nine o'clock, 
 if it kills me, or rather if it breaks the hearts of all my 
 friends." 
 
 She did it. Twenty-one pounds was the gain in five 
 months. Her spirits were happily enlivened, and she 
 spent half her time in telling her friends of her delight 
 with the new habits. She had no further cause to com- 
 plain of skin and bones, and she had the special grati- 
 fication of appearing more attractive in the eyes of her 
 lover. He, like a sensible man, when he saw the good 
 effects of the nine-o'clock-to-bed arrangement, heartily 
 approved of it, and became a convert himself. 
 10* 
 
 5
 
 226 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 SHALL I GO TO THE SPRINGS? 
 
 THIS question comes to me from many friends who 
 are in the habit of looking to me for guidance in mat- 
 ters of health. I have received from an old patient 
 the card of a famous spring, with an analysis of its 
 waters. My friend thinks the analysis is a settler. 
 The water contains " sulphuretted hydrogen gas, chlo- 
 ride of soda, potassia, and magnesia; also alumina, 
 lime, and iron." She asks if I don't think these things 
 are adapted to her case. I don't know, and I presume 
 to say that no one else knows, unless it is the Yankee 
 who owns the spring. He, probably, has very distinct 
 views on the subject. One would have to look very 
 far for such bosh, such humbuggery, as is proclaimed 
 about the ingredients of the various spring-waters, and 
 their adaptation to various human maladies. 
 
 I have no patience with this stuff. The extravagant, 
 pompous praise of the patent-medicine quacks we bear 
 with patience, because we know they are quacks, and 
 we expect that, like a circus poster, they will use strong 
 colors ; but when you see intelligent people circulating 
 with enthusiasm the fact that a certain spring-water in 
 Saratoga actually contains soda, magnesia, lime, lithia, 
 and potassa, with an earnest statement that these 
 must be good for your complaint, it is really too much 
 for one's patience.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 227 
 
 Such places as Saratoga and Long Branch, with their 
 fashionable strain, cannot contribute to anybody's 
 health. The people who flock to these places are 
 mostly from the cities, worn out with operas, theatres, 
 and other fashionable killing, and are dying for the 
 quiet of a farm up in New Hampshire. They go, in- 
 stead, to Saratoga, have the same food which they use 
 at home in the city, often worse, and instead of 
 rest, dress more extravagantly, and change their dress 
 more frequently than at home. They sit up quite as 
 late, and violate the laws of health generally even 
 more than at home. Fortunately for them, these 
 people have very little occasion to use their brains, so 
 that their exhaustion is mostly physical. 
 
 MY neighbor, who lives in a palace, a great airy, 
 bright, beautiful house on Beacon Hill, in Boston 
 (I think his bedroom is twenty by thirty feet, and not 
 less than fourteen feet high), has just returned from 
 the country with his family. He has been out of town 
 about three months. They have all been out for pleasure 
 and health. I dropped in to see them last evening. 
 After the hand-shaking, I asked, 
 
 " Well, how have you enjoyed it ? " 
 
 " 0, splendid, splendid, perfectly splendid ! " ex- 
 claimed Miss Jennie.
 
 228 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 "Yes," growled the father, "perfectly magnificent. 
 Bedrooms about the size of a dry-goods box, no venti- 
 lation, saleratus biscuit, no baths, nothing but mos- 
 quitoes ! mosquitoes ! O, yes, it is perfectly glorious ! " 
 
 A HINT TO WIVES. 
 
 IN a street-car I overheard a conversation between 
 a husband and wife, which I wish to repeat : 
 
 "John, I wish to speak to you about something 
 which I am afraid you won't like. Won't you be so 
 kind as to let me have six dollars and a half ? I don't 
 like to ask it, and I have put it off and put it off till I 
 don't see how I can put it off any longer." 
 
 " Six dollars and a half ! Now, look here, Mary, do 
 you think I am made of money ? Six dollars and a 
 half ! Why, it 's only the other day that I gave you 
 five dollars. What nonsense are you after this time ? 
 Do you suppose I pick up money in the street ? Well, 
 I don't. I work for every dollar and every penny ! " 
 
 "No, John, dear, I know you have to work for 
 money, and I have hardly slept for a week thinking 
 about asking you, but I don't see how I can get along 
 another day without a bonnet. Since mine was wet 
 that day, I have seen all the time that I must have a 
 new one. And then, you must n't be offended with
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 229 
 
 me, but it was four months ago that you gave me the 
 five dollars, and you know what I spent that for, and I 
 am sure you approved of it." 
 
 "0, of course it is all right and very necessary, 
 and you couldn't possibly live a minute without it. 
 That 's always the way with you women. And then 
 what in the world do you want to give six dollars and 
 a half for one of those little contemptible bonnets for ? 
 They are not worth six cents and a half." 
 
 " I am very sorry I can't get one cheaper, but this is 
 the very cheapest one I could find. Why, John, that 
 hat which I wore just before we were married cost 
 twenty-five dollars ! " 
 
 " I shall give you the money of course ; if it was six 
 millions, you must have it, or you would go into a 
 fit and die. The times are tight, I can tell you, and 
 you will have to get along as cheaply as you can." 
 
 I would have given something for the privilege 
 of conversing with that young wife. I should have 
 said : " Dear madam, you are in great danger of losing 
 your husband's esteem and affection. No man can 
 long respect a woman, be she his wife or otherwise, 
 who begs and crawls at his feet. Nothing can com- 
 pensate you for the loss of his respect and love. Any 
 woman who is willing to beg for money to buy a bon- 
 net must be mean-spirited indeed. If she is starving 
 to death, perhaps begging might be excusable, but to
 
 230 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 beg for an article of ornamental dress is despicable. 
 But if you have made up your mind to beg for a bon- 
 net, don't imperil the respect and love of your husband 
 in addition to the humiliation of the begging. If you 
 must beg, beg of some one whose respect is not so vital 
 to your happiness. Can't you earn money in some 
 way ? Better go to some good neighbor and do any 
 kind of work that you are able to do, better scrub, 
 better resort to anything, except theft, rather than 
 crawl at the feet of the one man whose esteem is 
 dearer to you than any other earthly possession. And 
 if a wife is not able to work, or has children, and 
 therefore no time for other tasks, then she should say 
 to her husband, ' I will never beg. If you see the wis- 
 dom of setting aside a certain amount for my ward- 
 robe, very well; if not, then you must observe for 
 yourself, and thus find out what is necessary in my 
 personal expenses.' The respect and tenderness which 
 this course would secure would be worth to you a 
 thousand-fold more than the most elaborate dress in 
 the world." 
 
 IS YOUE WIFE NERVOUS AND FRETFUL ? This is 
 
 certainly very wrong of her. No doubt she will plead 
 her thousand and one cares and vexations, but all that 
 certainly gives her no right to disturb her lord's peace 
 and comfort. Let me whisper in your ear. I think I
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 231 
 
 can suggest a scheme that will make her ashamed of 
 this irritability. Try upon her the tenderness of the 
 honeymoon. Don't think to make her happy with a 
 brocade or a new carriage ; but when you come home, 
 bring with you her favorite flower, show her in a 
 hundred ways that she is in all your thoughts. This 
 is the medicine that will cure her. Try love in large 
 and repeated doses. It is the specific for many of the 
 worst complaints among our wives. 
 
 SOMETHING NEW. 
 
 I HAVE met a wonder. It is a dress -maker who 
 won't blab. Dress-makers go into families in such a 
 way that they are sure to hear a great many things 
 which ought not to be repeated, but many of them 
 are most industrious pickers-up of information, which 
 they circulate. I have met one who won't do it. She 
 either says pleasant things or keeps her lips sealed. 
 What a comfort it would be to all who employ dress- 
 makers in their houses if these very useful people 
 would only give notice, so that we could select judi- 
 ciously ! This plan has occurred to me as simple and 
 convenient : Let the gossipers wear hung about their 
 necks a placard, bearing the words " I BLAB," and the 
 quiet, honorable soul wear one with the words, " I 
 DON'T BLAB."
 
 232 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 CHATS WITH GRUMBLERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 MANY years ago, in company with my wife, I made 
 a summer drive through the Canadas. In giving that 
 attention to my horses which is the habit of prudent 
 travellers, I visited the stable morning and evening. 
 I think it was the first night after we crossed over at 
 Niagara that I said to the hostler, " Suppose some one 
 were to leave you a hundred thousand dollars, what 
 would you do ? " 
 
 " Well, boss, there is one thing I can tell you ; you 
 would never ketch me workin' any more." 
 
 Holding, as I always had, that work is the warp and 
 woof of human life and happiness, the hostler's remark 
 struck me as curious ; and recalling it on the following 
 evening, I asked the next hostler what he would do if 
 he had a hundred thousand. 
 
 " I 'd travel all over creation ; but as for work, I 'd 
 never do another chore as long as I lived." 
 
 We talked it over while riding the next day, and 
 concluded we should ask every hostler during the trip 
 and make a record of the answers. 
 
 The same question was put to thirty-four hostlers, 
 and all gave essentially the same answer, though a few 
 said, " Of course I should want something to do when 
 I felt like it, but then I would n't work regular."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 233 
 
 I was a member of a school-board some years after- 
 ward, and asked one of the lady teachers what she 
 would do if she had a hundred thousand dollars, and 
 her reply was, " I would go to Europe and live in 
 Paris." 
 
 " What would you do that for ? " I asked. 
 
 " Why, I should go for the same reason that other 
 folks go, to see the sights." 
 
 I asked the same question of fourteen female teach- 
 ers and six male teachers, and they all gave about the 
 same answer, though a few of them suggested a di- 
 vision with the poor. One young lady said she would 
 give thirty thousand apiece to her three brothers, and 
 then go abroad with the remaining ten thousand. 
 Without exception, they spoke of travel, and most of 
 them of life in Europe. Not one of them spoke in fa- 
 vor of work, but most of them spoke of escape from 
 work. 
 
 As regular work is the great staple of happiness, as 
 work is the regular bread and meat of body and mind, 
 while recreation is but the sweetmeats, all this condem- 
 nation seems a strange hallucination. And as work is 
 absolutely necessary, it is the greatest misfortune that 
 there should exist a prejudice against it. A little 
 philosophy, a broader intelligence, is sure to cure it. 
 A little experience at nothing to do has generally cured 
 even ignorant people of such folly. Let a man "loaf"
 
 234 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 for a month, and, if he is well, he is glad enough to go 
 back to his work. And there are a good many of us 
 who can look deep enough to see that work is the best 
 of good things, and to love it for its own sake and for 
 the good it does us. Work, like food, is a necessity of 
 our life. A disgust for either indicates disease, or 
 same unnatural condition. When we find disgust of 
 food, we learn generally that it comes of excess. In 
 the case of disgust for work, we think it generally 
 comes from the same source. 
 
 It is often said that man is naturally lazy. Let 
 every one speak for himself. I know the statement is 
 not true of myself. I love work. I like a day's recrea- 
 tion occasionally, but the hours begin to hang heavy in 
 the latter part of the day. 
 
 Once upon a time my mother was detained in a 
 neighboring town by a deep snow. We boys were fa- 
 miliar with the function of eating, but we knew little 
 or nothing of cooking. When the dark, wild night 
 closed in, we resolved ourselves into a committee of 
 ways and means, and, first of all, proceeded to take an 
 account of stock. The bread and meat stock was ex- 
 hausted ; we found three pints of milk, which we pro- 
 ceeded at once to drink. A further search developed 
 the fact that there was nothing eatable in the house 
 except three pies, one stone jar of cookies, and two pots 
 of preserves. We knew how much our mother loved
 
 FIVE MINUTE CHATS. 235 
 
 us, and how very sorry she would be to have us get 
 hungry, so like good boys we proceeded at once to fill 
 our little stomachs with these articles of nourishment. 
 We then crept into our little beds, dreamed of our 
 grandmothers, I presume, though I have no dis- 
 tinct recollection of the character of my dreams, and 
 when we awoke in the morning, there came upon us 
 again a deep sense of our mother's love and anxiety, and 
 we hastened to fill ourselves even full with cookies and 
 preserves. About ten o'clock in the forenoon we got to 
 thinking about our mother again, and how she must 
 feel when she thought of her darling boys all deprived 
 of adequate nourishment, and we tackled the preserves, 
 which at that time was all there was left. In the 
 afternoon we called a council, and determined upon 
 some griddle-cakes. We knew that griddle-cakes were 
 made of flour, milk, and saleratus. We had no milk, 
 but there was a little flour and plenty of saleratus. It 
 was uncertain how long the isolation might continue, 
 and we thought it prudent to be saving of the flour, but 
 as to saleratus, we felt at liberty to use it freely. Be- 
 ing the oldest of the company, I rather took upon my- 
 self the function of compounding the griddle-cakes, and, 
 with a view to economy in flour, I put in three cups 
 of flour and two of saleratus.. You ought to have seen 
 those two brothers spit griddle-cake. Their comments 
 wounded me. And even our mother, who knew all
 
 236 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 . 
 
 about griddle-cakes, tried some of the mixture the next 
 day, and thought them a failure. 
 
 Upon first trying the griddle-cakes, we voted to re- 
 turn to the preserves, and accordingly we then and 
 there finished them. Then there was nothing in the 
 house for supper but griddle-cakes, and none of us 
 seemed fond of griddle-cakes. We went to bed with- 
 out supper, and were very sad with the thought that 
 our mother would weep if she knew that her darlings 
 had gone to bed with empty stomachs. Before noon 
 next day she returned, found her three boys and her 
 three jars empty, tried our griddle-cakes, expressed an 
 unfavorable opinion, and at once prepared some food 
 which stayed the process of starvation. 
 
 Now, we fed our stomachs just as most people think 
 they would like to feed their minds. They would like 
 to feed their minds on sweetmeats ; they think they 
 would like to be amused and amused and amused, 
 that they would like to travel and travel, and see the 
 sights and see the sights. 
 
 For a week we boys were sick with deranged stom- 
 achs. Feed the mind on cookies and preserves even 
 for a short time, weariness and nausea are sure to come 
 on. What we must have is the regular, solid bread 
 and meat of work. To be left to inclination, to work 
 "when we feel like it," is demoralizing. We must 
 have the balance-wheel of stated duty ; then, although
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 237 
 
 we occasionally chafe at the recurring necessity, we 
 maintain that steady, regular flow of the currents of 
 life which constitute a normal, true, and happy ex- 
 istence. 
 
 II. 
 
 Happiness is the great good. Every one of us is 
 seeking it. We begin on waking in the morning, and 
 keep up the chase till we lie down to rest at night. 
 Ah, how few of us find it ! That 's the sad thing about 
 this life. 
 
 Let us go on next Sabbath morning to a neighboring 
 church. It is the most fashionable in town, and is pat- 
 ronized by our rich people. The audience number a 
 thousand. We will stand where we can watch them 
 all as they enter. How many of these faces are hap- 
 py ? The face tells the story. A happy soul always 
 shines out through the face. And now, looking into 
 all these, how many do you think are satisfied, con- 
 tented, and happy ? A hundred ? No ? Say ten ? 
 No ? And yet these are what are called the " favored 
 few." They are rich; they have beautiful homes, 
 social recognition; they are surrounded by works of 
 art ; servants attend upon them ; they have, in brief, 
 every one of what are called " the good things of this 
 world." Wealth, distinction, art, triumph, all fail, and 
 yet the glorious heavens spread over us, and flowers
 
 238 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 bestrew our path. Has the Creator blundered ? Is 
 our life a mistake ? If what we have seen in these 
 faces is the best outcome of life, then we are the victims 
 of a cheat, and we play the hypocrite when we kneel 
 in this church and thank God for life and its blessings. 
 
 Leaving out of this discussion the hope of a better 
 life, I may say that happiness comes of health and 
 philosophy. Health stands first. Health is funda- 
 mental. Good digestion will do more than all the 
 wealth and honors in the world. By philosophy I 
 mean a consciousness that the secret of a happy life is 
 to be found in the quiet, regular performance of the 
 duties which lie nearest to us. Not in wealth and 
 honors, but in numberless and nameless contributions 
 to the welfare of those about us do we find happiness. 
 God has so constituted us that a personal attention to 
 the wants of our next-door neighbor gives us greater 
 pleasure than sending bags of gold to the distant 
 heathen. The good Father has so contrived us that 
 justice and devotion to one's family and neighbors 
 give more satisfaction and happiness than the most 
 persistent attempt to serve the five hundred millions 
 of the people of Asia. It is an appreciation of this 
 law and a practical recognition of its truth which con- 
 stitute the philosophy of life. 
 
 A good clergyman of my acquaintance says that 
 nothing disgusts him more than to see a hifalutin'
 
 FIVE^MINUTE GHATS. 239 
 
 philanthropist neglecting everything about him, and 
 standing on Pisgah's heights, load his squirt-gun and 
 proceed to fire his love over all the rest of creation. 
 
 WHAT are the causes of nervousness among us ? 
 
 First. Our climate fosters sensibility. 
 
 Second. We work too hard and play too little. 
 
 Third. We bolt our food ; then come indigestion and 
 nervousness. 
 
 Fourth. Our stoves and furnaces so poison the air 
 we breathe, that the brain and nerves become feverish. 
 
 Fifth. And I don't know but governing ourselves will 
 turn out to be an exhausting business. " Uneasy lies 
 the head that wears a crown." And I am afraid that 
 our all being sovereigns is one reason for the sad de- 
 rangement of our brains and nerves. 
 
 THE INSANE. 
 
 WITHIN a hundred years the insane were chained to 
 the stone floor of a cell, and abandoned to filth and 
 darkness. The good and great Pinel denied that they 
 were " possessed of the Devil," and declared that they 
 were sick, needing treatment, sympathy, and nursing, 
 like other sick people. From the days of this hero, the
 
 240 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 treatment of the insane has been more reasonable and 
 merciful, but still there lingers among men the notion 
 that the insane are possessed of the Devil. If the mala- 
 dy is in the liver, the patient's friends are all sympathy 
 and attention. If in the eye, they watch over him and 
 protect him from all harm. But if the trouble is in 
 the brain, they drag him to a cell within gloomy walls, 
 and leave him to the routine and indifference of stran- 
 gers. 
 
 Did you read the report of the legislative committee 
 in Vermont ? It was published in the newspapers the 
 other day. Only the man in whose composition the 
 heart was left out could read that report without pain- 
 ful emotions. No citizen of Vermont can read it with- 
 out humiliation and shame. The hundred wretched 
 victims in cells below ground were treated, so far as we 
 can judge, as brutally as such unhappy creatures were 
 in the dark ages. I doubt if there is a public asylum 
 for the insane in the country which would be permitted 
 to stand if the public knew altogether the management 
 of the inmates. Even where it is best, there remains 
 such barbarism and brutality, that, were all the facts 
 known, a just-minded public would rush to the rescue. 
 
 Insane men are sick men, and need, more than any 
 other class of sick men, skilful treatment, sympathy, 
 and gentle, patient nursing. A dozen asylums scattered 
 here and there throughout New England, under the man-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 241 
 
 agement of scientific, humane men, would not only prove 
 a godsend to the insane, but an immensely profitable 
 investment. 
 
 THE INSANE AT GHEEL. 
 
 THE conviction is rapidly deepening, that the treat- 
 ment of the insane, even in our better asylums, is 
 simply barbarous. One of the most intelligent citizens 
 of New England was an inmate during several months 
 of our largest insane asylum. In a recent conversa- 
 tion, he said to me, " The treatment in that asylum, 
 which I really suppose is as good as any in the coun- 
 try, consists in keeping the patients inside of the 
 walls. It is to all intents and purposes not unlike the 
 management of the farmer with his viciously inclined 
 cattle. He makes the fence so high that they cannot 
 jump out. Nothing whatever is done to cure them. 
 They have food (generally bad food), and a bed (mostly 
 in ill-ventilated dormitories), but for the most part 
 nothing whatever is done for them by way of medicine, 
 exercise, bathing, frictions, amusements, social atten- 
 tions, or other hygienic, or health-producing measures." 
 
 They are simply shut up, and furnished with food 
 and beds. Nothing more wretched, nothing more de- 
 structive of health, than the average management of 
 the insane in our institutions, can be conceived. Sen- 
 11
 
 242 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 sitive women are numerous among these unhappy 
 victims. Accustomed to the most tender and gentle 
 treatment, to the fond endearments of loving friends, 
 such a woman a mother, if you please is taken away 
 from her little ones and consigned to cell No. 133, and 
 is known in many institutions, not as Mrs. Mary How- 
 ard, but as No. 133. This weary, exhausted, sensitive 
 creature, with hyper-susceptibility to all surrounding 
 influences, is locked up in 133 during the night and is 
 let out into a crowd of mad people during the day. 
 Thousands of such wretched, lonely, baffled, hopeless 
 creatures are vainly looking and longing for some one 
 to come and take them away into the light and love 
 of their homes. 
 
 Numerous books and pamphlets have recently ap- 
 peared, exposing the darkness, ignorance, and brutality 
 of our insane asylums. The day is hastening when 
 the present barbarism shall give place to that discrim- 
 ination, philosophical study, and all that social, loving 
 treatment which has found its way into the manage- 
 ment of diseases in other parts of our bodies. 
 
 In a work by M. Jules Duval, an eminent French 
 physician, under the title " A Study on the Best Mode 
 of Assistance and Treatment in Mental Maladies," the 
 author gives a highly interesting description of that 
 singular colony at Gheel, in Belgium, whose success, in 
 the absence of all restraint and compulsion, has done
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 243 
 
 so much to ameliorate the condition of the insane 
 throughout Europe. 
 
 It is said to have been planted early in the Middle 
 Ages, by force of a superstition which accorded miracu- 
 lous powers in curing the insane to the tomb of an 
 Irish princess, St. Dymphne, which was located there. 
 
 The earliest authentic records bear date of 1676, at 
 which time it appears that the ordinary system of severe 
 restraint prevailed. A century later, milder measures 
 had obtained, and those in charge of the lunatics 
 are rebuked for letting them go free to such a degree 
 that one " could not distinguish between a fool and a 
 sane person ! " To which each one replied, " My fool is 
 not wicked, he harms no one ; indeed, he is the best 
 child in the world." 
 
 In 1795 Belgium was conquered by France, and the 
 Prefect of the Department, impressed with the superior- 
 ity of the success achieved at Gheel, sent thither the 
 insane who were confined at Brussels in narrow quarters 
 and amidst privations which were sufficient of them- 
 selves to render the patients incurable. The authorities 
 of other towns followed this example, public attention 
 was attracted to the colony, and in 1850 it was placed 
 under governmental inspection, and medical men ap- 
 pointed in charge of it. 
 
 It was in 1856 that M. Duval visited Gheel, and the 
 next year an article from his pen appeared in the " Eevue
 
 244 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 des Deux Mondes," which excited great interest, and in 
 1860 he published his book. What follows is condensed 
 from an article in a late English journal : 
 
 " Mad people of all sorts are admitted at Gheel, except 
 those who are afflicted with a mania for murder, incen- 
 diaries, and other dangerous subjects. Persons of all 
 ages, creeds, nations, and conditions are received, and 
 secure equal care. They are taken into families, two 
 or three, but never more, into the same family. The 
 sleeping arrangements, the diet, and the labor are the 
 same as that of the family. 
 
 "The strictest seclusion is observed in most asylums, 
 except at fixed hours, and partly on the ground that 
 sudden and startling visits retard the recovery of the 
 patients ; but here, amid the ordinary customs of do- 
 mestic life, the appearance of friends or strangers has 
 nothing unusual, nothing that need startle the patient, 
 who may not even be aware that the visitors take any 
 particular notice of him. Thus absent relations need 
 entertain no anxiety as to the real treatment and con- 
 dition of those they love, they can go and send at all 
 hours and verify for themselves. 
 
 " The houses are generally neat and clean ; some of 
 them would bear comparison with the most, scrupu- 
 lously kept wards of a hospital. The patient has ex- 
 clusive possession of a room, which varies in size ac- 
 cording to the means of the householder, but is always
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 245 
 
 airy, whitewashed, cleanly, and floored with tiles or 
 boards. Often the patient ornaments it after his own 
 ideas of what is elegant, lays down carpets and ar- 
 ranges casts and pictures. The smallest cells resemble 
 monkish cells in their holy simplicity. 
 
 "The healthful and even plump appearance of the 
 harmless mad people who are seen in the streets shows 
 that they find good nourishment in the common diet 
 of rye bread, vegetables, milk, and pork. Dressed like 
 their sane neighbors, the patients are not conspicuous 
 in any crowd, unless they misbehave. 
 
 " Liberty is the first article of the code practised at 
 Gheel ; the second is labor. The insane are never com- 
 pelled to work, but every means are taken to persuade 
 them to join in the occupations around them, and large 
 numbers soon cease to like the distinction of idleness. 
 Half and sometimes two thirds are usefully employed. 
 In the interior of the households, women, young girls 
 and old, participate with the children and servants in 
 domestic work. Artisans, such as tailors, shoemakers, 
 carpenters, bakers, blacksmiths, etc., find their place in 
 the local industry of the town. One excellent cabinet- 
 maker lived there for five-and-twenty years, exercising 
 his trade successfully, and reasoning soundly on all sub- 
 jects, except that he affirmed that every night the Devil 
 entered his body through his heels. Women trained to 
 any manual art, dress-making, embroidery, etc., find re-
 
 246 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 munerative occupation in the town. Patients born and 
 bred in the country are employed on the fields and 
 gardens, and care is taken to place those who have been 
 laborers under the charge of farmers. Fits of fury, if 
 only periodical, find out-door labor a wholesome dis- 
 cipline, which soon tends to prevent their recurrence. 
 
 "In the Russian asylums, which are organized on 
 military principles, labor becomes a mechanical habit ; 
 it is performed in mere obedience to authority, and pro- 
 duces little effect on the patient. At Gheel, it is real 
 exertion undertaken for a practical end; the field 
 which is ploughed, the garden which is sown, both 
 obviously conduce to the support of the family and 
 neighbors, and the laborer feels himself useful, a man 
 among men. For women, also, the active toil of the 
 household, and such out-of-door labor as they are capa- 
 ble of performing, is far preferable to the eternal sewing 
 pursued in some establishments. This free-and-easy 
 existence is the happiest possible to men and women so 
 cruelly afflicted, and, wonderful to say, accidents are 
 few r in number and slight in kind. Quarrels are rare, 
 violent and voluntary deaths are almost unknown ; only 
 one occurred in 1850, another in 1851. Only four or 
 five escapes are made in a year, why should the in- 
 sane fly in search of a freedom which no one denies 
 them ? Nevertheless, systematic measures are always 
 taken to insure the recapture of any wanderers. If one
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 247 
 
 is found afflicted with an inveterate tendency to run 
 away, his feet are so hampered by a short chain as to 
 render a long march impossible, while it does not pre- 
 vent his getting about town at his own free will. 
 
 " Music is pursued by the community at large, and a 
 poor madman, nicknamed Grand Colbert, being a skilled 
 fiddler, founded the choral society of Gheel. The insane 
 have their church, where they join in all the services, 
 walk in the processions, conduct themselves with pro- 
 priety, and are admitted to the sacraments if their men- 
 tal condition allows them to comprehend their meaning, 
 and it is found that participation in the spiritual life 
 of their fellow-Christians has a very healthful and calm- 
 ing effect on their minds." 
 
 Of course a raving maniac, who has passed hopelessly 
 beyond any self-government, is not fit for Gheel ; but 
 all our French and English physicians now agree in 
 this, that careful employment of moral and hygienic 
 means in the early stages of insanity prevents, in in- 
 numerable cases, its further development. 
 
 INSANITY is often hereditary. Whatever doubt may 
 be entertained about the transmission of other maladies, 
 none whatever can be admitted with reference to insan- 
 ity, epilepsy, and consumption. I know a family resid- 
 ing in the country just out of Boston with this history. 
 The grandfather died in an insane asylum after twenty-
 
 248 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 seven years of wretched helplessness. The father was 
 the subject of confinement and treatment for twenty- 
 four years before his death. The present head of the 
 family is about forty years old, and his friends notice in- 
 dications which make them unhappy. This gentleman 
 is the father of a large family of children, his wife being 
 of an intensely nervous temperament. One clear idea 
 and a little conscience, and such people would as soon 
 commit the crime of murder as to bring a family of chil- 
 dren into the world. 
 
 SOOTHING INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN. 
 
 A POPULAR magazine, in speaking of the insane at 
 Gheel, relates the following touching incident: 
 
 " Once, as the mother of the house sat at work with 
 her babe upon her knee, a maniac darted upon her 
 with a pair of shears to force his way out. As she 
 had been especially charged to keep him in during this 
 fit, the woman rose up quietly, and presented her child 
 as a shield; he gradually retreated till he sunk into 
 a chair at the back of the room; then the mother 
 dropped the child into his arms, and left it screaming 
 to his care. After she had escaped and turned the key, 
 through the keyhole she watched the patient trying to 
 comfort the babe. Frequently the coming in of a play- 
 ful child restores peace to the troubled soul, and so 
 prevents the dreaded paroxysm of the disease."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 249 
 
 V 
 
 ABOUT MAD DOGS. 
 
 HYDROPHOBIA OR RABIES. 
 
 TO-DAY there is no doubt in the minds of scientific 
 men who have carefully investigated this malady that 
 rabies sometimes originates spontaneously. A great 
 majority of cases are traceable to the bite of an affected 
 animal, but that it occurs where such infection is 
 impossible must now be conceded. 
 
 Its appearance at long intervals in isolated countries, 
 in farm-dogs quite separated from the world, and in 
 lap-dogs which never leave observation, long since 
 suggested the spontaneous origin of the disease. For 
 instance, it has appeared in Algeria, an isolated coun- 
 try, and then disappeared for many years. Upon its 
 reappearance there would occur a single case only, or 
 it would appear simultaneously in various parts of the 
 country. It is simply impossible that rabies, after an 
 absence of forty years from an isolated country, should 
 reappear, if we assume that the disease originates only 
 in the bite of a rabid animal. 
 
 Tardieu cites a case of rabies in a cat produced by 
 taking away her kittens, and another case in which 
 the disease was induced by a burn. 
 
 Climate has its influence. The malady is rare in 
 extreme latitudes. It appears almost exclusively in 
 11*
 
 250 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the temperate zone, and principally during the cool 
 season. About six times as many cases occur in the 
 spring months and in the autumn months as in the 
 summer. During the winter season there are about 
 three times as many cases as during the summer sea- 
 son. It is in the cold season that a rabid animal is 
 most likely to bite. In those countries where dogs 
 abound, and suffer most from hunger and thirst, as 
 in Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and Africa, rabies is less fre- 
 quent than in those countries where dogs are better 
 cared for. 
 
 The evidence from every country where rabies has 
 been systematically studied proves that the female 
 dog is quite as likely to suffer from the disease as 
 the male. 
 
 The disease does not begin with fits of fury. The 
 dog is at first very quiet, though even in this stage 
 its saliva is poisonous. The danger is not now from 
 its biting, but from its licking your face and hands. 
 As the disease progresses, the dog becomes fidgety, 
 prowls about, smells, and scratches. It snaps at every- 
 thing. It has a gloomy and ferocious aspect. 
 
 Up to this time it is obedient to its master. It 
 seems to be even more affectionate than usual, and 
 shows it by its desire to lick its master's hands and 
 face. And indeed this wonderful creature, so com- 
 pletely dominated by the spirit of devotion, continues
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 251 
 
 perhaps in a majority of cases of rabies to obey its 
 master to the very last hour. 
 
 The mad dog has not the least dread of water. It 
 is indeed strange that this notion has got afloat. It 
 constantly tries to slake its thirst as long as it can 
 swallow, and even long after this it continues to plunge 
 its face into the water and gulp at it. In the early 
 stages of the disease it continues to take food, and 
 sometimes eats with great voracity. 
 
 When the desire to bite is developed, it first attacks 
 inert substances, such as wood, leather, its chain, car- 
 pet, hair, coal, earth, and accumulates in its stomach 
 the remains of the substances it tears with its teeth. 
 
 A mad dog has a dry mouth. The common notion 
 that it foams or froths at ,the mouth is in the majority 
 of cases an error. The voice is always changed. It 
 barks much, and the sound is husky and jerking. 
 
 The sensibility of the animal is curiously blunted. 
 It emits no cry of pain when it is struck, wounded, 
 or burned. It will sometimes wound itself severely 
 with its teeth, while the poor creature, still faithful in 
 death, will carefully avoid wounding his master or 
 other members of the family. 
 
 The mad dog is always greatly enraged at the sight 
 of another dog. When the ferocious stage gains the 
 ascendency, it flees from home, and after two or three 
 days' wandering, during which time it tries to gratify
 
 252 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 its mad fancies on all the living creatures it has met, 
 it often in its last moments crawls back to its master 
 to die. At other times it escapes in the night, and 
 after doing much damage returns in the morning. The 
 distance a mad clog will travel even in one night is 
 often astonishing. The paroxysms of fury are followed 
 by periods of calm, during which the appearance of 
 the creature is liable to mislead the observer. 
 
 A mad dog attacks other creatures rather than man. 
 When at length the poor creature is exhausted, it stag- 
 gers along, its tail and head near the ground, its eyes 
 wandering, and frequently squinting, its mouth open, 
 with a bluish-colored tongue soiled with dirt protrud- 
 ing. But even in these last moments the terrible desire 
 to bite continues. Although it may not have the 
 strength to turn aside to attack, it will continue up 
 to the moment of complete paralysis and suffocation 
 to bite every living thing that comes in its way. 
 
 The voice of the rabid dog is one of the most reliable 
 signs of the malady. " The tone is hoarse, altered in 
 timbre, indistinct, and lower in pitch. A preliminary 
 bark is made in a somewhat elevated tone. This is 
 immediately succeeded by five, six, or eight decreasing 
 howls, which appear to come from the depths of the 
 throat, the jaws not coming together and closing the 
 mouth during each emission, as in the healthy bark." 
 
 Bouley gives an account of two veterinary students
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 253 
 
 who were returning to the Alfort school one night and 
 heard the peculiar howl of a rabid dog proceeding from 
 a house in Charenton. They awakened the proprietor 
 of the house, and warned him of his danger. He con- 
 sented to have his watch-dog chained for the remainder 
 of the night, and that he should be removed to Alfort 
 the next morning. Mr. Bouley certified that the dog 
 was mad; and as soon as it was placed in the cage 
 for sick dogs, the symptoms of the disease became 
 painfully evident. Its master could hardly believe 
 that the creature he held in his hand, docile and obe- 
 dient, could be laboring under the dreadful disease. 
 The dog was very large and powerful ; and but for the 
 careful attention of the students, whose ears had be- 
 come accustomed to the peculiar voice of the rabid 
 dog in their veterinary hospital, the animal would in 
 all probability have got loose and done great damage. 
 
 A characteristic sign is the excitement produced by 
 the presence of another dog. The rabid dog may be 
 perfectly docile in the society of its master and the 
 children of the family ; but let another dog appear, 
 and the quiet creature, which may at the moment be 
 patiently submitting to the caresses of the children, 
 will fly at the other dog with determined fury. It is 
 a mysterious fact that, if the rabid animal be a horse 
 or sheep, or any other creature, the presence of a 
 dog w 7 ill produce this strange exhibition. The same
 
 254 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 curious phenomenon has been observed in human 
 patients. 
 
 A rabid dog remains ordinarily quiet, though ner- 
 vous, until some external object excites it. Therefore, 
 whenever a dog usually quiet suddenly becomes aggres- 
 sive toward another dog, it is wise to be on your guard. 
 It is very remarkable that other dogs even fighting 
 dogs lose their courage in the presence of a rabid 
 dog, and crouch away in the corner, trembling with 
 fear. The above is a description of what is known as 
 " furious rabies." About three fourths of the cases of 
 rabies are of this description. 
 
 There are two other varieties, known as " dumb 
 madness " and " tranquil madness." Dumb madness 
 takes its name from the inability of the sufferer to 
 produce the characteristic bark or howl of rabies. Its 
 lower jaw falls down, and the poor creature cannot 
 close its mouth. It is unable to eat or drink, but 
 will thrust its face into a vessel of water in vain 
 efforts to obtain relief until the approach of death. 
 The friends of such dogs often imagine that their 
 favorite has something in its mouth or throat, and 
 thrust in their fingers to find the cause. Then, if 
 there is an abrasion, or the skin of the hand is 
 wounded on the teeth, the most horrible malady may 
 be produced. In tranquil rabies the dog lies rolled 
 up, and pays no attention to movements or noises that 
 may be going on about it.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 255 
 
 Of animals bitten by mad dogs, only a small pro- 
 portion have the disease. Lafosse states, that out 
 of sixty animals thus bitten, twenty-one died. Ee- 
 nault testifies that out of two hundred and forty-four 
 dogs, seventy-four become rabid. Hertwig says out 
 of one hundred and thirty-seven dogs, sixteen died. 
 Out of one hundred and twenty-seven sheep, fifty-one 
 became rabid. Lafosse entertains the opinion that 
 the malady is transferred in from one third to one 
 eighth of the cases. 
 
 Eenault records that out of two hundred and fifty- 
 four bitten, one hundred and sixty-four became hydro- 
 phobic. The bite of a rabid wolf seems peculiarly 
 malignant. Dr. Camescasse of Turkey gives the case 
 of forty-seven persons bitten by a rabid wolf, forty- 
 five of whom perished. 
 
 Tardieu mentions that out of ninety-nine persons 
 bitten by rabid animals other than wolves, forty-one 
 were taken with hydrophobia. A report from France 
 informs us that six out of ten generally died from 
 hydrophobia. Aiken states that out of one hundred 
 and fifty-three persons bitten by rabid dogs ninety-four 
 perished. Watson says that of fifteen persons bitten 
 by a mad dog only three succumbed. John Hunter 
 knew an instance in which twenty-one were bitten, 
 and but one died. He estimates the mortality in 
 those bitten as only five per cent. Yaughan relates 

 
 256 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 an instance in which twenty or thirty persons were 
 bitten, and only one perished. Sully speaks of four 
 persons and twelve dogs bitten by the same rabid dog. 
 The dogs all perished, and the people escaped. 
 
 I knew myself a case similar to this mentioned by 
 Sully. In 1843, in Central New York, a rabid cur 
 bit one horse and three dogs, all of which died from 
 rabies. The dog bit likewise five persons, one of 
 whom, a man much intoxicated at the time, was ter- 
 ribly lacerated in one arm. Not one of the persons 
 suffered the dreaded malady. 
 
 The period which elapses between the bite and the 
 development of the disease varies in the dog from the 
 seventh to the fifteenth day, but is usually from four 
 to ten weeks. In the cat the period of incubation is 
 from two to four weeks. In the horse, from two to 
 eight weeks. In the ox, from one to twelve weeks. 
 In man the period of incubation is from fifteen to two 
 hundred and fifty days, the average period being from 
 four to seven weeks. According to Tardieu, in twenty- 
 six cases it was less than a month ; in ninety-three 
 cases it was from one to three months ; in nineteen 
 cases, from three to six months ; and in nine cases, 
 from six to twelve months. Occasionally, well-authen- 
 ticated cases have been recorded in which the dreaded 
 malady has been developed several years after the 
 bite.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 257 
 
 M 
 
 Fleming, to whose excellent work I am greatly 
 indebted, gives many figures, but they sustain the 
 general teachings of the statistics already given. 
 
 Professor Pillwax of Vienna reported that during 
 1862, when rabies prevailed in Vienna as an epizooty, 
 five hundred and fifty-two mad dogs were brought to 
 the veterinary institute for examination, and it was 
 found that of the whole number only thirty-two were 
 really mad, though a large majority of them were 
 queer and had bitten people. 
 
 The Professor says that since 1848 he has examined 
 at the institute in Vienna from three hundred to four 
 hundred dogs annually which had bitten people, and 
 were supposed to be mad. The number of these ani- 
 mals amounts to more than five thousand, but not one 
 of the persons bitten by them has had hydrophobia. 
 
 There are several common diseases among dogs that 
 are sometimes mistaken for rabies. Epilepsy, in which 
 there are sudden fits, foaming at the mouth, short 
 cries of distress, lying on the ground and struggling, 
 is most common. In true rabies there is never any- 
 thing like this, no loss of consciousness, no convul- 
 sive struggles on the ground, and meaningless champ- 
 ings of the jaw. 
 
 Spasmodic colic produces severe pain and such irri- 
 tability as to give a disposition to bite, but the animal
 
 258 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 never barks or howls, as in rabies, and the symptoms 
 are intermittent. 
 
 There is another disease, known as the distemper, 
 often confounded with rabies. In this there is dis- 
 charge from the nose and eyes similar to that in 
 rabies, and it sometimes results in a paralysis of the 
 hind legs. But otherwise, there is a wide difference 
 between the two maladies. The distemper commences 
 with sneezing and cough, then comes a thin and 
 watery discharge from the nose and eyes, which soon 
 changes to pus. The disposition to rove, which is so 
 marked a characteristic of rabies, is entirely absent in 
 this distemper, while there is no irritability or desire 
 to bite. 
 
 HYDROPHOBIA. If you are bitten by a mad dog, in- 
 stantly press the bitten part with your hand as hard as 
 possible. This will arrest circulation and absorption. 
 Cry out for a red-hot iron. Push it into the puncture 
 made by the tooth. This, if thoroughly done, will be 
 sure to destroy the virus. If hydrophobia be developed, 
 a hot vapor bath is undoubtedly the best remedy. The 
 patient must be kept in it until he is relieved of all the 
 nervous symptoms.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 259 
 
 A CHAT WITH WORKINGMEN. 
 
 IN a New England town there is a manufactory of 
 furniture. The proprietor began five years ago with 
 a capital of fifty thousand dollars. This fortune was 
 inherited from his father. He employs, directly and 
 indirectly, about four hundred workmen. Eecently, 
 in taking account of the situation, he found that, with 
 some advance in his real estate, his fifty thousand 
 had grown into one hundred thousand dollars. He 
 had done a good deal of anxious contriving and hard 
 work, but found that in a single five years he had 
 doubled his riches. The men had worked hard like- 
 wise, and found that at the end of the five years they 
 were just where they were at the beginning. They 
 were older ; they had more children, but no more 
 dollars. 
 
 These poor, hard-working men held a meeting in 
 the town hall to talk over their circumstances and 
 prospects. Many passionate speeches were made. One 
 old man, who had grown gray in the service, and was 
 looking forward to an old age of poverty and suffer- 
 ing, cried out in a fierce voice, " What 's to become of 
 me ? When I break down, who will feed me ? where 
 shall I sleep ? God knows, if anything were to hap- 
 pen to me to-morrow, I should have to go to the poor-
 
 260 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 house. And yet I have worked every clay for nearly 
 fifty years. I have never been to Saratoga; I have 
 never gone away for recreation, but have worked like 
 a slave. Since this factory began, five years ago, I 
 have not lost a day. Where has all the money I 
 have earned gone ? I have just fifteen cents in my 
 pocket to-night, and it 's all I have in the world. 
 Where have all my earnings gone ? I need n't tell 
 you. They have all gone just where yours have all 
 gone, into the pockets of this one man. He rolls 
 in wealth ; we starve. What right has he to my earn- 
 ings ? What right has he to your earnings ? He is 
 a millionnaire ! Where did he get all his money ? 
 He got it out of my sweat and out of your sweat. 
 Are we slaves ? Does this man own us ? These 
 cursed capitalists are thieves and robbers, and I warn 
 'em to look out. Their day of reckoning is about 
 come." 
 
 The speaker sat down amidst great excitement. At 
 this moment a quiet man rose in the corner and asked 
 permission to speak. To a large part of the audience 
 it was a surprise. The proprietor himself it was who 
 was asking permission to speak. He began with, 
 " Mr. Chairman, is this a free meeting ? May I say 
 a few words ? " 
 
 " If there is no objection, the gentleman can speak," 
 was the reply of the chairman.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 261 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, I will not detain you long ; I sim- 
 ply wish to make a few statements. I am not a mil- 
 lionnaire, as the speaker has stated ; but I will con- 
 fess that during these five years I have made about 
 fifty thousand dollars, which I will further confess is 
 as much as I put into the business in the first place. 
 I will now tell you something, which but for this 
 meeting I should never have mentioned. During the 
 first two years of our enterprise I was several times 
 in imminent peril of the loss of everything. I not 
 only borrowed money to pay you, but on more than 
 one occasion borrowed it at very high rates of inter- 
 est. There was a time during the second year that 
 it required all my courage and faith to bear the 
 strain ; and if I had been compelled then to stop, I 
 should have lost everything that I possessed. About 
 two years and a half since, things took a favorable 
 turn, and during the last two years I have made 
 money pretty fast. What ought I to do with it ? 
 Do you say that I should divide with you ? Per- 
 haps so ; but I don't intend to do it. If there is a 
 man among you who thinks that, placed in my cir- 
 cumstances, he would give up the fifty thousand, let 
 him stand up and say so. I am sure it would make 
 us all better to look into his face. I am free to con- 
 fess that such an action is quite above me. During 
 the first two years I lost a great deal of money. Per-
 
 262 giPE-Manrrx CHATS. 
 
 haps it was my fault that so much imperfect and un- 
 profitable machinery -was put in and had to be taken 
 out of the building ; but there was a large loss, which 
 brought me to the very verge of ruin. During a por- 
 tion of the second summer I walked my room night 
 after night. My wife thought I was going crazy. 
 Well, let that pass and be forgotten. I have made, 
 taking the five years together, about seven cents a 
 day on each of you ; or, reckoning my own services 
 at five thousand dollars a year, I have made a profit 
 of three and a half cents on the labor of each of you. 
 Whether the capital which I furnished justifies this 
 tax upon your industry, I shall not undertake to de- 
 cide. Whether, in some co-operative system, you could 
 have employed an agent to do the buying, selling, and 
 financiering better than I have done them, so as to 
 tax your industry but two cents or one cent a day 
 instead of the three and a half cents which I have 
 received, you must decide for yourselves. But even 
 in that case he would probably have saved more 
 money than all the rest of you put together ; and 
 seeing him riding in a carriage and living in a good 
 house, would you not have made the same complaint 
 which you make against me ? " 
 
 The old man who made the speech already reported 
 here got on his feet again, and exclaimed in a loud 
 voice : " I go deeper than all this small talk. Mr.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 263 
 
 Chairman and men, I say society is all wrong. What 
 right had this one man to have fifty thousand dollars ? 
 Is his blood any better than that in the rest of us ? I 
 ask what right had he to inherit more money this 
 one man alone than all the rest of the inhabitants 
 of this village possess after all these years of toil ? Is 
 this right ? My father left nothing to me. I don't 
 believe that any of your fathers left anything to you. 
 How comes it about that this one man has more than 
 all the rest of us, and yet we have toiled all our lives, 
 and he got his wealth from his father just by being 
 born ? Is there any virtue in being born ? I say 
 society is rotten to the core when such things as 
 these are possible." 
 
 The proprietor of the factory got the floor again at 
 this point, and said : " I grant it, Mr. Chairman. I 
 grant you that there seems to be something very un- 
 just in this inequality in the conditions of men. One 
 man is born with a vigorous body, and a large, active, 
 well-balanced brain ; another one is born with a weak, 
 sickly body, and a small, unbalanced brain. With the 
 one a large and complete success is easy and certain. 
 With the other life is a miserable, hopeless struggle. 
 What justice is there in this ? Why does God permit 
 it ? You may all answer this question to suit your- 
 selves. Suppose one of you is the strong, successful 
 man. You earn in some honorable employment fifty
 
 264 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 thousand dollars. You earn it, I will suppose, in 
 manufacturing some valuable invention, the product 
 of your own superior brain ; what would you think if 
 somebody were to say you should not give it to your 
 children ? Or if one of you had inherited from such 
 a father the fortune of fifty thousand dollars, what 
 would you say to the proposition to take it from you ? " 
 The old man sprang to his feet again, and eagerly 
 asked : " Is there such a thing as justice ? Why should 
 one man live in ease and comfort all his life, without 
 an hour's labor, and another man work within an inch of 
 his life half a century, and then, when he is worn out, 
 crawl away into some hole and starve to death ? Is 
 life a lie and a swindle ? If I remember rightly, it has 
 been said in a great document, which we all revere, that 
 all men are created free and equal. Let us see if this is 
 true. Now, there is this one man with fifty thousand 
 dollars, which he was born to without any virtue or 
 merit of his own, and with it he is able to command 
 the services of four hundred men, to use them for his 
 own profit and pleasure, and double his great fortune in 
 five years. He asks if any man among us would di- 
 vide this fortune, if he possessed it, with the company 
 of men who have earned it ? I answer for one, that if 
 I had this hundred thousand dollars, I would at once 
 divide it among the men who have earned it, and to 
 whom it justly belongs. If Mr. Barber will give it to
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHAT 3. 265 
 
 me, I will proceed to divide it here and now. So if he 
 wants to look into the face of a man who would divide 
 with the crowd, let him look into my face. I have 
 always said, if I should ever become a rich man, I 
 would divide equally with my fellow-workmen." 
 
 The proprietor here got the floor again, and began 
 with saying : " I will say with perfect sincerity that it 
 gives me great pleasure to hear these generous senti- 
 ments expressed ; and although Mr. Hardy might not 
 possibly do what he now thinks he would, still, to hear 
 such noble impulses expressed is calculated to inspire 
 us all. But to return to the inequalities among men. 
 We have in the next town a striking illustration of 
 inherited advantage far more striking than any inheri- 
 tance of money. We all know C. M. Stanley. That 
 man was born with body so fine and with brain so in- 
 genious that everybody saw while he was a boy that he 
 was sure to achieve a great success. You know w r hat 
 he has already done, and yet he is not thirty years old. 
 Before he is fifty he will be not only rich, but will 
 command the confidence and admiration of everybody 
 that knows him. You all know James Jones, who died 
 in our village last winter. With that deformed and 
 suffering body he had, as you all know, a mind so un- 
 balanced and weak that he could not take care of him- 
 self. After wandering about helpless and wretched for 
 twenty-four years, an object alternately of charity and 
 12
 
 266 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 neglect, but always of disgust, he at last found rest and 
 concealment in the grave. One inherited in his happy, 
 splendid faculties health, wealth, popularity, fame, 
 happiness ; the other inherited suffering, poverty, and 
 misery. Why this difference ? Why this inequality 
 among men ? No one will deny that the greatest 
 inequalities among men are those in their capacities. 
 All external differences are as nothing compared with 
 those in the men themselves. You may say that this 
 born difference is unjust. I confess that it has seemed 
 so to me. But in my sober moments I never doubt 
 that God knows what he is about in permitting even 
 such prodigious inequalities. It is of no use to scold 
 about it; and until you can induce the Creator to 
 change the law of inequality by inheritance, instances 
 of which we see on every hand, it will be of no use 
 to quarrel with the fact that by the use of these in- 
 herited faculties one man gathers wealth and success, 
 while another man suffers only poverty and a wretched 
 failure." 
 
 The speaker sat down amid profound silence. For 
 the first time the workingmen heard their employers' 
 side of the labor question, and it was a new one to 
 them.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 267 
 
 LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 I HAVE been watching some stone-cutters at work 
 next door. The boss is absent. It is ten o'clock in the 
 forenoon. Three men have been at work all the morn- 
 ing splitting off a mass of granite. It is very plain 
 that if one of the men had taken the separation of that 
 mass of granite by contract, he would have done it in 
 half an hour. But these ingenious creatures have 
 already given three hours to it, and it is pretty clear 
 that they intend to make half a day of it. I don't know 
 what the workmen themselves receive per day, but the 
 occupant of the premises has to pay five dollars per day 
 for each of these skilled laborers. So the cracking off 
 of that piece of granite costs him seven dollars and a 
 half. I would make a wager of five to one that either 
 of the three men could do it within twenty minutes. 
 
 I am not writing this paragraph to complain of the 
 lack of honor and manliness among workmen, for per- 
 haps /and (I beg your pardon, dear reader) you under the 
 same circumstances might be guilty of the same mean, 
 sneaking theft ; but my object is to say a word on the 
 system of work by the day. It is utterly demoralizing. 
 It is bad altogether.
 
 268 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 THE WORKINGMAN'S SUPPER. 
 
 THE best supper for a tired workingman is oatmeal 
 porridge with a little warm milk. A carpenter who 
 Avorked for me frequently talked in a very unhappy way 
 about his stomach. He could digest nothing, his food 
 all turned sour, wind came up in torrents, " there was a 
 big stone right here in the pit of my stomach," and so 
 on. It was a dose to hear him go over it. I inquired 
 very particularly about his table habits, and learned that 
 he filled his stomach at supper, when, like other pails 
 of his body, it was tired, with hot biscuit and butter 
 and preserves, and generally added just a little fried 
 pork. I said to him, " I will cure you in a month if 
 you will follow my prescription faithfully." 
 
 John replied, " I will swallow three cats every day, 
 if it will cure me." 
 
 I proposed economy in cats, and that instead he 
 should make his supper every night a pint of oatmeal 
 porridge and hot milk. Within a month the other men 
 said John was perfectly crazy about oatmeal and hot 
 milk, that he thought these for supper would take a 
 man straight to heaven. It will certainly cure many 
 dyspeptics among workingmen.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 269 
 
 EXTRAVAGANCE AND DEBT. 
 
 I KNOW a family consisting of father, mother, four 
 daughters, and one son. The father is a superior watch- 
 repairer, has a shop of his own, and earns, with the 
 assistance of an apprentice, about four thousand dollars 
 a year. He is devoted to business and free from all 
 expensive indulgences. I do not know a man more 
 harassed by debts and poverty. Whatever stock he 
 may have on hand must always be in the name of a 
 friend, or his creditors would soon dispose of it. 
 
 The way in which those four thousand dollars dis- 
 appear I desire to give the reader, with some reflections 
 thereupon. House rent, $600; shop rent, $350;. gas 
 and coal, $ 175 ; dress for self and wife, $150 ; spend- 
 ing-money for fifteen-year-old son, $ 100 ; allowance for 
 each daughter, $350; two servants, $190; food, $1000; 
 extras, say, $500. This, altogether, amounts to about 
 $4,500 ; so our good friend F. runs behindhand about 
 $500 per year. These accumulating debts make his 
 life a constant humiliating struggle. He said recently 
 that but for his helpless family he would gladly take 
 refuge in the grave. 
 
 Now, as my friend will read this, I -shall take the 
 liberty to say a few plain things, which I sincerely 
 hope may help him out of debt and into a more com-
 
 270 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 fortable frame of mind. I shall presume that to-day 
 you owe $ 1,500, and shall likewise presume that you 
 would make almost any sacrifice to rid yourself of said 
 debt. 
 
 THE WAY TO ESCAPE. I shall not advise you to work 
 harder yourself, for you already go quite beyond your 
 endurance. First, discharge your servants, and let your 
 wife and daughters cook and make the beds. This will 
 save you, in salary, board, and waste, at least $500. 
 Next, reduce your daughters' dress expenses to 8 150, 
 which will save $400. If you or your daughters think 
 a plainer wardrobe will make them less respectable, you 
 are all very much mistaken. They are not half so 
 widely known as your debts, and every new and rich 
 addition to their dress excites anything but admiration. 
 I know several young men who admire your girls, but 
 are deterred from visiting them because of the facts I 
 have mentioned. The reduction I have suggested in 
 their wardrobe would add more to public esteem and 
 popularity among all classes than anything else we can 
 think of. Then stop the hundred dollars which your son 
 expends every year for cigars and ice-cream, and take 
 him into your shop in the place of your apprentice. 
 Here you will save at least $400 more. And, finally, 
 reduce your table expenses to $ 500, which will be in- 
 finitely better for all. If you leave off the pies, taktfs, 
 and puddings, you will have better digestion and finer
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 271 
 
 complexions. If you live on plain, coarse food, you 
 will all have sweeter breath, whiter teeth, finer skins, 
 and longer life, and, what is not unimportant with you, 
 save $ 500 per year. If you will run your eye over 
 these several items, you will find the aggregate $ 1,800. 
 This will soon make you a rich man. 
 
 Allow me, dear friend, to say that you will never 
 know a happy, manly hour until you have done some- 
 thing like this. And I trust your daughters will not 
 be offended if I say that any objection they may urge 
 to this retrenchment will discover a lack of decency and 
 honor, of which no true woman would be guilty. 
 
 THE ECONOMIES OF LIFE. 
 
 You tell me that debt and despair are upon you ; that 
 when the clothes, rent, fuel, and lights are paid for, you 
 have only six hundred dollars left with which to feed 
 your family of eight, and that it can't be done. I think 
 I have heard this story a thousand times, and that I 
 have written advice about it a hundred times. And as 
 the whole subject is very simple, I must go over the 
 same ground again. 
 
 The largest item in your table expenses is meat. 
 Beef -is high. In our city markets a good steak is 
 worth from thirty to thirty-five cents per pound. Beef-
 
 272 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 steak for your family would alone cost, for breakfast 
 and supper, more than two dollars, and then, if you had 
 a roast of sirloin for dinner, that would cost nearly as 
 much more. So, if that 's the right way to live, you are 
 managing well to get on with six hundred dollars per 
 year. 
 
 But do you know that there are only about sixty 
 pounds of the sirloin which are used for roast and steaks, 
 in an ox weighing eight hundred pounds ? There are 
 other parts of the -animal good solid meat which 
 sell for five cents a pound. Portions of the neck, which, 
 when properly cooked, are the most substantial and 
 nourishing parts of the carcass, are sold for four or five 
 cents a pound. One pound of this cut into small 
 pieces and boiled two hours in three quarts of water, in 
 a close vessel, with five cents' worth of potatoes, turnips, 
 parsnips, and carrots, with salt and pepper and some 
 savory herb, would make a splendid dinner for all of 
 you. Lay bits of toasted bread upon the platter, and 
 then pour on your stew. That 's a dinner fit for a king. 
 
 Everybody likes variety. "Well, purchase next day a 
 knuckle of veal, which will cost you all told ten cents, 
 and which your wife will treat in the same way as the 
 beef, except that she will leave out the carrots and 
 parsnips, and put in bits of toasted bread or dump- 
 lings. 
 
 The next day try a bit of the fore-shoulder of a sheep,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. . 273 
 
 which is very cheap. When mutton-chops are selling 
 for twenty cents a pound, I have seen mutton fore- 
 shoulders, of fair quality, selling for two cents. It is a 
 part which is always very cheap. Cut up into bits and 
 cooked as above, a grand dinner for the eight members 
 of your family can be got up for a quarter of a dollar. 
 
 Any of these stews may be made into a baked meat- 
 pie, by way of variety. I have given these by way 
 of illustration. You need n't have the same dinner 
 twice a month. Fish may be employed occasionally, 
 and some excellent sorts are very cheap. 
 
 But these preparations of meats are comparatively 
 expensive. That beautiful white Southern corn, cracked 
 wheat, oatmeal, beans, and other similar foods, are very 
 cheap. A breakfast of oatmeal and white corn, with a 
 little milk, would cost for your whole family not more 
 than ten cents, and it would be a breakfast on which 
 you could all work hard. Skipping the dinner, which 
 has been already discussed, let us consider for a mo- 
 ment the supper. If you keep a cow as every man 
 properly located with a family of children should a 
 bowl of bread and milk, or some warmed-up beau por- 
 ridge, and a cup of tea, will satisfy you. 
 
 Such food as "I have thus hinted at is not only very 
 
 cheap, and would bring your table expenses within two 
 
 hundred dollars, but upon it you would all gain flesh, 
 
 have brighter eyes, fine teeth, sweeter breath, and be 
 
 12*
 
 274 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 altogether healthier than if you fed yourselves upon the 
 present fried, greasy, compounded stuffs, with pies, 
 cakes, and puddings. 
 
 The whole of the processes, the entire management of 
 such a table, is given in great detail, with the reasons 
 for each step, in " My Jolly Friend's Secret." I can- 
 not render you a more important service than by re- 
 ferring you to that work. 
 
 HEALTH AND TALENT. 
 
 " IT is no exaggeration to say that health is a large 
 ingredient in what the world calls talent. A man with- 
 out it may be a giant in intellect, but his deeds will be 
 the deeds of a dwarf. On the contrary, let him have a 
 quick circulation, a good digestion, the bulk, thews, and 
 sinews of a man, and the alacrity, the unthinking confi- 
 dence inspired by these, and, though having but a thim- 
 bleful of brains, he will either blunder upon success or 
 set failure at defiance. It is true, especially in this 
 country, that the number of centaurs in every commu- 
 nity of men in whom heroic intellects are allied with 
 bodily constitutions as tough as those of horses is 
 small ; that, in general, a man has reason to think him- 
 self well off in the lottery of life if he draw the prize 
 of a healthy stomach without a mind, or the prize of a
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 275 
 
 fine intellect with a crazy stomach. But of the two, a 
 weak mind in an herculean frame is better than a giant 
 mind in a crazy constitution. A pound of energy with 
 an ounce of talent will achieve greater results than a 
 pound of talent with an ounce of energy. The first 
 requisite to success in life is to be a good animal. In 
 any of the learned professions a vigorous constitution 
 is equal to at least fifty per cent more brain. Wit, 
 judgment, imagination, eloquence, all the qualities of 
 the mind, attain thereby a force and splendor to which 
 they could never approach without it. But intellect in 
 a weak body is ' like gold in a spent swimmer's pock- 
 et.' A mechanic may have tools of the sharpest edge 
 and highest polish ; but what are these without a vig- 
 orous arm and hand ? Of what use is it that your 
 mind has become a vast granary of knowledge, if 
 you have not strength to turn the key." PKOFESSOR 
 MATHEWS. 
 
 It is very rarely that one meets this vital truth so 
 well stated as in the above paragraph. 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 WHEN my neighbor Mr. Blank died, the morning 
 papers announced his wealth as $650,000, and added 
 that there were two heirs, who would thus inherit
 
 27o FIVE- MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 $325,000 each. This inheritance was much discussed 
 at our breakfast-table. Every one seemed to compre- 
 hend the magnitude of the fortune, and every one's 
 eyes shone as the grand figures, $325,000, were re- 
 peated. 
 
 During our breakfast conversation over the splen- 
 did cash inheritance of young Blank and his sister, 
 I ventured the statement that the inheritance of mor- 
 bid appetite which young Blank had received from 
 his father was an infinitely more important fact than 
 the $325,000 in money. I submitted that if Mr. 
 Blank had scrupulously denied himself the wines, 
 tobacco, and other indulgences which were so con- 
 spicuous in his every-day life, that if, during five 
 years before the birth of young Blank, the father had 
 lived purely, he would have transmitted to his son 
 an inheritance of infinite more value than any num- 
 ber of dollars could be. 
 
 A highly intelligent mother, who had for years been 
 deeply interested in ante-natal culture, said, with deep 
 emotion, " I have five children, four sons and a daugh- 
 ter, and I can distinctly trace in each a faithful reflec- 
 tion of the condition of the father and myself previous 
 to the birth. I cannot look at poor Charley without 
 the deepest sympathy and pity. For a year before his 
 birth an evil fortune kept us both in a dark shadow. 
 Almost daily my husband groaned and mourned, find
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 277 
 
 I wept. My poor boy has walked in the dark shadow 
 of our misfortune every day of our life, and I fear 
 must ever be denied the genial sunshine. Exceeding 
 good fortune, a joyous spirit, and many warm-hearted 
 friends came to us, and our bright, hopeful, happy 
 Thomas was born. Yes," repeated the beautiful mother, 
 " I can see in each of my children a photograph of the 
 circumstances in which each was conceived and born." 
 
 THE " New York Herald " of September 13, 1873, 
 gives an account of the sale of a number of cows and 
 calves of the " Improved Short-Horn Breed," at York 
 Mills, near Utica, K Y. One cow sold for $ 40,600 ; 
 a heifer calf less than seven months old sold for 
 $ 27,000 ; a cow a little over three years old sold for 
 $ 30,000 ; a heifer calf less than fifteen months old 
 sold for $ 19,000. Fifteen cows and calves sold for 
 $ 260,000. 
 
 It makes me dizzy to try to imagine what would be 
 the result of the same study and care devoted to the 
 development of a better breed of men. Within a hun- 
 dred years this world would be redeemed, and the min- 
 istering spirits might turn their attention to some other 
 planet.
 
 278 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 THE SHAKERS. 
 
 DETAINED at Pittsfield the other day, a dear friend 
 invited me to visit the Shakers at Mount Lebanon. I 
 gladly assented, and we climbed the mountain with the 
 best of horses. Stopping in front of one of the outlying 
 houses, I inquired of a middle-aged, pleasant-faced man 
 where I might find Elder Frederick, by which title 
 F. "W. Evans is known in that community, and in great 
 part to the outside world. After telling me that I 
 should find him in the last family on the left, a family 
 with brown blinds, he looked so good-natured and ready 
 to talk, that I could not refrain from a question or two. 
 
 " Then you are one of the Shakers ? " 
 
 "0,yea!" 
 
 " How do you like it ? " 
 
 " I am well pleased. I am satisfied." 
 
 " Are they all contented ? " 
 
 " 0, yea ! The brethren and sisters are generally 
 satisfied and contented." 
 
 My companion asked several questions, and finally a 
 pointed one, which he evidently did not feel it would 
 be wise to answer, and so he said, " Nay, nay ! You 
 should ask Elder Frederick that." 
 
 So we drove on in pursuit of Elder Frederick. Leav- 
 ing my companion to hold the incomparable Tom, I
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 279 
 
 knocked at the front door of an immense four-storied 
 wooden building, with agreeable paint and pretty brown 
 blinds. Immediately the door was opened, and a sweet- 
 faced woman said, in answer to my question, " Yea, but 
 he is engaged now. If you will come this way and wait, 
 he will see you soon. Take a seat, and you can look 
 at the books or at our paper. Have you seen our paper ? 
 There is a number." 
 
 I glanced over a copy of " The Shaker and Shak- 
 eress," but in a moment heard Elder Frederick coming. 
 His greeting was extremely cordial. 
 
 Elder Evans, who is the voice of the Shakers through- 
 out the country, is, I presume, seventy-five years old. 
 He appears about sixty, but as these people live for- 
 ever, and look young and fresh to the end, I add fifteen 
 years on calculation. 
 
 After the first greetings, I said, " A young woman 
 who drove me over from Pittsfield sits in our buggy at 
 the door." 
 
 "0, yea! Go out and drive round in the rear 
 through the lane, and I will meet you." 
 
 As the young woman did not like to trust me with 
 her horse, she herself drove round into the barn. (By 
 the way, I am sorry to observe that young women are 
 getting so that they hesitate to trust us men in any 
 difficult task.) Elder Frederick tied the horse him- 
 self; and I will add here, that afterward he took
 
 280 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 him. out of the carriage with his own hands and 
 fed him. 
 
 As soon as Tom was fastened, Elder Frederick said, 
 without asking our object in the visit, " I will show 
 you our barn," and at once led the way. 
 
 It is the grandest and completest barn I have ever 
 seen. It is one story on the street, and three high 
 stories in the rear. The contrivance for fastening in 
 their places thirty or forty cows, or one section, by the 
 movement of a single lever, was shown. The devices 
 for saving ever} 7 particle, solid and liquid, of the fer- 
 tilizing matter, the railroads for conveying all this to 
 an immense vault in the rear, where, from curious cars 
 tipping on either side, the manure is thrown down 
 wherever it may be wanted, all these things were 
 shown to us. While looking down into the great 
 manure-vaults, and examining the semicircular rail- 
 ways, and the arrangements overhead for hitching 
 down the wagon-loads of absorbents which were 
 driven in on a level from the street, and, reaching the 
 far-off back end, were dumped into the vault fifty feet 
 below, Elder Frederick remarked : " I have never un- 
 dertaken anything which involved more thought than 
 this." 
 
 The ventilation was explained. A current of fresh 
 air comes constantly to the head of each animal. The 
 feed-box for each creature (an original contrivance of
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 281 
 
 the Elder) was shown and manipulated. In brief, this 
 immense and wonderful home of the horned animals 
 was shown and explained in a spirit which showed 
 plainly enough that Elder Frederick thought they 
 were all Shakers, every one of them, and deserved the 
 best. 
 
 While we were at the top of the barn, our guide 
 took us out on the roof to show us the views. I do 
 not know where in the world anything more grand and 
 beautiful can be found. We were in the bottom of a 
 circular nest, two or three miles in diameter, the moun- 
 tains, everywhere covered in wonderful green, rising 
 above us. That very plain dress which the Elder wore 
 may serve some good purpose, but his face plainly 
 showed that one of us, at least, was full of the lovely 
 scene around and about us. My companion suggested 
 that the choice of location was exceedingly fortunate 
 for the undisturbed solution of the great social prob- 
 lem which the Shakers had undertaken. Elder Fred- 
 erick's little laugh showed very plainly that he fully 
 appreciated the value of this seclusion from the wicked 
 world and all its follies. 
 
 Leaving the barn, we started toward the house, as I 
 supposed to examine the structure and economics of 
 kitchens, workshops, dormitories, and so on ; but we 
 fell into a discussion of the ideas of the Shakers, and 
 were soon seated in Elder Frederick's office, where we
 
 282 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 remained, with the exception of the half-hour at din- 
 ner, during the several remaining hours of our stay. 
 Before repeating some portions of that conversation, I 
 will dispose of the dinner. We had seen very few of 
 the people as yet, but we looted forward to the great 
 gathering at the dinner-table, where we should see 
 hundreds of them, the women all at one table and the 
 men all at another. You may imagine our disappoint- 
 ment when we were conducted into one of those aw- 
 fully clean rooms which make one almost afraid to 
 breathe lest some dust may be shaken off, and seated 
 at a small table alone. We swallowed the disappoint- 
 ment with our dinner as best we could. The cookery, 
 as everybody knows, is simply perfect. They have 
 achieved the most complete solution of the table ques- 
 tion. Nothing could be plainer, but it is more palata- 
 ble than all your French cookery. A restaurant estab- 
 lished at some convenient point in New York City, 
 and conducted on the Shaker plan, would make a 
 fortune in five years. The young woman who waited 
 on us at dinner was questioned by my companion. 
 " How long have you been a Shaker ? " 
 "Twenty- two years. I came here when I was six- 
 teen." 
 
 I had thought about her age, and had put her at 
 twenty-eight. I was surprised to hear her confess to 
 thirty-eight. Anywhere in the outside world she
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 283 
 
 could have passed for under thirty, and, if rich, for 
 twenty. Her intelligence and manners we thought 
 remarkable. We tried, during our ride back to Pitts- 
 field, to name some city lady of our acquaintance who 
 was the equal of this table-waiter, but we found it 
 difficult. 
 
 But now to go back to Elder Frederick's office, and 
 resume our conversation with him and his sisters, Alice 
 and Anna, a wonderful trio. 
 
 " Elder Frederick, we hear you are very rich." 
 
 " Did you ever know anybody to get rich at farming 
 or other plain industry ? We are not rich. We have 
 six or seven thousand acres of land, but the greater 
 part of it is mountain. We raise a great deal, but then 
 we consume nearly all of it. We always keep the 
 best, and never sell anything that we can use our- 
 selves." 
 
 " Elder Frederick, we hear you are having just now 
 a series of meetings, which are attended largely by 
 outsiders. What do you expect will come of it ? " 
 
 " We hope for a spread of our doctrines." 
 
 " Do you mean that you hope the people outside will 
 become Shakers ? " 
 
 " That is what I mean." 
 
 "Suppose the entire inhabitants of the continent 
 were to become Shakers to-morrow, what w r ould you 
 do for a next generation ? "
 
 284 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 " What should we do ? We should do very much 
 better than the \vorld will do under the present sys- 
 tem!" 
 
 " Yes, but what would you do for children ? " 
 
 "If the whole continent were converted to Shaker 
 ideas, the number of children born hereafter would be 
 greatly increased, and their chances of life and man- 
 hood enhanced. No people believe in marriage and 
 children more than the Shakers. There are a few who, 
 from certain conformations of brain, would aspire to a 
 purely intellectual and spiritual life, withdrawing from 
 the generative function. These would constitute, as 
 here in Mount Lebanon, " The Spiritual Order," but 
 the great mass of the world would, in temperance and 
 virtue, marry, and raise families of children, which, 
 under our ideas, would grow up into decent and useful 
 manhood and womanhood." 
 
 "Elder Frederick, what do you teach your people 
 about another life ? " 
 
 "I don't say anything about it, nor care anything 
 about it. This life is as much as we can attend to. 
 Our confidence in God is such that we do not worry, 
 lest he should fail us ten years hence, or a thousand 
 years hence." 
 
 " What do you think of the Oneida Community ? " 
 
 " I think the leader in that foolish, bad experiment 
 is a fallen man. He knows the truth and the right.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 285 
 
 but sees an opportunity to secure a certain leadership 
 and distinction, by pandering to the lust of this lust- 
 ful generation." 
 
 "What is the influence on longevity of your life 
 here in Mount Lebanon ? " 
 
 " It is remarkable. A sister died the other day one 
 hundred and six years old. Several have died over 
 ninety. But I will procure a pamphlet for you pub- 
 lished by a former governor of Vermont, in which you 
 will find that the average life among the Shakers is 
 nearly double that of the outside world." 
 
 We talked of many things, but my companion re- 
 minded me that " time, tide, and the cars wait for no 
 man," and we left with a sincere invitation from these 
 good people to visit them again, which we both fully 
 intend to do, and with the comforting assurance from 
 Elder Evans that we were both genuine Shakers, and 
 belonged with them ; but as we could n't possibly stay 
 just then, we hurried back to Pittsfield, I to take the 
 cars for Boston, and my companion another train for 
 her beautiful home away down on the banks of the 
 Housatonic. 
 
 DIFFERENT systems of religion all have their uses, 
 and there is good in all and none all good. There- 
 fore it is very foolish for fallible mortals to sit in 
 judgment upon any of them.
 
 286 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 "BEG YOUR, PARDON." 
 
 SOME one has said that polite words are nothing but 
 air. We have all heard the reply that they may be 
 nothing but air, but, like the air in a rubber cushion, 
 they serve to ease the jolts of life. This contains a bit 
 of practical wisdom which we Americans are apt to 
 forget. 
 
 I was dining, or bolting food by jerks, at a railroad 
 station the other day, when a Japanese young man took 
 the stool next to mine, and with his very few words of 
 English managed to call for some oysters and coffee. 
 He ate and drank like a Christian, and attracted my 
 attention by a frequent use of " Beg your pardon." 
 He wanted the pepper ; and reaching for it, he said in 
 a sweet voice to the gentleman before whose face he 
 was obliged to pass his arm, " Beg your pardon, sir." 
 Wishing a glass of water, he raised his tumbler 
 slightly, and with a bow and a pleasant smile said to 
 me, "Beg your pardon, if you please." 
 
 As a rule, I don't like the Chinese or Japanese, 
 but this young man, with his quiet, gentle " Beg your 
 pardon," commanded not only my attention, but my 
 admiration. Those of us who sat near enough to serve 
 him were more than willing, and I noticed a coarse 
 fellow with his hat on across the table push the plate
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 287 
 
 of crackers over to the polite foreigner, without being 
 asked, and without even looking up, as if he felt 
 ashamed of the act, but could not help it. 
 
 And you must not forget that all this was at a 
 railroad pig-trough, where we generally thrust in our 
 noses without even looking at the other pigs. 
 
 I sought an opportunity to converse with the polite 
 gentleman when we had resumed our journey ; and al- 
 though he knew less than a hundred words of our lan- 
 guage, I was delighted. " I beg your pardon," " Thank 
 you," " If you please," and " You are very kind," 
 were sentences he could speak quite distinctly, and 
 with them he can make his way wherever the language 
 is spoken. He constantly apologized for speaking the 
 language so badly, but I assured him with perfect sin- 
 cerity that I had never heard it spoken better in my 
 life. Now all this costs nothing, and is the passport to 
 every good thing in social life. I know of no invest- 
 ment that pays like politeness. It never fails to secure 
 attention and kind consideration. It will secure more 
 favors and real kindness than strength, beauty, learn- 
 ing, and wealth, and, after all, costs nothing. Ameri- 
 cans are singularly defective in this bright "small 
 change " of the social world.
 
 288 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 CURE OF STAMMERING. 
 
 SOME years ago a famous professor came to a town 
 where I was then residing, and announced that he 
 could " cure the worst cases of stuttering in ten min- 
 utes without a surgical operation." A friend of mine 
 was an inveterate stammerer, and I advised him to 
 call upon the wonderful magician. He called, was con- 
 vinced by the testimonials exhibited, struck up a bar- 
 gain, paid the fifty dollars, and soon called at my office 
 talking as straight as a railroad track. 
 
 I was greatly astonished, and asked my friend by 
 what miracle he had been so strangely and suddenly 
 relieved of his life-long trouble. He most provokingly 
 informed me that he had made a solemn pledge not to 
 reveal the process of cure. 
 
 I knew two other bad cases, ladies, and, calling 
 upon them, reported what had come to pass. 
 
 They were soon at the professor's rooms, came away 
 greatly elated, raised the hundred dollars, went the 
 next day, paid the cash, and in half an hour were 
 ready, had the question been popped, to say "Yes," 
 without a jerk ! 
 
 I was soon made acquainted with several other cures 
 quite as remarkable, and resolved to put on my sharp- 
 est wits and wait upon the magician myself.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 289 
 
 He seemed an honest man, and in two days I had 
 made up my mind to pay him a large fee and learn the 
 strange art, with the privilege of using it to cure 
 whomsoever I would. 
 
 Those who had been cured by the professor were 
 solemnly bound not to reveal the secret to any one, 
 but my contract gave me the privilege of using the 
 knowledge as I pleased. 
 
 And now I propose to give my readers a simple art 
 which lias enabled me to make very happy many unhap- 
 py stammerers. In my own hands it has often failed 
 to effect the desired result, but in three fourths of the 
 cases which I have treated the cure has been complete. 
 
 The secret is simply this : the stammerer is made to 
 mark the time in his speech, just as it is ordinarily 
 done in singing. He is at first to beat on every sylla- 
 ble. It is best at the first lesson to read some simple 
 composition, like one of David's Psalms, striking the 
 finger on the knee at every word, then read in a news- 
 paper, beating each syllable. 
 
 You can beat time by striking the finger on the 
 knee, by simply hitting the thumb against the fore- 
 finger or moving the large toe in the boot. 
 
 I doubt if the worst case of stuttering could con- 
 tinue long, provided the sufferer would read an hour or 
 two every day, with thorough practice of this simple 
 art, observing the same in his conversation. 
 
 13
 
 290 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 As thousands have paid fifty and a hundred dollars 
 for this secret, I take great pleasure in publishing it 
 to the world. 
 
 A CHAT ABOUT ENGLISHMEN. 
 
 LAST summer the British Association for the Ad- 
 vancement of Science held its annual meeting at 
 Brighton. It was my first opportunity to attend the 
 sittings of this grand association, and I went down. 
 If I were an Englishman, and wished to show my 
 people in their best aspect to a stranger, I should take 
 him to a meeting of this august body. The English- 
 man as seen in that body is so simple, so sincere and 
 earnest, he shows such patient research and such com- 
 prehensive grasp, that he seems the grandest of men. 
 But my object at this time is not to discuss the char- 
 acter of the association, but to gossip a little about 
 some of the people I saw. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter, who delivered the opening address, 
 is better known to Americans especially doctors 
 than any other medical man in Europe. He is appar- 
 ently sixty, pale, tall, lank, and for all the world a 
 Yankee of the gaunt species. He wears artificial teeth, 
 and the upper plate continually fell down. As often 
 as he spoke the word " power," down the plate came,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 291 
 
 and he was obliged to use his hand often to replace it. 
 It was the most painfully ludicrous sight imaginable. 
 Like all the speakers at the meeting, his elocution was 
 very bad. In this connection let me say that Colonel 
 Fox, whose name we see now so often in the news- 
 papers, and who is a very high authority in anthro- 
 pology, was a prominent speaker in the meeting at 
 Brighton. The colonel is a handsome man, with black 
 hair, pale face, and a strikingly intellectual expression, 
 and if he had been reared in America, would have 
 been a fluent, perhaps a brilliant speaker ; but, edu- 
 cated in English notions of oratory, his speaking is, to 
 an American, really distressing. I heard Mm in a 
 formal address, and I honestly declare it made me 
 sweat. It must have taken him a long time to learn 
 it. Never by any accident did he speak five consecu- 
 tive words without a hitch. I heard no speaker in 
 England talk right on in our American fashion, with 
 perhaps the single exception of Mr. Spurgeon. He is 
 a miracle of volubility, would be so regarded even 
 among us. 
 
 But to return to Brighton. Sir John Lubbock was 
 prominent. Sir John's personelle is very unpromising. 
 A small man, with a small common head and a small 
 cheap face, a small, piping, sing-song voice, he seemed 
 to be as little of a nobleman as one could imagine, but 
 he is evidently great in the insect department.
 
 292 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Our Stanley was there, and the lion of the show. 
 He was run after and cheered quite as much as the 
 Prince of Wales would have been. Mr. Stanley was 
 rather ill at ease: The white kids upon his enormous 
 hands were a bad fit, and his whole appearance sug- 
 gested the thought that he was probably far more com- 
 fortable in the jungles of Africa. 
 
 Napoleon, Eugenie, and the prince had been invited 
 to attend the meetings, and at the opening addresses 
 I sat at the reporters' table close by those remarkable 
 people, and immediately in front of them. The paper 
 Dr. Carpenter was reading had been printed and dis- 
 tributed to the representatives of the press, so that 
 I had nothing to do but to look at the famous trio. 
 Napoleon was the youngest looking man for his age I 
 have ever seen. His skin was clear and fresh and free 
 from wrinkles. He looked like a man of fifty. 
 Eugenie is a very striking personage. The pictures 
 are remarkably faithful. I think her complexion must 
 be very dark, though she uses such a profusion of 
 pearl-powder that one cannot tell about the color of 
 the skin. I could discover no resemblance between 
 the son and either of the parents, but he is a remark- 
 ably bright young man. A friend of mine was present 
 at the closing exercises of a school down near Chisel- 
 hurst last June, and the prince was present to repre- 
 sent his father. My friend was surprised at a speech
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 293 
 
 clearly extempore from the prince. The English was 
 remarkably good, and the whole affair would have done 
 credit to a practised orator of double his years. 
 
 At the Emperor's right hand sat the Baroness Burdett 
 Coutts. You have seen a New England old maid, the 
 last end of a played-out Yankee family, with long, 
 skinny neck and a red eruption covering half the face. 
 That 's the Baroness exactly. But there is no doubt 
 that she is in many respects a remarkable woman, and 
 her wealth, which she is using with such noble be- 
 nevolence, is boundless. 
 
 ENGLISH CRUELTY. 
 
 DURING a recent visit to England, I was surprised 
 and pained at the many evidences of cruelty among 
 the people. I stood on the corner of Eegent and Ox- 
 ford Streets two hours, and counted the number of cuts 
 received by horses. It was 468, and the whips used by 
 the cab-drivers there are very severe. When I returned 
 to America, I spent the first two spare hours (which 
 happened to be the busiest of the day for the street) 
 on the corner of Broadway and Canal Streets, in New 
 York, and counted the number of whip-cuts within the 
 range of my vision. It was 14, and the whips used by 
 New York drivers are nothing compared with those 
 used by London drivers.
 
 294 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 During seven weeks in London I saw a woman 
 beaten by a man in the street nine times. I have 
 never witnessed such brutality in America. 
 
 The new game of Polo on horseback, inaugurated 
 last summer in the presence of royalty and uncounted 
 nobility, on the Grand Park at Windsor Castle, I wit- 
 nessed. The cruel tortures to which the beautiful 
 ponies were subjected would not be permitted in the 
 United States. Not only would ladies and respectable 
 men refuse to look on and approve, but the authorities 
 would be compelled to interfere. 
 
 Still, in some of the highest ladies' schools in Eng- 
 land, grown women are whipped, and in the colleges 
 the beating of the younger boys by the older would 
 not be submitted to by American savages. It is not 
 matched by anything in history. 
 
 MOEAL HEROISM OF AMERICANS. 
 
 IT is the common opinion that the Yankee cares for 
 nothing but dollars ; that he is a worshipper of mam- 
 mon ; that, deprived of this god, he is broken-hearted. 
 
 The day after the great Boston fire one saw in the 
 crowd of ruined merchants slowly wandering about the 
 smouldering ruins a spirit which was infinitely removed 
 from the money-grabber. It was a calm, cheerful,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 295 
 
 brave facing of the disaster. Not a word of discour- 
 agement, nothing approaching a whine. Hundreds of 
 them standing naked, stripped of the earnings of a 
 lifetime, quietly, unflinchingly, cast about to see how 
 to make a new beginning. It was one of the grandest 
 examples of a high moral heroism ever witnessed. 
 
 A NEW HORSE-DISEASE. 
 
 A NEW disease has broken out among the horses of 
 the country, which is not unlike the epizootic in some 
 of its forms, and threatens to become as widespread. 
 A few words with regard to its management may not 
 come amiss. 
 
 The people think that the peculiar misfortune 
 about the equine plague is that the doctors have been 
 caught off guard. One paper says that "the strange 
 malady has thus far eluded the grasp of the medical 
 men, that as yet they have not come to a full under- 
 standing of its nature," etc., etc. Another paper said 
 the other day that one of our city horse-doctors was 
 trying a composition of nearly twenty ingredients, arid 
 that when he had determined the exact proportions of 
 each, he would be all ready to make a fortune out of 
 his secret should the disease reappear. 
 
 It is true that the equine plague has thus far eluded
 
 296 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the grasp of medical men, that we know but little 
 of its nature; but all this is equally true of other 
 maladies, even of those with the names of which we 
 have been longest acquainted. The cholera has long 
 been made the subject of the most searching investi- 
 gations. Volumes have been written about it. But, 
 saying nothing of the nature of the malady (which we 
 may frankly confess is quite beyond mortal ken), it is 
 not known to-day whether the cholera comes from the 
 earth, the air, or the sky. In brief, we know nothing 
 of it beyond its symptoms ; and we may add that this 
 is the full extent of our knowledge about a common 
 catarrh or cold in the head. What can we say of its 
 nature ? Every candid doctor will answer, "Nothing, 
 positively nothing." 
 
 This disease of the horse is new in some of its fea- 
 tures ; but the pretence that when doctors have had time 
 to grasp its nature, they will, etc., etc., is sheer affecta- 
 tion and nonsense. - It is probably true that experience 
 will improve our management of our four-footed pa- 
 tients, but it will improve it by teaching us the utter 
 worthlessness of doctor stuffs ; and that will certainly 
 be a great gain. Of late years a new malady is met 
 with theories and drugs. Experience invariably leads 
 to hygiene. If a common catarrh or cold in the 
 head were just now a new disease, the medical mag- 
 azines would be full of theories and druc; treatment.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 297 
 
 Experience would teach abstinence, cleanliness, extra 
 sleep, pure air, and warm clothing. The horse plague, 
 should it frequently return, will have a similar history. 
 A pack of horse-quacks will mix up quantities of 
 poisonous drugs, talk mysterious wisdom, and force the 
 nasty stuffs down the unwilling throats of the dumb, 
 suffering creatures. Then they will learn better, and 
 finally will come to depend upon warm blankets, pure 
 air, and other hygienic expedients. Some of our com- 
 mon-sense teamsters have managed in the simple, 
 natural way, and have thus treated their horses as well 
 .as it is possible to treat them. 
 
 All this rigmarole of technical names and theories, 
 all these whispers that this and that horse-doctor is 
 engaged in careful investigations and experiments, are 
 the most perfect tomfoolery imaginable ; and while 
 said doctors are quite willing to profit by these def- 
 erential hints, when they meet each other they thrust 
 their tongues into their cheeks and wink. 
 
 My object in these remarks is not to disparage 
 veterinary physicians as such, for some of them we 
 know to be thoughtful, devoted men, but to urge 
 a word in mercy for our long-suffering, patient, noble 
 friend, the horse. The cruel tortures to which he has 
 been subjected by ignorant, reckless horse-doctors, so 
 called, must give us all the heartache. 
 
 As an illustration of the kind of treatment which 
 
 13*
 
 298 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 our four-footed friend sorely needs, let us consider the 
 stall in which he is confined during this long sickness. 
 His head is tied at the farther end of a close box, with- 
 out change of air and without light. The secretions 
 from his nose besmear his feed-box, the fetid emana- 
 tions in his breath accumulate until his keeper can 
 scarcely breathe the reeking stench, and the horse goes 
 on night and day sucking in the foul excretions. What 
 he needs most of all is a light and perfectly ventilated 
 room to live in during his illness. He needs it quite 
 as much as a man would suffering with a similar 
 disease. To say that this alone would do more for the 
 victims of this plague than all the medicines which 
 have been forced down their throats is to speak with 
 excessive moderation. Let us condense the most im- 
 portant rules : 
 
 1. Light and perfect ventilation. 
 
 2. Warm blankets. 
 
 3. Frequent and hard rubbing with brushes and 
 wisps of straw. 
 
 4. Simple opening food. Carrots and other roots 
 are best. 
 
 5. Plenty of pure water. 
 
 6. If not too sick, a walk morning and afternoon 
 of an hour or so, wrapped in warm blankets. 
 
 Everybody has heard the old story of the cute Yankee 
 who announced for exhibition "A HORSE WITH HIS
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 299 
 
 HEAD WHERE HIS TAIL OUGHT TO BE." It was impos- 
 sible to make change fast enough at the stable door. 
 The eager crowd rushed in and found an old horse 
 standing with his tail backed up into the farther end 
 of a stall and his head sticking out at the open end 
 of the stall. 
 
 If all the horses suffering with the new disease had 
 been kept on exhibition after the Yankee's fashion, 
 the malady would have been greatly mitigated. 
 
 THE CHECK-REIN. 
 
 cruelties are inflicted upon the horse. The 
 most inexcusable is the check-rein. 
 
 I have just been watching a stylish team. Both 
 horses are busy trying to release their heads. The 
 head goes to one side, then to the other, then the nose is 
 thrown up as high as possible several times. And so it 
 goes on without cessation. The torture in the bent and 
 constrained spine must be intense : their eyes show it. 
 Unloose the checks in these high-headed animals, and 
 they will hang their heads down almost to the ground ; 
 they will half close their eyes ; in this and other ways 
 they will show a sense of great relief. 
 
 They say the horse looks better with his head drawn 
 up two feet higher than where 'the Creator placed it.
 
 300 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 That 's a matter of taste. Some people have said that 
 the animal travels and pulls better with a check-rein. 
 Try it yourself. Run a mile, holding your person and 
 head erect. Try it again. Draw a loaded hand-cart 
 up a hill and hold yourself quite upright. You will 
 never advocate a check-rein again. 
 
 The Creator knew how to make a horse. He knew 
 on which end to put the head, and just how to put 
 it on. He taught the horse how to carry it. I have 
 always thought the thing a success. 
 
 Could the dumb creature speak, he would say, "My 
 master, I know that I was made to serve you, that 
 I must spend my whole life in toiling for your in- 
 terests, and I ask in return only such comfort as suits 
 your convenience. I will not complain when you over- 
 work me and whip me, but I beg that you will not 
 force my head up out of its natural place. It makes 
 me stumble, for I can't see where to step. It strains 
 my loins painfully when I have to draw a heavy load, 
 and it lessens greatly my pulling strength. But, my 
 dear master, worse than all these, it produces an aching, 
 torturing pain in my spine. Just where my head joins 
 my neck, the pain in the spine is so dreadful some- 
 times that I wish myself dead. My master, hold your 
 head in a curbed, constrained position for half an hour, 
 and you will suffer the keenest pain you could endure. 
 This I have to bear "from morning till night. It is
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 301 
 
 worse than all my other sufferings put together. My 
 master, give me the liberty to move my head in the 
 natural way, in the way contrived by our common 
 Father ; I will serve you better, last longer, and have 
 a little comfort even in the midst of all my toils." 
 
 THE STREET-RAILWAY HORSES. 
 
 I DKOPPED in recently to make the acquaintance of 
 the managers of one of the large street-railway stables 
 in New York. I found the superintendent full of the 
 wisdom which comes of long experience and careful 
 observation. After learning that he employed ten 
 hundred and fifty horses, more than a hundred stable- 
 men, and many other similar facts, I asked a number 
 of questions, which, with his answers, may interest my 
 readers. 
 
 " What is your final judgment upon the weight of 
 the car-horse ? " 
 
 "He should be a heavy animal. I now buy those 
 which weigh from 1,150 to 1,250 pounds. "We all used 
 to think that the light, high-spirited horse was best. 
 But we found that starting the car killed such ani- 
 mals." 
 
 " What is the average length of service among your 
 horses ? "
 
 302 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 " About three years." 
 
 " What then becomes of them ? " 
 
 " They go to the cart, farm, and canal." 
 
 " What is the result of your long experience in feed- 
 ing?" 
 
 "About seventeen pounds of oats and corn and 
 seven pounds of hay. In the winter we mix one 
 bushel of corn with three of oats, and in the summer 
 one to six. We grind the grains quite fine, and cut 
 the hay. No dry hay is given." 
 
 " Do you find any difference as to endurance or ac- 
 tivity associated with any particular color ? " 
 
 " No ; though we all fancy that light-colored horses 
 are most intelligent, and that black and dark sorrel 
 horses are most likely to be vicious." 
 
 " Which sex is worth most for car service ? " 
 
 " The horse. I do not buy mares now if I can avoid 
 it. There are one or two familiar objections to the 
 presence of mares in a large crowd of horses ; but I 
 have found another serious objection, they are much 
 more liable to spinal troubles. We had eighty-five 
 cases of cerebro-spinal meningitis in our stables, and 
 sixty-eight of them were mares, or exactly four in five. 
 The number of the two sexes was, at that time, almost 
 exactly equal. Besides, the disease was particularly 
 fatal among the mares. At present, we have two 
 horses for one mare, and after a time I intend that our 
 stock shall include no mares."
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 303 
 
 VIVISECTION. 
 
 OF all the chapters in the history of my profession, 
 no other makes one breathe quick, and the cold sweat 
 start, like that of vivisection. Perhaps my younger 
 readers may not know what vivisection means. The 
 dissection of an animal while alive for the purpose of 
 making physiological investigations. "With cutting, 
 and burning with fire and acids, with starvation and 
 thirst, it is possible to make the sufferings of a dog, for 
 example, during his week or month in the physiolo- 
 gist's laboratory, something which the imagination 
 would find it difficult to grasp. Then consider the 
 number of dogs, and other animals, which physiologists 
 have tortured to death under pretence of scientific in- 
 vestigations. That eminent physiologist, but indecent 
 savage, Spallanzani, lived for many years in the midst 
 of a hell of cries, yells, groans, shrieks, and moans, 
 proceeding from thousands upon thousands of animals 
 undergoing his experiments. I ask my medical breth- 
 ren what advantage to science came of it all ? I have 
 been a student of physiological researches and discov- 
 eries, and I affirm that of the myriads of helpless 
 creatures that have been tortured in this way, not one 
 in a million have made the least contribution to sci- 
 ence. A great intellectual genius, like one of the
 
 304 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Bells, or, perhaps, Brown-Sequard, reports an experi- 
 ment upon some animal, with his deductions. Forth- 
 with an army of brainless imitators get their dogs and 
 begin. Of course there is not the least probability of 
 any good coming of it all, but it has a scientific ap- 
 pearance. The poor, helpless creatures, meantime, all 
 day and all night, suffer on, while the would-be physi- 
 ologist makes notes, which, in due time, he will inflict 
 upon some medical society ; and though nobody will 
 get a single valuable suggestion, a few of the more 
 
 brainless of the members will fancy that Dr. is, 
 
 somehow, a scientific investigator, while the investi- 
 gator himself rests his weighty head on his hand, and 
 sighs to think that he is one of the great physiological 
 explorers. Hundreds of thousands of medical men 
 have practised vivisection. Not half a score of them 
 have contributed an idea to physiology. The boys in 
 Harvard Medical College get the fever of vivisection 
 every winter. They read in the journals that some 
 German physiologist has tried this or that experiment 
 upon a rabbit or a dog, perhaps an experiment which 
 makes one's heart stop to read about, and these young- 
 sters set about starting their inquisition. About two 
 months ago one of the young men from Harvard told 
 me of some experiments the vivisectionists of the class 
 had been making ; and I honestly declare that I cannot 
 recall that description without a shudder, even at this
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 305 
 
 distance. I trust they will try next winter the law 
 against cruelty on those Harvard vivisectionists. 
 
 Go and ask the eminent physiologists among the 
 professors in Harvard, and they will tell you exactly 
 what I do of the usefulness of vivisection. 
 
 Among the Romans, a gladiatorial show in which 
 some horrible thing did not occur, was regarded a tame 
 fizzle. The savage is ecstatic only when the tortures 
 of his hapless victim are fiendish. Down in the ani- 
 mal nature of many a civilized being there is not a 
 little of this passion for the horrible. It is this 
 which gives zest to vivisections. 
 
 OVER a considerable portion of the globe the com- 
 mon garden snail is an article of human food. In 
 many parts of the world the creatures are fattened in 
 snaileries, and are sold in the market just as we sell 
 chickens and oysters. In Italy, Spain, Switzerland, 
 and France, the snail trade involves a large traffic. 
 
 IT is strange to me that persons of common hu- 
 manity can enjoy the eating of that delicacy among 
 epicures, pate de foie gras. It is made of diseased 
 goose-livers, unnaturally enlarged by torturing the 
 poor bird in a manner that would put a red Indian 
 to the blush.
 
 306 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A CHAT ABOUT DRAINAGE. 
 
 FEW subjects are more important in their relation to 
 human health. One half the deaths which occur are 
 caused by fever in its different forms. 
 
 It is a well-established fact, that the principal cause 
 of fever is a humid, miasmatic state of the atmosphere, 
 produced by an excess of moisture in the ground, from 
 which poisonous exhalations constantly arise, vitiating 
 the purer air, and carrying into the system of those 
 who inhale it a virus, which, if not sufficiently intense 
 to produce fever, has such a disturbing effect upon the 
 functions of some organ or set of organs, as to weaken 
 the general system, and act as a powerful, predisposing 
 cause of some of the most common and fatal maladies 
 to which the human body is subject. 
 
 Some of the European cities have suffered fearfully 
 from want of thorough drainage. In the city of Glasgow, 
 for the five years ending 1840, 55,949 persons were at- 
 tacked with fever, every fifth person in the city. Of 
 these 4,788 died. The city of London has probably 
 suffered more from imperfect drainage than any other 
 city in the world, and at this day, after years of labor 
 and an enormous expenditure of money, that city is 
 still suffering through the ignorance and errors of the 
 past, from evils which may never be wholly eradicated.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 307 
 
 Several American cities have suffered frightful losses 
 from bad drainage. 
 
 In Buffalo, 1ST. Y., during the memorable seasons of 
 1849 and 1851, I personally attended three hundred 
 cases of cholera and cholerine. Of these three hundred 
 cases, two hundred and fifty, at least, occurred in dwell- 
 ings which stood near pools of water or upon damp 
 ground ; and I doubt if I saw ten cases on dry soil, well 
 removed from accumulations of surface water, and with 
 dry, pure cellars. 
 
 One house, which stood in a little wet hollow, was 
 the scene of the most dreadful mortality. An entire 
 Irish family, consisting of parents and six children, fell 
 victims in a single week. Upon the death of the last 
 of the group, a boy of seventeen years, I called upon 
 the authorities and warned them against allowing the 
 premises to be occupied. The caution was neglected, 
 and a few days after I was called to see some cases of 
 cholera at the ill-fated house. Upon arriving I found 
 seven persons all in the collapse of cholera. The family 
 had moved in the previous day. They had left a dry 
 and healthy street because of inability to pay their 
 rent, and had spent only one night on the fatal premises. 
 Indeed, before daylight the malady made its appear- 
 ance. Before the sun went down, all had forgotten 
 their agonizing cramps in the sleep of death. 
 
 Damp earth, especially in cities and towns where im-
 
 308 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 mense quantities of filth accumulate, is the source of 
 incredible disease and death. 
 
 Draining the soil, thus removing the water from the 
 superficial earth, and paving the streets to prevent the 
 water from reaching the earth underneath, are, in a san- 
 itary point of view, the same thing. 
 
 Streets have not often been paved for health's sake, 
 and yet no improvement has more to do with the health 
 of a city. The history of a large number of cities shows 
 conclusively that a great decrease of mortality is due 
 alone to the paving of certain streets in localities pre- 
 viously noted for their unhealthiness. "With a good 
 pavement, but little water reaches the soil, and as the 
 direct rays of the sun do not reach the earth, no poison- 
 ous gases are generated. 
 
 Dr. Bell cites the city of Philadelphia as a remarkable 
 illustration of the advantages of paving, and affirms that 
 intermittent and bilious remittent fevers have declined 
 whenever and wherever the streets have been paved. 
 
 Louisville, Ky., is another case in point. Previous to 
 the paving of its streets, it was called " the graveyard 
 of the West." It is now as healthy as any town in 
 that region. Bilious fevers, rivalling yellow fever in 
 malignity, threatened to depopulate it. The streets 
 were paved, and the sanitary condition of the city 
 immediately changed. 
 
 The only pavement which will stand our climate
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 309 
 
 is that which involves the essential features of the old 
 Roman pavements. If the pavement be so constructed 
 that the water easily leaches through, the frost will 
 surely follow and the pavement be upheaved. 
 
 The pavement must be impervious. The concrete 
 pavement, or small cubical blocks of primitive rock 
 laid upon a bed of concrete, is doubtless the only one 
 as yet devised which will fulfil all the required condi- 
 tions. Some of the concrete roads built by the Eomans 
 in England twenty centuries ago are still in a remarka- 
 ble state of preservation. 
 
 The concrete under the pavement will not add greatly 
 to the expense, and will make the pavement last per- 
 haps twenty times as long. Indeed, it is doubtful if it 
 be not possible to lay down a pavement in Broadway, 
 N. Y., which would serve, without repair, a hundred 
 years. 
 
 "No city of any considerable dimensions can be clean 
 or healthy without a plentiful supply of water. 
 
 No city in America has a sufficient supply of wa- 
 ter. It is a shame that New York, with its immense 
 resources and prospective population, should, dur- 
 ing the summer, when, in a sanitary point of view, 
 water is most important, be obliged to stint her popu- 
 lation. 
 
 Every principal street should have a small river be- 
 low, into which everything from the surface and from
 
 310 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 the houses on either side may readily flow. With good 
 drainage, paving, supply of water, and sewerage, a city 
 may be healthy. 
 
 THAT wise physician, Dr. P. A. Gorton, says : " How 
 much individual health depends upon the sanitary 
 regulations of the household ! The prescriptions of 
 the best physicians are often insignificant, compared 
 with the virtues of hygiene ; indeed, ignorant or neg- 
 lectful parents and nurses, and unwholesome sur- 
 roundings, frequently defeat the purpose of the wisest 
 medical advice, and render inoperative, or worse, rem- 
 edies of -undoubted timely virtue. But, more than this, 
 a host of the worst disorders, by the neglect of whole- 
 some precautions, are engendered within the household. 
 A leaky drain, defective ventilation, or a neglected sink 
 or water-closet, produce more cholera and typhus than 
 were ever dispensed by a mysterious Providence. The 
 foul air of a cesspool is more to be dreaded than the 
 fumes of the bottomless pit. I knew a whole family 
 of small children, a few years ago, swept away to the 
 unknown, by an alleged Providential dispensation of 
 dysentery. The location of the family was unexcep- 
 tionable, high, dry, and sunny. It was in the month 
 of August ; a dry season. There seemed to be no reason 
 to impeach the allegation against Providence, until, 
 walking through a side-yard, that had been a favorite
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 311 
 
 resort of the children, a cesspool was discovered, that 
 had been obstructed all summer ! Verily, Providence 
 was merciful to that family. Instead of being charged 
 with the death of the innocents, He should have been 
 gratefully thanked for preserving the survivors." 
 
 ABOUT THE HOUSE MR. STONE IS TO BUILD 
 FOR ME. 
 
 ME. STONE, I will mention some things which I 
 must have in my new house. You house-builders are 
 very wise about the anatomy of a house, but you have 
 never studied its physiology. When the walls and 
 the roof, the floors and the paper and paint, are done, 
 you think that the house is finished. In its anatomy, 
 yes ; but then there 's the physiology. 
 
 Mr. Stone. But, sir, I don't know what you mean 
 by the physiology of a house. It 's one of your new- 
 fangled notions, ain't it ? 
 
 Mr. Stone, let me explain to you. My home will 
 consist of the walls, roof, etc., and the life within. 
 Now, a vital condition of the life within is a supply 
 of good air. To have this there must be a constant 
 movement in the air. A hogshead of air is made unfit 
 for respiration by a pair of lungs in five minutes. 
 Suppose there are ten people in the house ; ten hogs- 
 heads of air would be rendered unfit for breathing in
 
 312 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 five minutes, or two hogsheads every minute. Now, 
 what attention do you house-builders pay to all that 
 sort of thing ? Why, none at all. You make every- 
 thing as tight as a bottle with a cork in it if you can. 
 And then the occupants have to trust to luck or 
 Providence for breath, although the Divine Architect 
 has not revealed to us any means by which an air- 
 tight bottle or an air-tight room can enjoy good 
 ventilation. Mr. Stone, what we want in our houses 
 is pure air, and the best means during the season 
 of artificial heat, which lasts two thirds of the year, 
 is the open fire. Let us for a moment look at this 
 brisk wood-fire. Observe that big chimney-throat. 
 Hold a piece of paper near it, and see how quickly 
 it will dodge up the chimney. This burning can't 
 go on without that rapid rush up the chimney. All 
 the air in this room must go up there in a very few 
 moments, and through fifty openings here and there 
 fresh air comes in. 
 
 Suppose you ventilate in the ordinary way an 
 opening in or near the ceiling and then heat your 
 room with a furnace. The ton of coal for which you 
 paid seven dollars comes rapidly up through the 
 register, rushes to the ceiling and pops out through the 
 hole. It is warmer than the rest of the air in the 
 room, and so it stays at the ceiling until it gets out ; 
 our lungs meantime are pumping away at the colder
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 313 
 
 air down near the floor, which is scarcely changed 
 at all. In my list I put down an open fire as number 
 one among Jwuse blessings. In the course of a day 
 it takes hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of air 
 out of a room, and always from the lowest stratum. 
 And although nineteen twentieths of the heat from this 
 open fire rushes out doors through the chimney, the 
 one twentieth which remains in the room keeps that 
 room nearly as warm as the whole twenty twentieths 
 would, brought in through a register; and this is 
 because the coldest stratum of air that in which 
 we sit is constantly passing up the chimney, and 
 the warm air in the upper part of the room is thus 
 brought down to us. Mr. Stone, you see the value I 
 put upon ventilation, and I hope you will build my 
 house accordingly. 
 
 WELL WATER. 
 
 WHEN our neighbor Babcock returned in the au- 
 tumn, the water in his well was putrid. Of course it 
 was a dead cat. John was sent down to examine. He 
 reported a bad smell, but no cat. Another descent, 
 this time a good light. He bawled up, "I can see 
 every part of the bottom, and all round, and I tell 
 you there ain't no cat nor nothing down here ! " 
 
 A consultation among the neighbors was now held. 
 
 14
 
 314 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Two rheumatic old men, leaning on canes and squirt- 
 ing tobacco-juice, enlarged luminously. The universe 
 seemed to be rather their pet theme, but finally they 
 got down to plain work, and explained very clearly 
 how things went on under the ground. They showed, 
 by various gestures and illustrations, how the gases 
 and the substances worked upon each other all up and 
 down and through the various passages and crevices 
 and caverns of the earth, and how sometimes, in spite 
 of everything you could do, the water would turn bad, 
 and then no power on earth could turn it back again. 
 Each of them voted unanimously that this very thing 
 had happened to neighbor Babcock's well, and that 
 nothing could be done but to fill it up and dig an- 
 other. When this conclusion had been emphasized 
 by various punchings with their canes in the ground, 
 our blind neighbor, having felt his way to the spot 
 where the committee had just pronounced its verdict, 
 and having only heard the dead-cat theory, enunciated 
 as follows : " I can see the dead cat just as plain as can 
 be. The water has turned putrid from stagnation; 
 that 's the dead cat. You stir it up well for two hours, 
 and the water will be just as sweet as ever." 
 
 John was sent down to try it, though the old men 
 advised that he should first look up a putrid carcass of 
 some kind, and stir that awhile, to see whether stirring 
 such things would sweeten them. But the man took
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 315 
 
 his paddle down and began. At the end of half an 
 hour, he bawled up, " She 's all right now. Send down 
 your bucket and try it." 
 
 The water was a little stale, but not bad. Another 
 good stir, and the water was sweet. Since then I have 
 advised the " Movement Cure " in a number of sick 
 or putrid wells and cisterns, and with uniform success. 
 
 DRINKING IMPURE "WATER. 
 
 SET a pitcher of iced water in an occupied room 
 and in a few hours it will have absorbed nearly all the 
 perspired gases of the room, the air of which will have 
 become purer, but the water utterly filthy. This de- 
 pends on the fact that water has the faculty of con- 
 densing and thereby absorbing nearly all the gases, 
 which it does without increasing its own bulk. The 
 colder the water is, the greater its capacity to contain 
 these gases. At ordinary temperature, a pint of water 
 will contain a pint of carbonic-acid gas and several pints 
 of ammonia. This capacity is nearly doubled by re- 
 ducing the temperature to that of ice. Hence water 
 kept in the room awhile is always unfit for use, and 
 should be often removed, whether it has become warm 
 or not. That which has stood in a pitcher overnight 
 is not fit for coffee water in the morning. Impure 

 
 316 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 water is more injurious to health than impure air, and 
 every person should provide the means of obtaining 
 fresh, pure water for all domestic uses. 
 
 PET IDEAS. 
 
 EVERY one has a pet idea which frequently occurs 
 to him and lingers long. 
 
 My pet idea is this: Local affections in our bodies 
 are only expressions of systemic faults. "Whenever 
 people come to look upon their pains and sores as 
 flags of distress calling attention to some sickness 
 pervading the system, as soon as they fully realize 
 that the health of each part depends upon the health 
 of the ivhole, then sunshine, temperance, and exercise will 
 become the popular physicians. 
 
 PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE. 
 
 DURING the year 1348 not less than twenty-five 
 millions of human beings perished, in Europe alone, 
 from the Plague. England was almost depopulated. 
 Various preventive measures were adopted. One much 
 resorted to was hanging a cross on each house, with 
 " God have mercy on us ! " inscribed upon it. Another 
 means in which those wretched populations cherished 
 unbounded confidence was a peculiar employment of
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 317 
 
 prayers. Ten persons cried, " God have mercy on us ! " 
 all at one time, until they were hoarse and exhausted. 
 But before they gave out, ten others began, so that day 
 and night the cry of agony ascended unceasingly to 
 Heaven. Meantime their yards and streets were hum- 
 mocked with indescribable filth. Kitchen offal, dead 
 cats and dogs, and every other conceivable kind of filth, 
 sent up a reeking, sickening vapor. In reading the 
 history of those fearful times, we are apt to think that 
 if, in addition to their prayers, they had cleaned their 
 houses and streets, it might have been better. Prayer 
 is a good thing, but as a means of preventing the 
 plague or cholera, cleanliness is, to say the least, a 
 very important adjunct. 
 
 Pure air and water are pretty sure preventives of 
 cholera. Of the hosts who died in Buffalo from the 
 cholera of 1849 and 1851, there were not twenty-five 
 cleanly, intelligent people. A peculiar diarrhoea known 
 as cholerine attacked our better class of native citizens 
 sometimes, but, with the exception of a few invalids 
 and old people among this class, few died of cholera. 
 As prevention is always better than cure, I will make 
 some important suggestions. 
 
 Clean your cellars, and distribute lime in all the 
 corners and damp places. 
 
 Make sure of your drains, traps, cesspools, and 
 privies, and use lime and copperas freely.
 
 318 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Clean your yards and streets, and keep them clean. 
 Use lime in all doubtful places. 
 
 Use whitewash all about your houses, your passage- 
 halls, your closets, and then ventilate thoroughly day 
 and night. 
 
 Keep your skins clean by frequent bathing, and 
 change your flannel under-clothes frequently. 
 
 Let your diet be the usual beef, mutton, bread, pota- 
 toes, and garden vegetables, though cucumbers are not 
 fit to eat under any circumstances. 
 
 Go to bed early, and, in brief, take care of yourself. 
 
 The cholera is a blessing. During the cholera years, 
 the general health of the community is better than 
 usual, because of the more thoughtful attention given 
 to personal habits. 
 
 I remember that, in a short street in Buffalo, there 
 was one large old house occupied by twelve poor 
 families. This was at the foot of a slight elevation, 
 while in the next street, but little "removed, there were 
 fourteen neat cottages, occupied mostly by thrifty 
 mechanics. During the cholera season there were 
 thirty-six deaths in the tenant-house, the largest 
 mortality in any house in the city, while in the neat 
 double row of cottages there was not a single death. 
 Cleanliness and a judicious diet saved the mechanics. 
 Nastiness, whiskey, and a bad diet killed the others.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 319 
 
 NOT HERE, BUT THERE. 
 
 I HAVE no doubt that pulmonary consumption, like 
 all other chronic diseases, is the result of low vitality, 
 and not the cause of it. People feel their skeleton legs, 
 and then, putting their hands upon their chests, they 
 exclaim, " Here it is ! Here is all my trouble ! This is 
 what is killing me ! " 
 
 My house has recently been troubled with a drain 
 odor. It came from a hole in the drain, filled the whole 
 basement story, and finally made its way through a 
 small opening in the ceiling into the room above, to 
 the infinite disgust of a lady with a sensitive nose. 
 This lady made a great fuss, and called in the neighbors 
 to serve on a smelling committee. The committee, 
 by carefully following their noses, soon found the open- 
 ing from which the sickening odor came. As soon as I 
 returned they ran to me, and said, "Come, we have 
 found it." 
 
 Found what ? " I said. 
 
 They explained, and then hurried me to the hole in 
 the floor, and said, " Put your nose in that hole, and you 
 will see where the trouble is." 
 
 I did as I was directed, and agreed with them that 
 the odor came through that opening. But knowing the 
 constitution of the house, I said at once, " The whole
 
 320 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 basement is full of this disgusting stench." Running 
 down stairs I found that the atmosphere of the base- 
 ment was perfectly sickening. While looking for the 
 opening in the drain the ladies called me up stairs, and 
 urged that I should stick my nose in the hole again, for 
 there the trouble was, they were sure. So I vibrated 
 between looking for the hole in the drain below and 
 smelling at the hole above, the ladies meantime insist- 
 ing that the hole should be stopped up or some carbolic 
 acid poured down. 
 
 But these ladies were quite as wise as the doctor who 
 thinks he finds in a small hole in the lung the cause of 
 debility, emaciation, and final death. It is only the 
 place where the disease shows itself. 
 
 I AM surprised that the wisdom of vaccination should 
 be discussed. If the choice were between vaccination 
 and a pleasant picnic or a glass of ice-cream, I should 
 unhesitatingly vote against vaccination. But since the 
 choice is between vaccination and one of the most hor- 
 rible, loathsome diseases known to man, I unhesitat- 
 ingly vote for vaccination. But we are told that scrof- 
 ula and other taints are transmitted by vaccination ; it 
 is easy to secure perfect immunity from such a mis- 
 fortune by taking the virus directly from the cow, as 
 is now very generally done. But supposing this to be
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 321 
 
 impossible, and supposing scrofula is transmitted in one 
 case in a hundred or in fifty, or even one case in ten, 
 still I should be vaccinated, and thank God for even such 
 opportunity to escape from the danger, loathsomeness, 
 and scars of small-pox. But as there is not the slightest 
 necessity for exposing one's self to any such infection 
 in vaccination, one is vexed with the stupid opposition 
 to it. 
 
 COLDS : HOW TO CUKE THEM. Medicines will not 
 cure colds. Opening the skin is important, but the 
 principal means is a reduction of food. You have eaten 
 meat twice a day. Eat none for two or three days, if 
 the cold lasts so long. Use only plain, unstimulating, 
 vegetable food, drink plenty of cold water on rising and 
 on lying down, and keep your legs and feet warm by 
 friction and a frequent change in your woollen stock- 
 ings, say twice a day. This last is important. 
 
 A HIT AT THE DOCTORS. Dr. 0. W. Holmes, in his 
 address before the Massachusetts Medical Society, says : 
 " Will you think I am disrespectful if I ask whether 
 even in Massachusetts a dose of calomel is not some- 
 times given by a physician on the same principle as 
 that upon which a landlord occasionally prescribes bacon 
 and eggs, because he cannot think of anything else 
 quite so handy ? " 
 
 14*
 
 322 FIVE-MINUTE CHA TS. 
 
 ELEGANT MISERY. 
 
 THE gout is a most respectable disease. Even Mr. 
 Spurgeon seems not to be ashamed of it. In all ages it 
 has been regarded as the most aristocratic of maladies, 
 even more so than delirium-tremens, though I see no 
 reason why it should be. A decent temperance will 
 prevent them both. It certainly can't be a dream that 
 the time wiH come when the excessive indulgence of 
 passion or appetite will involve disgrace. It does even 
 now, if the sinner be a woman ; and the number who 
 look upon such a weakness or vice even in men as con- 
 temptible is rapidly multiplying. Nothing but the best 
 possible use of all our faculties will satisfy the coming 
 public sentiment. And as nothing is so potent as 
 public sentiment, which is but another word for fashion, 
 we all heartily join in the prayer, " God hasten the day." 
 
 ALL GUESS-WORK. 
 
 THE grave and learned discussions which sometimes 
 agitate our medical societies as to whether this or that 
 drug should be given in some particular disease reminds 
 me of the old story of the little Dutchman who " set 
 up for a doctor" in New Orleans, and it involves so
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 323 
 
 much of an important law in health as well as disease, 
 that I repeat it. It seems that a small Dutchman had 
 been engaged in the lager-beer profession, but had 
 failed. He cast about for a new occupation. The yel- 
 low fever had just appeared, and it occurred to him that 
 it might pay to " set up for a doctor." There was no 
 time for books, and so he resolved to study at the bed- 
 side of the sick, keeping a little memorandum. His 
 first case was a Dutchman who had the fever pretty 
 badly, but longed for sauer krout. The doctor pre- 
 scribed sauer krout. The Dutchman got well. The 
 doctor wrote in his little memorandum, " Sauer krout 
 will cure a Dutchman of yellow fever." His next case 
 of yellow fever was a Frenchman. Sauer krout was 
 prescribed. The Frenchman took on the black-vomit 
 at once and died. The doctor added after his first 
 record, "but will kill a Frenchman." 
 
 A WIT replied to a French physician who was mar- 
 velling how a certain abbe" came to die, since he himself 
 and three other physicians were unremitting in their 
 attentions, " My dear doctor, how could the poor abbe* 
 sustain himself against all four of you ? " 
 
 A LADY asked a physician if snuff was injurious to 
 the brains. " No," said he, " for nobody who has any 
 brains ever takes snuff."
 
 324 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 SEA-SICKNESS. 
 
 SEA-SICKNESS is an affection of the brain. You may 
 take twenty doses to settle your stomach; it won't 
 settle, "but five minutes' sleep will settle it. This 
 proves it to be an affection of the brain. The various 
 nostrums provided for the nausea are worthless. The 
 best treatment is simple food free from grease, a little 
 lemonade, and lying on deck flat on your back. The 
 only cure is time. Some persons are incorrigible. 
 Charles Sumner and Henry "Ward Beecher suffered 
 from shore to shore. The best treatment for such per- 
 sons is to stay at home. 
 
 One thing about sea-sickness is very curious. "While 
 you are suffering, you wish you were at the bottom of 
 the sea; when you are ashore, you forget about it, 
 laugh at it, and are ready to go again. 
 
 ATTACKS of bilious colic would be prevented, I be- 
 lieve, by a little care in eating. I think an avoidance 
 of all desserts, and eating but two meals a day, the last 
 one somewhere in the middle of the day, would pre- 
 vent all return of the trouble. Besides this, have a 
 little exercise in the open air every day.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 325 
 
 TURKISH AND RUSSIAN BATHS. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN (Mr. Wilcox) died at a Russian batli 
 establishment in New York, recently. At the post- 
 mortem, the eminent Dr. Willard Parker, in that large- 
 hearted, philosophical spirit which has characterized 
 the attitude of the medical profession toward all 
 hygienic and medical innovations, testified before the 
 jury that Mr. Wilcox was killed ly a Turkish lath ! 
 Dr. Parker SWORE to that! 
 
 Now it turns out, 
 
 1. That Mr. Wilcox had not been within a mile of a 
 Turkish bath. 
 
 2. That he entered the parlor of a building where 
 there was a Russian bath, but did not enter the bath 
 at all ! He complained of a distress in his chest, the 
 men were called, his legs were rubbed, he rose and tried 
 to walk about, fainted and died. 
 
 3. Upon a thorough examination it was found that 
 the man really died of disease of the heart. 
 
 The papers all over the country, with a laudable de- 
 sire to disseminate useful information, and warn the 
 public against danger, are sounding the alarm. 
 
 What is a Turkish bath ? First, the skin is warmed ; 
 not by steam, but by warm air. Does it hurt the body 
 to expose it to warm air? Suppose the air is 110
 
 326 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 and the ventilation perfect. Will that hurt the fee- 
 blest person ? On the contrary, will not this tempera- 
 ture prove most agreeable and refreshing? This is 
 followed by skilled hand-rubbing. Is skilled rubbing, 
 with soft, warm hands, a deadly performance ? Is it 
 not, on the contrary, the very thing we do for the fee- 
 blest and faintest ? When the hand-rubbing is finished, 
 the bather is conducted, or carried, if need be, to a soft 
 couch, where he reclines, rests, and, if possible, sleeps. 
 Is this sure to prove fatal ? 
 
 If a consumptive is likely to die to-night, and three 
 Turkish baths were given him to-day, he will probably 
 go on for some days. The weakest and most delicate 
 ladies are of all persons the most happily affected by 
 the bath. 
 
 The Turkish bath is making rapid progress in 
 America. Many hundred medical men have already 
 given in their adherence. 
 
 In the hot-air, or Turkish bath, persons who are dull 
 and sore, those suffering with colds, the victims of 
 rheumatism, and those who are suffering from any of 
 the ordinary troubles of the liver or kidneys, find re- 
 lief. 
 
 The number of Turkish-bath institutions in Great 
 Britain has become very large.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 327 
 
 A WISE SUKGEON. 
 
 SIR JOHN FIFE, M. D., senior surgeon to the great 
 Newcastle Infirmary, one of the largest in the world, 
 enthusiastically declares, in speaking of the treatment 
 of rheumatism by the bath : " Some with their joints 
 much swollen, and suffering martyrdom, were conveyed 
 helpless into the bath, as into the elysium where ache 
 and pain vanish." And again, Sir John writes, " Its 
 effects are most remarkable in obviating disorders and 
 palliating diseases of the liver and kidneys." The 
 eminent author, Gosse, of Geneva, affirms, " It is the 
 real panacea for the larger portion of the diseases which 
 assail mankind." 
 
 LIVER COMPLAINT. For your torpid liver go with- 
 out grease in your food, bathe your skin every morning 
 on rising, and follow the bathing with sharp friction 
 with the roughest towel, and, if you can bear it, with 
 the flesh-brush also. Beating the body in the region 
 of the liver with the flat of the hand or with the fists 
 is excellent. General gymnastic exercises are always 
 advisable in what is known as liver complaint.
 
 328 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 FOMENTATIONS. 
 
 HIPPOCRATES recommends hot fomentations for the 
 relief of chest, abdominal, and other pains. From his 
 time down to the present, hot fomentations have been 
 the favorite remedy for a great variety of affections. 
 If I were asked to select from all possible methods of 
 treatment one, and one alone, with which I would un- 
 dertake to combat human suffering, without a moment's 
 hesitation I should select hot fomentations. Tor pains 
 in the spine and shoulders, for pains in the head, for 
 pains in the chest, stomach, and abdomen, for pains in 
 the limbs, for pains in any and every part of the body, 
 hot fomentations constitute the best single remedy. 
 
 The old-fashioned method with flannels wrung out 
 of hot water is perhaps the best method. 
 
 A happy way of protecting the nurse's hands is to 
 dip the flannel in boiling water; then lay it upon a 
 towel, roll the towel and wring it. 
 
 The nurse who understands the hot-fomentation art, 
 and applies it industriously, will accomplish ten times 
 as much as the doctor with all his drugs. 
 
 In addition to the benefits resulting from this rem- 
 edy, it is one of the pleasantest imaginable in its ap- 
 plication.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 329 
 
 COLD BATHS. 
 
 TWENTY years ago the cold-water mania came near 
 sousing and freezing us to death. Everybody had to 
 drink and douche. Pale, delicate women in the hy- 
 dropathic cures or freezers, stood under cold water, sat 
 down in cold water, lay down in cold water, and were 
 wrapped up in cold water. In addition, they filled 
 their stomachs with cold water. Pale, shrunken, shiv- 
 ering, they moved about spectre-like, and with chatter- 
 ing teeth described to each other the effects of the last 
 douche. Bridget, when asked about her absent mis- 
 tress, said " she had gone to soak." A writer, in 
 describing the great institution of Priessnitz in the 
 mountains, says that he met here and there in the 
 mountain-paths numbers of bareheaded, half-dressed, 
 comfortably crazy people, wandering about from spring 
 to spring, each with a tumbler in his hand, mournfully 
 repeating the number of tumblers of water he had swal- 
 lowed, from this dangerous excess there has been a 
 great reaction, and now there is a general disposition to 
 condemn cold-water bathing. Both are extremes. A 
 morning cold bath is a most important habit. We 
 don't believe there is one person in a hundred who 
 would be injured by a morning cold bath. But every- 
 thing depends upon the manner in which it is taken.
 
 330 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 If a feeble person in a cold room crawls into a bath of 
 cold water, and remains till he can't speak loud and is 
 in a deep collapse, and then rising stands by an open 
 window and rubs himself gently for half an hour, he 
 will be seriously hurt. But if one of the rubber bath- 
 mats be thrown upon the carpet, and even a delicate 
 person rises quickly, throws off the night-garment, 
 steps into the mat, slips the hands into a pair of bath- 
 mittens, and passes them as quickly as possible over 
 every part of the person, and follows with a crash towel 
 as quickly and vigorously as the hands can be made to 
 move, that is quite a different thing, and must in- 
 variably act as an excellent tonic. Old and feeble 
 people should not bathe in very cold water, and should 
 bathe in a warm room and have some one to assist 
 them. 
 
 It has been reported that intelligent physicians have 
 cautioned against frequent bathing, lest the skin-oil 
 should be removed and leave the surface too dry. The 
 only way to provoke a free secretion of the oil of the 
 skin is to remove the accumulations frequently. Even 
 in the days of excessive bathing, and among the laborers 
 in Turkish baths, we have never met a lack of this oil, 
 while it is common to meet a dry and cracked skin 
 among those who never bathe. The glands which 
 furnish oil for the skin, like those which furnish saliva 
 for the mouth, are active only when frequently called
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 331 
 
 upon. If the salivary glands were not called into 
 action for a month, they would almost lose their func- 
 tion. Frequent baths increase greatly the oily secre- 
 tions of the skin. 
 
 MY MEDICINE, AND HOW TO FIND TIME TO 
 TAKE IT. 
 
 JOHN SMITH, a book-keeper, asks what he shall do. 
 Dyspepsia, nervousness, and all that sort of thing have 
 got hold of him. He has no time to get the fresh air, 
 no time to exercise, no time for anything, in fact ; and 
 would I advise him to change his occupation ? 
 
 " John Smith, what time are you due in the count- 
 ing-room in the morning ? " 
 
 " About half past eight." 
 
 " Could you put it off till nine ? " 
 
 " Well, perhaps so, if I did n't let my work get be- 
 hindhand." 
 
 And you want to know whether you had better 
 change your business ? I advise you against this. A 
 man should not change his occupation lightly, and you, 
 John Smith, need not change yours on account of your 
 health. If your counting-room is light, the business is 
 a healthy one. Book-keepers may be as healthy as 
 cartmen, if they are willing to embrace their opportu- 
 nities. Now, listen to me. You are occupied, say,
 
 332 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 eight hours a day as a book-keeper. More ? Well, say 
 nine hours. This leaves fifteen hours. You are in bed 
 eight hours. Now you have seven left for meals and 
 recreation. Let us take only two for meals, and that is 
 abundant. Now, there are five hours left for recreation, 
 and yet, John Smith, you think you have no time for ex- 
 ercise and healthful amusements. Two hours are quite 
 enough for the exercise and out-door life which will keep 
 you in high health, and then you will have three hours 
 left for social enjoyment, saying nothing of the entire 
 day, Sunday. Let me tell you how to manage it, and I 
 will promise that the advice I am about to give you is 
 exactly adapted to half the population of the city. 
 
 1st. You must retire at nine o'clock every night. 
 
 2d. During the spring, summer, and autumn you 
 must rise at five o'clock. During the winter, at six 
 o'clock. 
 
 3d. Beginning moderately, you will soon enjoy two 
 hours of out-door walking and recreation before break- 
 fast. Ninety-nine persons in a hundred, including both 
 sexes, between ten and sixty years of age, will, if they 
 begin the early morning exercise gently and prudently, 
 within three months rejoice over a happy change in 
 their health and spirits, and they will mourn over the 
 great loss for so many years of those precious hours of 
 the early morning. 
 
 This is the only door of escape for that host of in-
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 333 
 
 door workers who lament so constantly over their un- 
 happy choice of occupation. As civilization progresses, 
 the proportion of our population that can follow out-door 
 occupations must become smaller and smaller. But if 
 the rooms in which they work can be well lighted and 
 ventilated, this need not be, especially if they can have 
 two hours of the early morning for out-door recreation 
 and exercise. The proportion of persons who cannot 
 enjoy this privilege is very small, always provided that 
 during the first few weeks there is great prudence. 
 Then the stomach will begin to perform its functions 
 in a new and happy way, and the spirits will rise. 
 
 Of course, if you prefer to dawdle about in the sick- 
 ening atmosphere of a theatre till nearly midnight, you 
 can't rise early in the morning. But I was not speak- 
 ing to such. I was addressing persons who have in- 
 door occupations, and who would really desire good 
 health, and who are willing to sacrifice even the luxury 
 of sitting up till midnight, lounging and loafing about 
 here and there. 
 
 AN IDEAL LIFE. 
 
 THE clergyman's life is an ideal one, health-wise. 
 He uses his voice a good deal, which is the healthiest 
 of all exercises, and spends the afternoon in walking 
 about and visiting his parishioners. The morning he
 
 334: FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 devotes to study. He is not confined to his office like 
 a lawyer, nor obliged to run about at night like a doc- 
 tor. Indeed, I know of no profession or occupation 
 which so favors health and long life ; and yet clergymen 
 are not, as a class, particularly healthy or long-lived. 
 The reason for it is to be found, as a general thing, in 
 their abuse of the table. A popular clergyman is a 
 miracle of self-denial if he does not fall into the surfeit- 
 trap. 
 
 That a clergyman's sore throat should come of using 
 his voice two or three hours a week in preaching, is 
 simply absurd. There is something behind the preach- 
 ing which has prepared the train, the preaching 
 touches it off. 
 
 "We have sneered at the pulpit which finds in the 
 Bible support for the sins of the pews. It is indeed a 
 guilty weakness, which deserves contempt and severe 
 condemnation. My own profession contains not a few 
 persons who prescribe a rich diet and whiskey for the 
 same reason. The present treatment of consumption 
 is an instance. The patient's pulse is a hundred ; rich 
 food and whiskey are sure to increase it, and in the end 
 make recovery impossible. But the prescription is 
 agreeable, and if A do not make it, B will, and A will 
 lose his patient. The temptation to take the patient 
 into one's confidence, and learn -what would be most 
 agreeable to him, is very strong. The other day I was
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 335 
 
 in the office of my neighbor, Dr. , and was obliged 
 
 to sit aside while he spoke with a patient. The patient 
 told him about her head and her habits ; nothing could 
 be plainer than that the coffee was playing the mis- 
 chief with her head. 
 
 Doctor. " Are you very fond of coffee ? " 
 
 Patient. "0 doctor, I could not eat a breakfast 
 without it ! It is my food as well as my drink." 
 
 Then the doctor proceeded to prescribe an alterative 
 which should move her bowels daily, and a preparation 
 of iron. Not a word of condemnation of coffee. 
 
 I asked him, when the patient had left, why he did 
 not cut off the coffee and really cure her. 
 
 "Why," said the doctor, "if I had forbidden the 
 coffee, she would have gone off to another physician, 
 who would have probably hurt her worse than I shall." 
 
 What say you as to the dignity of the profession in 
 the hands of such doctors ? 
 
 THE HEALTH LIFT. 
 
 THE advocates of "The Health Lift" are engaged in 
 a good work, but they defend it with certain statements 
 and assumptions which, to say the least, are gratuitous. 
 Among these statements I notice the following : The 
 muscle, when contracted in " lifting," absorbs immense
 
 336 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 quantities of blood, "sucks it up like a sponge." 
 What is intended by this statement is, that this rapid 
 absorption attends "lifting" exercises particularly. 
 
 Again it is stated that muscle in a state of con- 
 traction "absorbs oxygen six times as fast" as in a 
 state of relaxation. Show this to any one of our in- 
 telligent physiologists, and he would smile, and wonder 
 how " six times as fast " was arrived at. 
 
 Another writer discusses exercise in general, and pre- 
 sents the case well ; but then he assumes that all these 
 advantages are to be credited to lifting, as though that 
 were the only possible exercise. There are five hun- 
 dred muscles in the human body, and they run in 
 every conceivable direction, crosswise, diagonally, 
 every way. I had always supposed that this peculiar 
 arrangement of the muscle structure meant something. 
 
 O O 
 
 In all ages, the physiologists who have given them- 
 selves to the training of muscle have devised a great 
 variety of movements to call into play these five hun- 
 dred muscles ; but the advocates of lifting have found 
 out that the way to develop this varied muscle struc- 
 ture is to stand still, hang the arms down by the sides, 
 hold a stick between the legs, bend the knees a very 
 little, grasp the stick, and then straighten the legs. 
 To develop a horse by piling a great weight on his 
 back, and letting him stand still and hold up the 
 weight, would certainly tend to strengthen the animal,
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 337 
 
 but it would not be the best method of doing it; a 
 variety of movements would prove better. If a man 
 would train himself for any task, for the prize-ring, 
 for walking, for boating, for any conceivable work, if, 
 in other words, he would train his muscles, he must 
 perform such a variety of exercises as will bring them 
 all into play. Surely no one but the owner of a lift- 
 ing-machine would suppose that this could be accom- 
 plished by standing still and lifting a weight through 
 the space of an inch without moving the legs or arms 
 from their straight fixed posture, and without bending 
 the back or neck, or, indeed, making any motion what- 
 ever which could be seen at the distance of a few feet. 
 
 EATING TOO MUCH. 
 
 TEX persons die prematurely of too much food where 
 one dies of drink. Thousands eat themselves into 
 fever, bowel disease, dyspepsia, throat affections, and 
 other maladies. 
 
 Some years ago, the residents of a German city were 
 one morning wild with excitement. Everybody was 
 poisoned. The doctors were flying in every direction. 
 Water was the only thing they had swallowed in 
 common. The reservoir was examined. In one corner 
 a paper of deadly poison was found. 
 
 15
 
 338 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 The stomach is the reservoir which supplies the 
 whole body. A fever, an inflammation, or some other 
 malady appears. Look to the reservoir. There you 
 will find the source of the disease. 
 
 I am acquainted with the table habits of a large 
 number of persons. They have all eaten too much 
 food. Nearly all, too much in quantity, but all have 
 eaten food too highly concentrated. Yesterday, I saw 
 a dyspeptic friend eating pears at a fruit-stand. He 
 said, with a smile, " I go a few Bartletts half a dozen 
 times a day." Certain dietetic reformers seem to think 
 if they eat coarse bread and ripe fruits, a peck is all 
 right. Fine flour bread, pies, and cakes are great 
 evils. 
 
 A friend who has decayed teeth, dyspepsia, torpidity 
 of liver, and a disagreeable eruption, all produced by 
 excessive eating of improper food, declared in response 
 to my remonstrance, " But I never eat more than I 
 want." Every person wants the quantity he is in the 
 habit of eating. If he could digest well two pounds 
 a day, but eat four pounds, he wants the latter quan- 
 tity. A man may want a glass of spirits on rising. 
 He is in the habit of drinking at that time. 
 
 The body is strengthened by what it can digest and 
 assimilate. Every ounce more than this is mischiev- 
 ous. The large eater is always hungry. The man 
 who eats just enough suffers little from hunger.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 339 
 
 Pardon a word of my own experience. During 
 many years' practice of my profession, I had but little 
 muscular exercise. I ate enormously. An hour's post- 
 ponement of my dinner was painful. Now I labor 
 very hard several hours a day in my gymnasium. I 
 do not eat more than a third the quantity of former 
 years. Now I can omit a dinner altogether without 
 inconvenience. I have lost twenty pounds in weight, 
 but feel a great deal younger. (More than half of the 
 thin people would gain flesh by eating less.) I have 
 only one dietetic rule from which I never depart. This 
 rule, kind reader, I commend to yon. Always take on 
 your plate, before you begin, everything you are to eat. 
 Thus you avoid the dessert, and are pretty sure not 
 to eat too much. This simple rule has been worth 
 thousands to me. 
 
 YES, I think there are persons who eat too little ; but 
 where there is one such, there are hundreds who eat 
 too much. And when in this country of plenty a per- 
 son is found who eats too little, it is, generally speaking, 
 by eating fine flour bread and other innutritious trash. 
 Fine flour bread is but little better than sawdust. If 
 you eat oatmeal, cracked wheat, and beef, you will be 
 surprised to find how little food you require to run the 
 machine.
 
 340 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF OATMEAL. 
 
 THE following extract from the " American Grocer " 
 is especially gratifying to all who are interested in the 
 health of the people : 
 
 " Perhaps in no department of the grocery trade has 
 the increase of late years been more apparent than in 
 that of oatmeal. As an article of diet it is now used 
 very generally in the Eastern, Middle, and Western 
 States, and is fast making inroads into the hitherto 
 undisputed domain of Indian-meal in the South and 
 Southwest. This is certainly a fit cause for general 
 congratulation, for no more healthy or nutritious food 
 exists than good oatmeal porridge. Its mild, aperient, 
 and unequalled muscle-producing qualities render it 
 particularly suitable as a breakfast diet for Americans. 
 Its phosphorescent qualities act as a gentle and healthy 
 stimulant to the brain, and on no other food can one 
 endure so great or so prolonged mental labor as on oat- 
 meal porridge. 
 
 " Properly cooked, it is not only a most healthful and 
 nutritious food, but it is decidedly palatable, as is fully 
 attested by its wonderfully rapid adoption as a popular 
 diet by the very fastidious palates of our American 
 people. ' The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food/ 
 to which Burns refers in the ' Cotter's Saturday Night,'
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 341 
 
 can be had in its greatest perfection from Scotch oat- 
 meal, for of Scotland we may say it is indeed the 
 national food. Ireland, too, produces good oatmeal. 
 But our chief supplies are drawn from the neighboring 
 Dominion of Canada, which for years has stood pre- 
 eminent for the quality of the meal which she produces, 
 vying with the mother country for the palm of excel- 
 lence, and, in at least one International Exhibition,^/ 
 carrying off the badge of victory from the 'Land o' 
 Cakes/ Here, too, in the United States, we are manu- 
 facturing this article to some extent, and it will in 
 course of time, no doubt, become an important industry, 
 though the inferior quality of our oats militates mate- 
 rially against it. The analysis of the Imperial Scotch 
 oatmeal, made by the eminent chemists Liebig and 
 Hassell, shows that while wheat and barley contain but 
 fourteen, and corn but twelve and a quarter, oats con- 
 tain within a very small fraction of twenty per cent of 
 the nutritious protean elements of life and muscle- 
 giving qualities. As a food, the merits of which have 
 stood the test of centuries, and which is calculated to 
 promote the sanitary interests of the nation by laying 
 the foundation for more hardy and vigorous constitu- 
 tions for the coming generation, let us regard its gen- 
 eral adoption as an article of diet as nothing short of 
 a national good." 
 
 I, who have given most attention to oatmeal as an
 
 342 FIVE -MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 article of diet, would not agree with the writer in the 
 opinion that the Scotch and Irish meal are the best in 
 this market, nor indeed that the Canadas produce the 
 best. Boston has been supplied for the last year or 
 two with an article of oatmeal from Central Ohio, which 
 is the best I have ever eaten. It costs about one 
 third as much as the imported meal, but for my own 
 part, I should greatly prefer it at the same price. 
 
 HOW TO PREPARE CUCUMBERS. 
 
 STKONG people may eat cucumbers in small quanti- 
 ties, but it is a severe trial to a weak stomach, and is 
 far from a good thing for even the best stomach. I 
 quite agree with the celebrated Dr. Abernethy, who 
 gives the following directions for preparing a cucum- 
 ber : " Peel it, slice it down into thin pieces, put vine- 
 gar and pepper to it, and then throw it away." 
 
 PIGS AND PEOPLE. 
 
 WE want to show you two animals. One has four 
 legs. They call him a pig. "We want you to see him 
 eat. Now, when that fellow gets enough, he '11 stop. 
 There ! he won't eat another mouthful You can't 
 coax him to do it.
 
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 343 
 
 Let us look at another. They call this one a man. 
 Watch him. He is at breakfast. He looks this way 
 and that. He can't see anything that he wants. Now 
 he tries a mouthful of strong coffee ; that won't fetch it. 
 He tries a spoonful of catsup ; that 's a failure. Now 
 he tries a mixture of mustard and vinegar. At length 
 things begin to work a little, and he is finally able to 
 cram a lot of griddle-cakes and sausage, and sausage 
 and griddle-cakes, and two or three cups of strong 
 coffee, into his stomach. Which do you vote for ? I 
 vote for the gentleman with four legs. 
 
 BUCKWHEAT produces irritation of the skin within an 
 hour after eating it in many people, and I think tends 
 to a production of a humor in most persons. Then the 
 form in which it is eaten, hot cakes with butter and 
 syrup, is not a healthy form of eating any kind of flour. 
 If you ask my advice, I should say avoid buckwheat 
 griddle-cakes ; I do not say that such food is very bad, 
 but it is far from the best. 
 
 SWINE'S FLESH. 
 
 THERE is no doubt that pork fattened in the usual 
 way, in a close, foul pen, giving the animals no exercise 
 or pure air, and feeding them on swill or still slops, is
 
 344 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 very bad meat. Swine fattened as in the South, the 
 animals running wild in the woods, living on nuts and 
 other sweet, pure foods, and being so active, even when 
 they are killed for use, that they must be hunted with 
 the aid of swift horses and long-range rifles, the flesh 
 of such swine is quite another affair. I think, how- 
 ever, that no physiologist would claim that such pork 
 even is equal to beef and mutton for the human 
 stomach. 
 
 WEAK STOMACHS. 
 
 PERSONS with "weak stomachs" may eat a little 
 ripe melon at the end of a meal without harm, but it is 
 difficult of digestion. Nothing in human diet has been 
 so overrated as fruit. All sorts of fruit apples, pears, 
 peaches, even strawberries are difficult of digestion. 
 A dyspeptic, who can eat a piece of good beefsteak as 
 large as his hand, and two slices of bread-and-butter, 
 without suffering, will often be distressed with a single 
 apple, or even a dish of strawberries. Melons are not 
 unwholesome, if ripe and taken at the close of a meal ; 
 but it would be better, if your stomach be weak, to take 
 a little more beef, or bread-and-butter, or another dish 
 of oatmeal or cracked wheat, or other similar food. 
 Baked apples do very well, but sensitive stomachs do 
 not digest even baked apples with that comfort that 
 they can manage a piece of tender beef.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 345 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 AN intelligent sea-captain sailing out of New Bed- 
 ford says : " I have made several voyages to St. Peters- 
 burg, in Eussia. The people of Russia generally sub- 
 sist, for the most part, on coarse black rye bread and 
 garlics. The bread is exceedingly coarse, sometimes 
 containing almost whole grains, and it is very hard and 
 dry. I have often hired men to labor for me in Russia, 
 which they could do from sixteen to eighteen hours, 
 and find themselves, for eight cents a day, the sun 
 shining there sometimes twenty hours a day. They 
 would come on board in the morning with a piece of 
 their black bread weighing about a pound, and a bunch 
 of garlic as big as one's fist. This was all their nourish- 
 ment for the day of sixteen or eighteen hours' labor. 
 They were astonishingly powerful and active, and en- 
 dured severe and protracted labor far beyond any of 
 my men. Some of these men were eighty and ninety 
 years old, and yet they would do more work than any of 
 the middle-aged men belonging to my ship. In hand- 
 ling iron, and in stowing away hemp with the jack- 
 screw, they exhibited most astonishing power. They 
 were full of agility, vivacity, and even hilarity, singing 
 as they labored with all the blithesomeness of youth." 
 
 We Americans eat too much animal food. In con- 
 
 15*
 
 346 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 sequence, many of us are feverish and prematurely old. 
 During the cold season hard workers need meat, but 
 only once .a day. Beef and mutton are best. 
 
 INTEMPERATE TEETOTALERS. 
 
 THE excessive drinking of cold water during hot 
 weather injures our stomachs and confuses our heads. 
 If you will try the following experiment, you will 1ft 
 surprised at the result. Drink a tumbler of cold water 
 on rising in the morning, and another on lying down at 
 night. During the day, drink no cold water, or, if you 
 must drink, let it be a single swallow, and do not let 
 it reach the stomach cold. On the next day drink cold 
 water with your meals, and half a dozen tumblers of 
 ice-water between meals, and, if you please, one or 
 two glasses of lemonade and soda-water. You will be 
 surprised, if you observe carefully, at the change in 
 your digestion, and the condition of your head. This 
 sluicing the stomach with cold water from time to time 
 during the day, in hot summer weather, is the surest 
 road to weak digestion, lassitude, and confused brain. 
 
 ONIONS are no doubt healthful food, but the odor 
 through the house and in the breath is such an abomi- 
 nation, that I should as soon think of keeping a polecat 
 in the house for fun, as to eat onions for health.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 347 
 
 DIET AT SEA. 
 
 THEY have a curious way of feeding passengers on 
 the Atlantic steamships. I wish to make a few remarks 
 on the subject. A recent trip on a favorite steamer 
 will illustrate. We were crowded. Twelve hundred 
 people is a large population for one ship. There were 
 t\vo hundred of us in the saloon. On the third day 
 out from Queenstown, only a few were able to report 
 at dinner. I managed, with many misgivings, to be 
 one of them. But right before me the steward placed 
 an enormous mess of fat bacon, covered with that queer 
 gravy which ship cooks so delight in. I glanced up 
 and down the table. It was grease, grease, everywhere, 
 and I made a rush for the deck. Several times I was 
 driven from the dining-saloon by the same sickening 
 spectacle. I talked with a number of passengers about 
 it. They all agreed that the food was, under the cir- 
 cumstances, an outrage. One day some canned peaches 
 were served. The scramble for them reminded me of the 
 stories I have read of the manners of starving people. 
 Several of us organized ourselves into a committee, and 
 called upon the captain for a plain talk about the table. 
 
 " Why not have canned fruits ? They are exceed- 
 ingly cheap. Of course, they are not quite so cheap as 
 fat meats, because these are not touched by nine in ten
 
 348 FIFE- MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 of the passengers during the heavy weather, which is 
 pretty constant. Look at Mr. E. and his family with 
 their canned pears and berries ! They are the envy of 
 all. You may say that we ought to provide ourselves, 
 if we are not satisfied with the ship's table. 
 
 " But let us see ! Here we are on board ship, with- 
 out exercise or occupation, a large majority of us more 
 or less disturbed in stomach, and you give us ten kinds 
 of grease for food. "We ask for simple things, especially 
 canned fruits. You reply that if we are not satisfied 
 with grease, we must get what we like better. 
 
 "We might reply that as soon as any one of the 
 transatlantic lines furnishes a good table, we shall be 
 at liberty, a part of us at least, to escape. But why 
 need we wait ? Why will not this rich company fur- 
 nish its passengers with good food ? 
 
 " Very well, if that is true, if you have passengers 
 who will have these masses of grease three times a day, 
 they should be put in a pew by themselves, and not be 
 allowed to interfere with decent people." 
 
 To A DYSPEPTIC. I advise you to eat butter with 
 your bread. Don't starve. Of course you feel better 
 when you go without eating, and so you feel better 
 when you lie in bed, but you must not give way to 
 such weakness. You must eat and you must exercise.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 349 
 
 You must eat meat and bread-and-butter, and then you 
 must exercise as hard as you can bear. By vigorous 
 percussion of the stomach and bowels, by horseback- 
 riding, by frequent use of the hair-gloves, by much 
 sleep and other hygienic measures, you will recover. 
 Avoid starvation, indolence, and patent medicines. 
 
 VISIT TO GEKB1T SMITH. 
 
 HAVING a lecturing engagement in the immediate 
 neighborhood of Peterborough, N. Y., the residence of 
 Gerrit Smith, I drove over to see him. 
 
 The same grand person, only a little bent ; the same 
 incomparable voice (the deepest, largest, and sweetest 
 I ever heard) ; the same gentle, benignant, brotherly 
 spirit ; the same Great American Moral Prince. 
 
 He told me that he had been troubled for several 
 weeks with a vertigo which gave him some anxiety, 
 but that otherwise he was as well as ever, and felt but 
 little the weight of his seventy-six years. 
 
 In his conversational manner he seems like a man of 
 fifty, and in every respect, except the slight stoop, and 
 a shorter step in walking, he seems as vital as in the 
 long ago, when he thrilled the nation with his anti- 
 slavery eloquence. 
 
 When, in the future, the historian shall classify the
 
 350 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 forces which gave our nation its grand impulse toward 
 emancipation, the name of Gerrit Smith will stand 
 among the first on the roll. 
 
 With his matchless person and voice, with his rare 
 eloquence, with his love, broad and deep as the sea, 
 with his boundless wealth, all placed at the service of 
 the cause, with the most extraordinary combination of 
 qualities and advantages possessed by any man of the 
 century, his influence in the early history of the 
 struggle with slavery was immense, incalculable. 
 
 Mr. Smith said, when I expressed regret that he no 
 longer appeared on the platform, " I don't go from home 
 very often, and almost never speak to public assemblies ; 
 but, as you have seen, my pen is not altogether idle ! " 
 
 Knowing that for many years he was a great sufferer 
 from one of the most painful of all human maladies, I 
 ventured to recall the fact that I had seen him address 
 audiences, sitting in an arm-chair of peculiar construc- 
 tion, and he informed me that he had quite recovered 
 from his old malady. 
 
 When I asked what rules of life he had found most 
 beneficial, and begged him to give me the three which 
 he had found most important, and to mention them in 
 the order of their importance, he replied, unhesitatingly, 
 
 1st. Life in the open air. 
 
 2d. The maintenance of an even temper. 
 
 3d. Eegularity in eating and sleeping.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 351 
 
 NOBLEST ROMAN Or THEM ALL. 
 
 " CINCINNATUS, when lie had retired from the helm 
 of imperial Eome to his little Sabine farm, enjoyed 
 more real satisfaction in reflecting on the dangers 
 which attended the aspirings of ambition than when 
 he was decked with the gaudiest plumes of authority 
 and power. Happy in the limits of his retirement, and 
 content with the plainest fare in his homely cot, he 
 experienced more real enjoyment while eating his 
 favorite turnips and drinking from the limpid stream, 
 than from the most luxurious dishes and the most 
 exquisite wines when engaged in the tumultuous 
 affairs of the republic." 
 
 WHAT SHALL IT PEOFIT A MAN IF HE GAIN THE 
 WHOLE WOKLD? A is worth about two hundred 
 thousand dollars. He is dyspeptic and nervous. A is 
 a poor man. He is a wretchedly poor man. B is not 
 worth a thousand dollars. He has fine digestion and 
 nerves like steel. B is a rich man. It is easy to 
 acquire good digestion and good nerves. It is very 
 difficult with the great mass of men to get two hundred 
 thousand dollars. It is a hundred times as wise to 
 seek health as to seek a fortune.
 
 352 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 TRAINING. 
 
 TRAINING men for the prize-ring, they are not allowed 
 to touch lager-beer, tobacco, or any other such stuff. 
 Billiard-players training for a match carefully avoid all 
 such indulgences. When not training, these people are 
 likely to indulge freely in spirits and tobacco; but 
 when seeking the highest health, they are compelled to 
 deny themselves. And yet we constantly hear the 
 healthfulness of lager and the meerschaum seriously 
 discussed. It is stated as an historical fact, that no man 
 who has graduated at the head of his class in Harvard 
 College, within the last fifty-five years, has used either 
 spirits or tobacco in any form. And when it is added 
 that the use of both is very common among the stu- 
 dents in that famous University, and that formerly such 
 indulgences were wellnigh universal, the fact that no 
 victor has used either is very significant. 
 
 Speaking of prize-fighters, I have watched the can- 
 didates for the prize-ring during their training with 
 
 great interest. Jack , a famous fighter, was a 
 
 great devotee of cigars. He smoked about twelve 
 a day. On the day before he went over into Jersey 
 to begin his training, he smoked seventeen by way 
 of emphasis ! I was curious about one thing: how 
 could he cut off so short ? I said, " Jack, I should
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 353 
 
 think it would nearly kill you to break off so sud- 
 denly." 
 
 " no," lie replied, " not if I am training ! If I were 
 loafing round, eating and drinking everything, it would 
 be awful hard on me to give up cigars ; but when I go 
 to training, I don't even think of it." 
 
 Whoever is in high health, with pure blood and a 
 clear head, finds it easy to give up bad habits. High 
 temper and profanity are easily got rid of when the 
 brain is clean. Ah ! what a means of grace is perfect 
 health ! 
 
 SOMETHING MORE ABOUT EXERCISE. 
 
 I HAVE studied the subject of exercise for twenty 
 years. I have invented a system of gymnastics, which 
 has been introduced into nearly all the schools in 
 America, into most of the English gymnasia, and was 
 introduced into the schools of Berlin a few years ago, 
 with public ceremonies. 
 
 I have been the recipient of honorable testimonials 
 from American colleges, many important educational 
 bodies, and from many sources in England and Ger- 
 many. 
 
 Please excuse this parade. My object in making 
 these statements is to give a just emphasis to an opinion 
 which I wish now to express. It is this, that walk-
 
 354 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ing, when properly managed, is the best of all exercises. 
 None of the artificial exercises can be compared with 
 it. Every important muscle works actively in walking. 
 Notice an active walker. See how every part works 
 legs, hips, arms, shoulders, the man works all over. 
 Brisk walking gives even the upper half of the body 
 fine play. Then walking costs nothing. You are not 
 obliged to join a class, and employ a teacher. Again, 
 walking takes you into the open air and sunshine, while 
 in gymnastics you are in the dusty atmosphere of a hall ; 
 and it is not a small advantage that in walking you 
 enjoy a succession of changing scenes, suggestions of 
 new thought. And, walking with a friend, the conver- 
 sation may be interesting and instructive. All this 
 may be found in natural and active walking. 
 
 But if the ankles were shackled, so that the feet 
 could be moved but a few inches, the great value of the 
 exercise would be at an end. 
 
 I asked you to note the arms and shoulders of an 
 active walker. How they swing and wriggle and wig- 
 gle ! how thoroughly alive even the upper half of the 
 body is! The physiology of that part of the body in 
 walking is this : the shoulder is a sort of centre for the 
 muscles of the chest. They start from the shoulder, and 
 spread out in every direction like a fan. These muscles, 
 which run in every direction, over the chest, around, 
 about, up, down, crosswise, and interlocking with each
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 355 
 
 other in a wonderful net, these muscles, which deter- 
 mine whether the chest shall be full, strong, and active, 
 or thin, weak, and inactive, these muscles about the 
 chest, which determine whether the vital organs within 
 the chest shall be large, active, and strong, or small, 
 slow, and weak, these muscles, which may contribute, 
 more than any others in the body, to the strength and 
 activity of life, these muscles, I say, depend for their 
 activity, for their development and strength, upon a 
 free and vigorous motion of the shoulders. Brisk walk- 
 ing, with a swinging of the arms, gives the required 
 movements of the shoulders. Now we understand how 
 it is that active walking contributes so much to the 
 fulness and strength of the chest, and the organs 
 within the chest. 
 
 Please put your finger down there, and look out of 
 this front window with me. It is a bright day, and the 
 ladies are out in force. 
 
 Now, let us notice how they walk. Why, they don't 
 swing their arms at all ! Their arms must be laced 
 down upon their sides! No, they are holding their 
 arms still ; and see, they have tucked their hands into 
 those large fur rollers which they carry on their stom- 
 achs. Their arms look, for all the world, like the wings 
 of a Christmas turkey, all tied down, and ready to be 
 put in the oven. 
 
 It must be hard work to walk in that way !
 
 356 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 It is very hard indeed, and you see they have to walk 
 very slowly, and wiggle their hips. 
 
 What a funny motion that wiggle is ! I should think 
 fastidious people might call it vulgar and immodest. 
 
 O, well, that depends upon the fashion ! That 
 wiggle-waggle is all the go now. 
 
 I should think it would lame them across the back. 
 
 It does ; there is not a lady in twenty, who is not 
 lame across the small of the back. Let a man wear a 
 shawl and hold it together in front with his hands, and 
 he will not walk far before his back will ache. It is a 
 hard strain upon the spine, to walk without swinging 
 the arms. 
 
 American ladies have muscular legs and hips ; but 
 look at their arms (candle-dips No. 8), their angular 
 shoulders, and their flat, thin chests. 
 
 A large part of this ugliness and weakness comes of 
 carrying their hands in muffs, or folded in front, or 
 under shawls, in brief, from not swinging their arms 
 in walking. Ah, when those beautiful fur mittens and 
 gloves, which are now becoming fashionable, shall be 
 generally introduced, and our girls are able to walk off 
 in that brisk, bright way, which we all so admire, not 
 only will their cheeks take on a warmer hue, but their 
 arms, shoulders, and chests will become plumper and 
 finer; and they will be better fitted to perform the 
 duties and enjoy the pleasures of life.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 357 
 
 PHYSICAL CULTURE. 
 
 EDUCATOKS declare that we Americans are dying for 
 want of physical culture. Physical culture is de- 
 manded for our colleges, and almost every college in 
 America has, in response, built a gymnasium. Harvard, 
 Yale, Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth, and others have 
 erected splendid gymnasia. The public is assured that 
 these colleges are fully aroused to the importance of 
 physical culture. 
 
 In every address upon the education of girls, we are 
 fervidly exhorted to give attention to physical culture. 
 We are solemnly assured that a ladies' seminary which 
 does not provide for physical culture is a cheat and 
 a trap. In response a hundred seminaries have an- 
 nounced, " Special attention given to Physical Culture." 
 
 My very soul responds Amen, to the thought and 
 to all this zeal ! I would have the subject of physical 
 culture discussed and rediscussed ; I would have col- 
 leges, schools, and families so filled with it, that both 
 sexes and all ages shall be expanded, invigorated, and 
 lifted into a higher life. 
 
 But what is physical culture ? Mention the words, 
 and what do nine persons in ten think of? It is a 
 gymnasium ! Physical culture in a school, and the 
 gymnasium, mean, with most people, the same thing.
 
 358 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 The gymnasium is a very important institution. Xo 
 educational establishment without one should receive 
 the patronage of the public. And while, as a means 
 of health, it must ever remain inferior to the brisk 
 walk and out-door sports, it is nevertheless quite indis- 
 pensable to every school, seminary, and college. 
 
 But in a system of true physical culture, the gym- 
 nasium will occupy the place given it in the following 
 table : 
 
 Laws of Physical Culture for Schools, Seminaries, and 
 Colleges. 
 
 1. Pure air, day and night. 
 
 2. Bright sunlight, in school-room, bedroom, and 
 two or three hours a day outside. 
 
 3. Bed at nine o'clock. 
 
 4. Plain food eaten at right times and in the right 
 manner. 
 
 5. Healthful dress, both as to fit and material 
 
 6. Gymnastics. 
 
 7. One or two hours daily of pleasant social life. 
 Twenty-five years' observation among educational 
 
 institutions, and study of the laws of health, have led 
 me to the conclusion that this is a good "Card of 
 Direction" for the physical culture of schools, semi- 
 naries, and colleges ; except that in the case of ladies' 
 seminaries the 3d and 5th should change places. 
 
 Professor C , one of the most advanced educators
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 359 
 
 in New England, said to me the other day, "I am afraid 
 onr colleges are giving too much attention to physical 
 culture. They are simply burning the candle at both 
 ends." 
 
 "When I explained the true physical culture, he ex- 
 claimed, " Yes, indeed, let them adopt that system of 
 physical culture, and they will never give too much at- 
 tention to it, and our students will accomplish twice as 
 much as they can achieve under the present system." 
 
 BROADCLOTH AN ENEMY OF HEALTH. 
 
 PROFESSOR HAMILTON, in an able address on hy- 
 giene to the graduates of the Buffalo Medical College, 
 denounces broadcloth as an enemy to exercise, and 
 therefore to health. He says: 
 
 "American gentlemen have adopted, as a national 
 costume, a thin, tight-fitting black suit of broadcloth. 
 To foreigners we seem always to be in mourning ; we 
 travel in black. " The priest, the lawyer, the doctor, the 
 literary man, the mechanic, and even the day-laborer, 
 choose always the same black broadcloth, a style 
 that never ought to have been adopted out of the 
 drawing-room or the pulpit, because it is a feeble and 
 expensive fabric, and because it is at the North no 
 protection against the cold, nor is it any more suitable
 
 360 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 at the South. It is too thin to be warm in winter, and 
 too black to be cool in summer ; but especially do we 
 object to it, because the wearer is always soiling it by 
 exposure. Young gentlemen will not play ball, pitch 
 quoits, or wrestle or tumble, or any other similar thing, 
 lest their broadcloth should be offended. They will 
 not go out into the storm, because the broadcloth will 
 lose its lustre if rain falls upon it ; they will not run, 
 because they have no confidence in the strength of 
 their broadcloth ; they dare not mount a horse or leap 
 a fence, because broadcloth, as everybody knows, is so 
 faithless. So these young men and these older men, 
 these merchants, mechanics, and all, learn to walk, talk, 
 and think soberly and carefully ; they seldom venture 
 even to laugh to the full extent of their sides, because 
 of their broadcloth." 
 
 ONE MAN'S MEAT ANOTHER'S POISON. 
 
 DR. LEWIS : My dear Sir, I was talking to a physi- 
 cian the other day about longevity. He said he once knew 
 a man who went to bed drunk almost every night of his 
 life after he was forty, and he lived to be neai-ly ninety. 
 He knew another man who tried it, and he died before he 
 Vf as fifty. 
 
 " You don't suppose that it was getting drunk that pre- 
 served that man's life 1 " said I.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 361 
 
 " Certainly," he replied ; " we are all differently consti- 
 tuted. The drink that killed one man prolonged the life of 
 another." 
 
 Please tell me what you think of such an idea. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 D. DAWSON. 
 
 Well, in the first place, it is a common idea. People 
 are fond of repeating, " What is one man's meat is an- 
 other man's poison." That old saw has done infinite 
 mischief. But, you will ask me, "Is it not true ? " 
 Yes, it is true, or, rather, it contains a grain of truth. 
 Of course everybody knows it is not a universal truth. 
 Bread is one man's meat, but it is not another man's 
 poison. Beef is one man's meat, but it is not another 
 man's poison. And so of water, fresh air, sleep, exercise, 
 society, and a thousand other things. They are every 
 man's meat ; they are no man's poison. And there are 
 thousands of things which are every man's poison and 
 no man's meat. Numberless poisons, so called, are no 
 man's meat. Irregularities in sleep and food, bad air, 
 residence in damp and dark places, are every man's 
 poison ; they are no man's meat. 
 
 Before undertaking to show where the grain of truth 
 may be found, let me hint the origin of this venerable 
 adage. It became necessary to defend the use of to- 
 bacco, rum, and some other indulgences ; and as these 
 are not attended in many cases with present bad 
 
 16
 
 362 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 effects of a pronounced character, the devotees devised 
 a cheap and convenient defence, even a proverb : " What 
 is one man's meat is another man's poison." Proverbs 
 have a good reputation; they are believed to be the 
 outcome of the deepest experiences of the race. And 
 in some instances this is doubtless true. So it is a 
 good thing to be able to cover one's weaknesses with a 
 proverb. This is without doubt a true account of the 
 origin of the proverb we are considering. But where 
 is the grain of truth ? It certainly is not to be found 
 in the notion that alcohol, tobacco, opium, or any other 
 poison, is anybody's meat, though some persons may 
 use such things many years without discovering, to our 
 imperfect apprehension, any serious damage. But it is 
 to be found particularly and principally in the fact that 
 a weakened body, weakened by age, sickness, or viola- 
 tion of the laws of health, cannot bear the quantity of 
 food, drink, exercise, etc., which a vigorous and active 
 body can bear. 
 
 This is true, and it is about all the truth there is in 
 the old familiar proverb, " What is one man's meat is 
 another man's poison." 
 
 OLD proverbs are not always the condensed essences 
 distilled from the wisdom of mankind ; but often 
 enough are only the clever expression of popular fal- 
 lacies.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 3C3 
 
 THE TRUE SECRET. 
 
 LONG life has ever been considered a great deside- 
 ratum. In the Old Testament the promise of life is 
 held up as the great consolation ; while in the New 
 Testament long life, eternal life, is constantly placed 
 before man's imagination as the greatest of all possible 
 rewards. 
 
 The Egyptians thought they had discovered the 
 secret in the constant use of emetics. Among them 
 it became the custom to take about two emetics a 
 month. When an Egyptian met another, the common 
 greeting was not, " How do ye do ? " but, " How did 
 your last emetic operate ? " 
 
 At one time, during the dark ages, alchemists sought 
 in ways, which seem ludicrous enough to us, for some 
 substance which, introduced into the body, might pro- 
 long life. "Original matter" was looked upon to be 
 the elementary cause of all existence. If they could 
 only find this, they could work miracles, they could 
 perpetuate life indefinitely. In seeking this original 
 matter the most extraordinary paths were trodden. 
 Millions of vessels, phials, and retorts were buried in 
 dung-hills or other fetid masses, to discover, through 
 decomposition, the " original matter." 
 
 Gold was then, as now, the most precious of metals.
 
 364 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 It was thought that the introduction of it into the sys- 
 tem, if it could be kept there, would greatly prolong 
 life. A multitude of busy idiots were at work day and 
 night, in concealed corners, trying to discover some 
 means of rendering gold potable, so that it would 
 remain in the body, and not return to the metallic 
 form, but become assimilated, and thus enter as an 
 integral part of the system. As gold is immortal, it 
 was fondly believed that the body of which it was a 
 part might, with it, become immortal. The common 
 people of Italy, France, and Germany often denied 
 themselves the necessaries of life to purchase a few 
 drops of the tincture of gold, which they swallowed 
 with the most enthusiastic confidence. 
 
 This mania, in some one of a hundred forms, con- 
 tinued for several hundred years, and, indeed, has not 
 passed away from all classes at this hour. 
 
 About three hundred years since, in some portions of 
 Europe, they began to consider the laws of man's phys- 
 ical health. Within these three hundred years the 
 length of life in Europe has increased seventy-five per 
 cent. The larger part of this improvement has occurred 
 within the last one hundred years. The last fifty years 
 have been especially prolific in contributions to human 
 longevity. In America, even, it has become very com- 
 mon to reach the age of one hundred years ; and if the 
 favoring influences now actively at work are not dis-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 365 
 
 turbed before A. D. 1974, one hundred and twenty-five, 
 thirty, and forty years will not be rare. 
 
 When sleep, exercise, food, air, sunshine, when, in 
 brief, the laws of health, shall receive all needed atten- 
 tion, we shall not only enjoy health and happiness, but 
 a good, long life. 
 
 THE BEST BED. 
 
 OF the eight pounds which a man eats and drinks in 
 a day, it is thought that not less than five pounds leave 
 his body through the skin. And of these five pounds, 
 a considerable percentage escapes during the night. 
 This, being in great part gaseous in form, permeates 
 every part of the bed. Thus all parts of the bed 
 mattress, blankets, as well as sheets soon become foul, 
 and need purification. 
 
 The mattress needs this renovation quite as much as 
 the sheets. 
 
 To allow the sheets to be used without washing or 
 changing three or six months would be regarded as bad 
 housekeeping ; but I insist, if a thin sheet can absorb 
 enough of the poisonous excretions of the body to make 
 it unfit for use in a few days, a thick mattress, which 
 can absorb and retain a thousand times as much of 
 these poisonous excretions, needs to be purified as often 
 certainly as once in three months. A sheet can be
 
 366 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 washed. A mattress cannot be renovated in this way. 
 Indeed, there is no other way of cleansing a mattress 
 but by steaming it or picking it to pieces, and thus in 
 fragments exposing it to the direct rays of the sun. As 
 these processes are scarcely practicable with any of the 
 ordinary mattresses, I am decidedly of the opinion that 
 the good old-fashioned straw bed, which can every three 
 months be exchanged for fresh straw, and the tick 
 washed, is the sweetest and healthiest of beds. 
 
 If in the winter season the porousness of the straw 
 bed makes it a little uncomfortable, spread over it a 
 comforter or two woollen blankets, which should be 
 washed as often as every two weeks. With this ar- 
 rangement, if you wash all the bed-covering as often 
 as once in one or two weeks, you will have a delight- 
 ful, healthy bed. 
 
 Now, if you leave the bed to air, with open windows 
 during the day, and not make it up for the night before 
 evening, you will have added greatly to the sweetness 
 of your rest, and, in consequence, to the tone of your 
 health. 
 
 I heartily wish this good change could be everywhere 
 introduced. Only those who have thus attended to this 
 important matter can judge of its influence on the gen- 
 eral health and spirits.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 367 
 
 TOBACCO AT THE WEST. 
 
 IN a recent trip through the West, my attention was 
 constantly drawn to the immense consumption of to- 
 bacco by chewing. This mode of using the narcotic 
 poison is more damaging than any other, not per se, 
 but because it is susceptible in this way of constant 
 use. A man smokes two hours a day. He chews fif- 
 teen hours. The sunken cheeks and unhappy restless- 
 ness of the men of the West are largely attributed to 
 chewing. 
 
 Leaving out for the moment the besmeared lips, 
 beard, and clothing, leaving out the inconceivable 
 filth which covers the floor of the car, hall, pew, side- 
 walk, everything, leaving out the sickening odor of 
 the breath, in brief, the unparalleled nastiness of the 
 indulgence, we cannot shut our eyes to the poison- 
 ous, destructive influence of the habit. Tobacco is an 
 immensely powerful poison. If a boy ten years of age, 
 who has never used tobacco, take into his mouth a piece 
 as large as a pea, and simply chew it, without swallow- 
 ing a drop, before he has finished simply squeezing it 
 between his teeth, he will break out into a cold, clammy 
 perspiration, his pulse will flutter, he will vomit, and, 
 falling down upon the floor, he will seem, for two hours, 
 as though he were going to die. You will have to go
 
 368 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 far in a drug-store to find another poison which, in the 
 size of a pea, held in that boy's mouth and simply 
 squeezed between his teeth, will produce such effects 
 as these. 
 
 The men of the West, the most vital in the world, 
 having drafted not only the great mass of the choicest 
 young men of the East, but thousands of the most en- 
 terprising and determined young men of Europe for its 
 service, with opportunities which it makes one dizzy to 
 try to measure, are filling not only themselves with this 
 horrid poison, but in numberless ways are transmitting 
 the deadly influence to their offspring. 
 
 How any man, who knows that every condition of 
 the parent, whether it be an animal or a man, must 
 influence for good or ill the offspring, can consent to 
 become the father of children while his system is so 
 dominated by this powerful narcotic, that an abstinence 
 of twenty-four hours nearly sets him crazy, I can't con- 
 ceive. 
 
 Only God can fully measure the magnitude of this 
 evil, first in its influence upon the present men of the 
 West, but infinitely worse in its influence upon the 
 vast, teeming myriads of the great West of the future. 
 
 When the man of the West can escape sufficiently 
 long from the task of adding acres to a serious consid- 
 eration of himself, he will then begin to lay the true 
 foundations of our future empire. 

 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 369 
 
 A VICTIM OF TOBACCO. 
 
 GOVERNOR SEWARD was a victim of tobacco. For 
 years he used snuff to great excess, but, being warned 
 by his medical advisers that his voice and stomach 
 must give way in complete ruin, he exchanged the 
 snuff-box for the cigar-case, and during the remainder 
 of his life smoked excessively. Many who knew him 
 intimately, and were well qualified to judge, believe 
 that the change from a remarkable cheerfulness and 
 buoyancy in early and middle life to an unhappy 
 moodiness and restlessness in his later years, was due 
 tenfold more to a large consumption of tobacco than to 
 disappointments in his political career. Tobacco has 
 played an important part in the history of our public 
 men. 
 
 APPLICATION OF SOLOMON'S REMEDY. 
 
 A FEW minutes ago a big cigar went by with a little 
 boy hung to the end of it. The little chap looked sick 
 enough, but he was sucking away as best he could. I 
 would not reason with such a child, but I would make 
 frequent palmar counter-irritation to the little fellow's 
 person, about ten inches below the buttons on the back 
 of his coat, until he was relieved of his malady. 
 
 16*
 
 370 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 TO A MODERATE DRINKER. 
 
 No ; not even the mildest of the California wines 
 will prove useful. Wine is no more healthful than 
 alcohol diluted in water. Suppose a wine contains 
 seven per cent of -alcohol, and that surely would be 
 light enough, it is no more healthful than water with 
 seven per cent of alcohol in it. The wine is practically 
 just that, with a little coloring matter added. Often, 
 very often, there is an addition of poisonous, adulterat- 
 ing stuff. There is no doubt, as you suggest, that the 
 wine is better than lager-beer. This is wretched swill, 
 puffing a man out and making his brain stupid. There 
 is a kind of drink known as water, which I advise 
 you to try. It may taste strange at first, but you will 
 soon get used to it, and then you will find it the best 
 drink when you are sick or well, when you are hot or 
 cold, indeed, under all possible circumstances. 
 
 MALARIA. 
 
 THERE can be no doubt that, with certain climatic 
 conditions, a virgin soil, when first turned up to the 
 sun, emits an invisible, subtle poison, known as ma- 
 laria. This poison produces in man various forms of 
 painful and dangerous diseases. These maladies are
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 371 
 
 very difficult to manage, often undermining the consti- 
 tution, and leaving behind effects which remain through 
 life. The malarial poison is, on the whole, with per- 
 haps a single exception, the most insinuating, obstinate, 
 and destructive of all the poisons known to man. 
 
 While it is probably impossible to escape malarial 
 diseases in certain localities, there can be no doubt 
 that a considerable part of what is supposed to be the 
 result of malaria is due to " hog and hominy." In 
 my visits to the West, I have been astonished at the 
 quantities of pork and corn consumed by the people. 
 An Illinois farmer eats twice as much as a New Eng- 
 land farmer, and his food is twice as rich, while he per- 
 forms less than half the labor. The influence upon his 
 digestive apparatus may be easily imagined. It re- 
 quires but little malaria to fire such a train. 
 
 I have known more than one family to remove from 
 New England to malarious districts in the West, and 
 break up a new farm, without suffering from malarial 
 diseases. They carefully observed the laws of health, 
 used beef instead of pork, wheat instead of corn, and 
 stayed in-doors from sundown till an hour or so after 
 sunrise. Many of the diseases of the West, and much 
 of the yellow skin, may be traced to the same causes as 
 produce the diseased and discolored complexion of 
 the South, a bad diet, bad drinks, neglect of bathing, 
 and other kindred violations of the laws of health.
 
 372 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 OUR TEETH. 
 
 THEY decay. Hence, unseemly mouths, bad breath, 
 imperfect mastication. Everybody regrets it. What 
 is the cause ? I reply, want of cleanliness. A clean 
 tooth never decays. The mouth is a warm place, 98 
 degrees. Particles of meat between the teeth soon de- 
 compose. Gums and teeth must suffer. 
 
 Perfect cleanliness will preserve the teeth to old age. 
 How shall it be secured ? Use a quill pick, and rinse 
 the mouth after eating. Brusli and Castile soap every 
 morning ; the brush with simple water on going to led. 
 Bestow this trifling care upon your precious teeth, 
 you will keep them and ruin the dentists. Neglect it, 
 and you will be sorry all your lives. Children forget. 
 "Watch them. The first teeth determine the character 
 of the second set. Give them equal care. 
 
 Sugar, acid, saleratus, and hot things are nothing 
 when compared with food decomposing between the 
 teeth. Mercurialization may loosen the teeth, long use 
 may wear them out, but keep them clean and they will 
 never decay. This advice is worth more than thousands 
 of dollars to every boy and girl. 
 
 Books have been written on the subject. This brief 
 article contains all that is essential.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 373 
 
 ULCERATION OF THE MOUTH. 
 
 IT is not easy to answer the question, " What pro- 
 duces ulceration of the mouth ? " A great variety of 
 causes may be named. There can be no doubt, how- 
 ever, that the immediate cause of much of the ulcera- 
 tion of the mouth is a deranged stomach. The cure is 
 to be found in whatever makes the stomach healthy. 
 I have seen the daily use of a little lemon juice cure 
 mouth ulceration. 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED anatomist made the assertion that 
 "a particle of matter taken from a decayed tooth, if 
 inoculated into a person's veins, would produce almost 
 immediate death." Dr. Ewer tried the experiment on 
 a dog, and it died in about twenty minutes. The 
 amount of disease produced by retaining decayed teeth 
 in the mouth is immense. The dentist is one of our 
 best friends. 
 
 NEVER have a tooth taken out if it be possible to 
 have it filled. The loss of a single jaw-tooth will not 
 only give the cheek a sunken appearance, but it will 
 prevent the proper mastication of the food ; and this is 
 a long step toward dyspepsia, with its train of evils.
 
 374 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 A GRAVE EVIL. 
 
 DUST in the cars during the hot season is a very 
 grave evil Various devices to rid the traveller of this 
 nuisance have been proposed. Several have been pat- 
 ented and tried. The practical difficulty lies here. 
 We must have good ventilation ; but if we admit the air 
 freely, the dust comes in with it. The only promising 
 invention was that which proposed to admit the air 
 through water, thus washing out the dust. Dr. Foote, 
 of Buffalo, made, and tried to introduce, such an inven- 
 tion, and I believe succeeded with tolerable satisfaction 
 on some of the Western roads. For some reason, which 
 I have not learned, it has been abandoned. If it was 
 the trouble or expense, it is too bad, for there are 
 thousands who would give an additional two cents a 
 mile for a seat in a well-ventilated car, entirely free 
 from dust. It is a fine opportunity for some ingenious 
 inventor. 
 
 Some one sitting at my elbow says that the only way 
 to get rid of the dust nuisance is to cover the ground 
 with something which is not dusty. But the admission 
 of the air through the water seems to me the most 
 feasible of the suggestions thus far submitted.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 375 
 
 CHILLING HOSPITALITY. 
 
 FOR instance, I go to visit my good cousin the dea- 
 con in an adjoining State. The deacon is a farmer, and 
 takes great pride and pleasure in bestowing generous 
 hospitality. But he is a little obstinate in his meth- 
 ods. The last time I visited him it was cold weather. 
 I found them all in the warm kitchen, as cosey and 
 snug as possible. Soon after, I noticed that the deacon 
 went out as if he meant something, and soon I heard 
 the noise of building a fire in the parlor stove. Of 
 course I like, as every man who lives in a city does, to 
 sit in the kitchen, a privilege we city folks rarely 
 enjoy. I begged that we might stay where we were. 
 The deacon only said, " You must excuse us, but we 
 did not know you were coming, or we should have had 
 a fire in the parlor." 
 
 They seemed so sorry and nervous about it, that I 
 thought it better to say no more, and we soon adjourned 
 to the parlor. 
 
 What with the cold air and the abundant dampness 
 of carpet, curtains, and walls, the atmosphere of the 
 room was most uncomfortably chilly, to say nothing of 
 that stiffness which suddenly comes over the manners 
 of many a family in the country when they enter the 
 parlor. When bedtime came, I was escorted to the
 
 376 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 spare bed, or led of state, which, I presume, had not 
 been slept in in three months ; the sheets were so 
 damp that they stuck to my skin. Colds, and even 
 consumption, come from this kind of hospitality. 
 
 THE HONORS OF AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 WITHIN a century the attitude of an author has 
 greatly changed. The crawling of authors at the feet 
 of wealth and rank was pitiful. Tissot, in a truly re- 
 markable work, began with a Dedication, of which the 
 following are specimen passages : 
 
 " To the MOST ILLUSTRIOUS, THE MOST NOBLE AND 
 MAGNIFICENT LOEDS, THE LORDS, PRESIDENT, AND COUN- 
 SELLORS," etc. The Dedication closed with the follow- 
 ing words : " While you condescend to accept this small 
 oblation as a very unequal expression of tJiat profound 
 respect with which I have the Jwnor to be, MOST ILLUS- 
 TRIOUS, MOST NOBLE AND MAGNIFICENT LORDS, your 
 most humble and -most obedient servant, TISSOT." 
 
 How this contrasts with the answer of Dickens to a 
 command of the Queen to read at Windsor Castle : " I 
 am reading at present in a public hall, where I shall be 
 happy to see the Queen whenever she may find it con- 
 venient to be present."
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 377' 
 
 FIRE-ESCAPES. 
 
 THE subject of fire-escapes has become, in the light 
 of recent events, a painfully interesting one. A very 
 large proportion of the denizens of our cities sleep up 
 stairs, and a great many on the fourth, fifth, sixth, and 
 seventh stories, with no means of escape in case they 
 are aroused at night with the cry of fire under them. 
 Several inventions have been recently patented to meet 
 this fearful danger. The one by GEORGE H. SHAW, 830 
 Third Avenue, New York, is the best. A child can 
 manage it ; it cannot get out of order ; it would run 
 down five people at a time without the possibility of 
 accident, no matter how badly frightened they might 
 be. It is a very small affair, and might find a place 
 in the traveller's trunk or valise, and will, I am certain, 
 find its way everywhere, and save many a life. 
 
 ONE USE OF TREES. 
 
 THE saddest of all losses by fire is the destruction 
 of great, beautiful trees, the result of fifty years' 
 growth. The houses you can rebuild in a year, and, 
 if you please, make them handsomer than before, but 
 during your lifetime you will never see those grand old
 
 
 378 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 trees again. On the other hand, trees dressed in green 
 often arrest a fire. The loss of my own large buildings 
 at Lexington would have destroyed half the village 
 but for the surrounding elm-trees, which confined the 
 fire to the one district. It is almost impossible, even 
 in the case of a fierce fire, to get past a row of large 
 green trees. 
 
 HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 Is not this good, from an old European writer ? 
 
 " To study human nature to purpose, a traveller 
 must enlarge his circuit beyond the bounds of Europe. 
 He must go and catch her undressed, nay, quite 
 naked, as in North America and at the Cape of Good 
 Hope. He may then examine how she appears 
 cramped, contracted, and buttoned up close in the 
 strait tunic of law and custom, as in China and 
 Japan ; or spread out and enlarged above her common 
 size in the loose and flowing robe of enthusiasm, as 
 among the Arabs and Saracens ; or, lastly, as she flut- 
 ters in the old rags of worn-out policy and civil gov- 
 ernment, and almost ready to run back naked to the 
 deserts, as on the Mediterranean coast of Africa." 
 
 I have n't seen this equalled lately. For fine, free, 
 strong, picturesque composition I doubt if it is often 
 beaten.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 379 
 
 STORY OF THE LEXINGTON SCHOOL. 
 
 SINCE the destruction of the buildings at Lexington, 
 Massachusetts, and the abandonment of the enterprise, 
 many educators and others have urged me to write the 
 story of the Lexington school. 
 
 At this time I propose only a very brief description 
 of its most salient features. The deeper philosophies of 
 that educational experiment must be reserved for the 
 future. 
 
 As it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to give a rational 
 account of the Lexington school without some state- 
 ment of certain personal experiences which led to the 
 establishment of the school, I may be pardoned for a 
 few words of autobiography. 
 
 Before I had practised my profession long, I became 
 dissatisfied with pill-peddling. Mrs. Smith swallowed 
 so much grease and bad air, so neglected exercise and 
 bathing, sat up so late at night and dressed so badly, 
 that she felt sick. Mr. Smith called and requested me 
 to visit his wife. It was typhoid fever. In a week 
 the table was filled with bottles and the air with smells. 
 In a month the patient crawled to the front window, 
 and, as I trotted by with my old gray horse, said, faintly, 
 " There goes the man who saved my life." This wait- 
 ing for people to get sick, this running about from
 
 
 380 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 house to house all day, and sometimes all night, trying 
 to relieve the victims of appetite and ignorance, became 
 at length discouraging and disgusting. 
 
 We doctors know that a hundredth part of the time 
 and labor we bestow upon the sick would prevent the 
 sickness. We become dissatisfied, and long for some 
 service more genuine and important than trotting about 
 at the tail of ignorance. We long to instruct, guide, 
 and elevate. But it is difficult to mix hygiene with 
 pills, so most doctors say little of hygiene and push their 
 pills. I was not dependent upon my profession, so it 
 was comparatively easy for me to follow my convictions. 
 Abandoning pills more than twenty years ago, I began 
 to teach the laws of health. My first step was the 
 publication of the " Journal of Health." This was fol- 
 lowed by eight years of public lecturing. During the 
 last five of these years all my spare hours were devoted 
 to inventing a 
 
 NEW SYSTEM OF GYMNASTICS. 
 
 Twelve years since, believing that I had developed 
 a valuable system, I sought advice of several prominent 
 educators about the best method of introducing it. 
 They agreed that the bearer of any important edu- 
 cational communication would find Boston the best 
 platform. So I came to Boston, and established the 
 "Normal Institute for Physical Education." More
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 381 
 
 than three hundred graduates from this institution have 
 gone out as teachers. Three are teaching in Oregon, 
 several in California, and three or four in Kentucky 
 and Tennessee. The rest of them are scattered through- 
 out the Eastern, Middle, and Western States. The new 
 system has been adopted in Great Britain, both in the 
 gymnasia and in many colleges and seminaries. Within 
 a year I have received two circulars from towns in 
 Scotland, in which it is stated that the undersigned is 
 the only representative in town of the "Dio Lewis 
 System of Musical Gymnastics." This is the name by 
 which the new system is known in Great Britain. A 
 few years ago the new American method was intro- 
 duced into the public schools of several German cities 
 and towns, and in some cases with public ceremonies. 
 A gentleman called to tell me that last winter he hap- 
 pened to be present at a public exhibition of a young 
 ladies' seminary in St. Petersburg, and among the exer- 
 cises in the programme was a performance of the "Dio 
 Lewis Calisthenics." Moses Coit Tyler, after grad- 
 uating from the " Normal Institute for Physical Educa- 
 tion," went out to London some years ago, and gave 
 three years to advocating and teaching the "Musical 
 Gymnastics." Many converts and warm adherents 
 were found among leading educators and other public 
 men. Dr. Garth Wilkinson, I remember, gave in his 
 adhesion, and took many private lessons of Professor
 
 382 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 Tyler, which were given early in the morning out in 
 the doctor's beautiful garden. 
 
 In 1862 I published, through Ticknor and Fields, a 
 considerable volume, in which the new system was 
 carefully and fully set forth. The work was profusely 
 illustrated, and passed through many editions. In 
 1868 it was rewritten and reillustrated. The work has 
 been published with full illustrations in London, by 
 William Tweedie, and largely circulated throughout 
 Great Britain and Australia. A small volume might 
 be filled with facts like the above. The new school of 
 physical culture has made its way into all civilized 
 countries, and become everywhere an educational force. 
 
 In explanation of the " New School of Physical 
 Training," I take the liberty to publish the subjoined 
 paragraphs from Professor Moses Coit Tyler's address 
 before the " College of Preceptors " in London, upon 
 Tlw New Gymnastics as an Instrument in Education, on 
 March 7, 1864 : - 
 
 "Second, concerning the mode of its employment. 
 Under this head there are several particulars to which 
 I wish to direct your attention, and the first has refer- 
 ence to a gymnastic principle interpreted by a law in 
 mechanics. Momentum is made up of two factors, 
 weight and velocity. Allowing momentum to remain 
 the permanent quantity, the greater the weight, the 
 less the velocity ; and conversely, the greater the ve-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 383 
 
 locity, the less must be the weight. Passing over to 
 the realm of gymnastics, that term which corresponds 
 to momentum is the amount of exertion each one is 
 capable of putting forth with safety; and it is plain 
 that if you have heavy weights, you must have slow 
 movements, and, on the contrary, if you would have 
 rapid movements, you must have light weights. It 
 costs as much effort to pass a light body through the 
 air swiftly as it does to pass a heavy one slowly. Now, 
 the more common idea in modern gymnastics has been 
 to give prominence to weight. How many pounds can 
 you put up ? what vast herculean burden can you 
 carry ? have been the test questions, and have indi- 
 cated the direction of the average gymnastic ambition. 
 But the new system inverts this order, and seeks to 
 give prominence to the idea of velocity in gymnastics 
 rather than of weight. It claims that a better muscu- 
 lar result is obtained by this method. It claims that 
 while huge lifting-power is quite desirable for one who 
 designs following the profession of a porter or a hod- 
 carrier or a coal-heaver, it is not so important for ladies 
 and gentlemen in the more usual avocations of life as 
 flexibility, grace, ease, fineness rather than massive- 
 ness, poise, perfect accuracy, and rapidity of muscular 
 action, and a general diffusion of muscular vigor. Dr. 
 Lewis is fond of illustrating the differentia in the sys- 
 tems on the one hand of weight, on the other hand
 
 384 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 of velocity by pointing to the van-horse, with his vast 
 though stiff muscles, with his slow, ponderous, ele- 
 phantine movements, just fit to draw burdens for the 
 world, and then to the carriage-horse, with his grace- 
 ful, airy, elastic step, his rapid movement, his vivacity, 
 his fineness of nerve and muscle." 
 
 In addition to the annual class in the " Normal In- 
 stitute for Physical Education," a large hall was opened 
 in this city for the training of persons of both sexes 
 and all ages, which was constantly filled by enthusi- 
 astic crowds. A large number of young ladies appeared 
 among the patrons. 
 
 At the end of three years I began to think seriously 
 of establishing an institution in which I could have 
 the entire charge of the training of a company of 
 girls, not only of their muscular training, but of 
 their sleep, dress, food, etc., etc. I longed to illustrate 
 the possibilities in the physical development of girls 
 during their school-days. The girls in town came one 
 or two evenings a week to my hall, but I could have 
 nothing to say about the other conditions of health, so 
 that the physical training of three hours a week was 
 overwhelmed by a bad regimen at home. And now I 
 have reached the purchase of the large buildings at 
 Lexington.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 385 
 
 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCHOOL. 
 
 After long consultations with wise friends, I pur- 
 chased, in May, 1864, the great hotel buildings stand- 
 ing on the famous battle-ground at Lexington, ten 
 miles from Boston. Containing between one and two 
 hundred large, airy rooms, the buildings were substan- 
 tial and beautiful. The lecture-hall, formerly the ball- 
 room, was remarkably fine. 
 
 Lexington is situated upon high ground, singularly 
 healthy, in the midst of a beautiful agricultural district ; 
 while the people, who are in considerable part descend- 
 ants of the Eevolutionary heroes, constitute one of the 
 most quiet and intelligent communities in New Eng- 
 land. With these immediate surroundings, within easy 
 reach of Boston by railway, and in buildings which 
 could not have been better contrived had they been 
 erected for the purpose, I prepared for the opening of 
 my new school. 
 
 BRILLIANT CORPS OF TEACHERS. 
 
 In the selection of the corps of teachers I was singu- 
 larly fortunate. The friends and patrons of the Lex- 
 ington school can never be sufficiently grateful for the 
 co-operation of Theodore D. Weld. 
 
 Eecently, at a dinner-table, a number of gentlemen 
 were discussing great men. Each of us in turn was 
 
 17
 
 386 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 called upon to answer the question, " "Who among ull 
 the men you have ever met impressed you as greatest ? " 
 
 One man, a native Bostonian, cried out, " Webster ! 
 Why, Webster, of course." 
 
 Another one, who had lived a good deal abroad, 
 thought "Archbishop Manning carried most brains." 
 
 Still another thought that, of all the men he had ever 
 met, " Kossuth was the greatest." 
 
 And so we went on until it came my turn, and I 
 said, that during my time I had seen a hundred per- 
 sons, more or less, who were considered great, and that 
 of all the men I had ever met I considered Theodore 
 D. Weld the greatest, that his mind was most philo- 
 sophical and perfectly balanced, that his moral devel- 
 opment was most harmonious and complete. 
 
 In early life, Mr. Weld gave himself to the anti- 
 slavery platform. I heard Wendell Phillips say, in 
 Music Hall, in speaking of Mr. Weld, " His were the 
 most eloquent lips that have ever addressed the Ameri- 
 can people on the subject of human liberty." 
 
 More than thirty years ago Mr. Weld lost his voice, 
 and was compelled to retire from public life, to the infi- 
 nite regret of the friends of liberty. Then, accompa- 
 nied by his remarkable wife, Angelina Grinke, of South 
 Carolina, he retired to a small village in the State of 
 New Jersey, where he established a small private school, 
 which was supported by Gerrit Smith and other lead-
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 337 
 
 ing abolitionists. Mr. and Mrs. Weld remained in this 
 educational work in New Jersey more than twenty 
 years, almost unknown, except to the few families 
 whose young people they trained to noble uses. 
 
 I had the great pleasure to visit the school, and will 
 only say that its organization and management evinced 
 an originality so remarkable, a comprehension so com- 
 plete, and a moral fervor so intense, that I have never 
 since been able to visit a school, or think of one, with- 
 out that remarkable company of young men and women 
 gathered about their idolized teacher rising up before 
 me. I visited Mr. Weld's school in New Jersey more 
 than once, and never without a yearning to see an edu- 
 cational institution in which this grand man, with all 
 his magnetism and noble thought freed from business 
 responsibilities, might be brought face to face with a 
 great company of young people. 
 
 The happiest day during the months of preparation 
 was that on which Mr. Weld consented to join me in 
 the management of the school. 
 
 Even in the first year's corps there were several 
 teachers whom it would be pleasant, and perhaps profit- 
 able, to portray ; but as I propose only a brief history 
 of the institution at this time, I cannot find space for 
 such biographical sketches. Gratitude, however, com- 
 pels me to mention Zerdahelyi, the distinguished pian- 
 ist, one of our regular music-teachers, who remained
 
 388 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 with us until the final close of the school. Zerdahelyi, 
 to whom Liszt dedicated his famous Hungarian Waltz, 
 had had a remarkable career, both as a musician and as 
 an Hungarian patriot. Banished with Kossuth, of whose 
 staff he was a member, he accompanied his great and 
 steadfast friend to London, where for some years he de- 
 voted himself to music. The musical critics of London 
 pronounced him the greatest performer upon the piano 
 who had visited that city in many years. Coming to 
 America, he saw our cities, selected Boston, and, receiv- 
 ing a few advanced pupils, he. achieved immediate dis- 
 tinction. The Hon. George H. Snelling, one of the 
 wisest and most philosophical friends of education in 
 New England, brought Zerdahelyi to me, with reference 
 to his possible identification with the Lexington school 
 After many interviews, Zerdahelyi entered with all his 
 great heart into our scheme, and, as already stated, re- 
 mained in the institution till the close of its history. 
 When we came to have a hundred music-pupils and a 
 number of music-teachers, Zerdahelyi was ever the ad- 
 viser and guide in every interest of that important 
 department. But I must close with the simple state- 
 ment that the corps of teachers in the school at Lex- 
 ington was one of the most remarkable ever gathered 
 in any institution of learning.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS, 389 
 
 THE QUESTION OF A SEPARATE SCHOOL. 
 
 Of course there was long and anxious thought on 
 the question of a separate school. I had condemned 
 the separate system. Boys and girls together seemed 
 to me the natural system. This conviction is growing 
 stronger and stronger with me. 
 
 The Creator is not mistaken in introducing both sexes 
 into the same family. The boys and girls stay at home 
 till they are twenty years old or more, and the arrange- 
 ment seems to work well. I have noticed that the 
 
 brothers and sisters seem to be happy with each other, 
 
 i 
 
 and I have heard both men and women refer to this 
 
 life at the old homestead with peculiar pleasure. I 
 have watched boys and girls mixed in families, and it 
 has seemed everywhere to work admirably. A hun- 
 dred times I have talked with parents about it, and find 
 that uniformly they cherish the idea that this mixing 
 boys and girls in the same family has a very happy in- 
 fluence on both sexes, that the girls are stronger and 
 the boys more gentle. 
 
 My friend, a young clergyman, went to California in 
 1854 to work in the mines for his health. He remained 
 in a single mining locality in the mountains about four 
 years. At first there were no women. He did not 
 know that men could be so dirty, coarse, and brutal. 
 Drunkenness, short pipes, red shirts, dirty boots, pro-
 
 390 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 fanity, pistols, bowie-knives, fights, and street bowlings 
 
 constituted life in F diggings. A few women came, 
 
 and men put on coats and better manners. Finally the 
 wives and children of the miners began to come, and 
 soon there were families enough to make a society. 
 The change in the dress and manners of the miners was 
 something w r onderful. Soon there was a church, two 
 Sunday schools, and then public schools. " No one," 
 said my friend, " who came to us at the end of four 
 years could have believed our stories about our social 
 life in the early days." 
 
 I was stopping at a country tavern during a severe 
 thunder-shower. There were about twenty of us, all 
 men. Much of the language used was enough to make 
 insensibility blush. They began to smoke and sprawl 
 their legs about, and behave as men generally do when 
 alone. In the midst of the noisy goings-on, a lady and 
 gentleman came quickly in out of the storm. It was 
 positively funny to see how the heels came down, the 
 hats straightened up, the pipes dodged into pockets, and 
 the improper language stopped. Those of us who were 
 looking on burst into a shout at the sudden transfor- 
 mation. 
 
 In college I was surprised that young men whom I 
 had known at their homes as quiet gentlemen, affec- 
 tionate sons, and devoted brothers should become so 
 coarse and rowdyish. I have been assured that the same 
 peculiarity has been observed in many colleges.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 391 
 
 I have conversed with several managers of ladies' 
 seminaries, who think that girls separated from society 
 that is, from association with men become less 
 broad, strong, and refined. 
 
 One intelligent gentleman at the head of a ladies' 
 seminary assured me that his attention had been called 
 to a peculiar demoralization among his pupils. He 
 mentioned many evidences, and among them the habit 
 of talking slang. 
 
 In establishing the school at Lexington, this question 
 of the separate school occupied my thoughts for many 
 weeks. In deference to public prejudice, I finally con- 
 cluded to announce it as a girls' school, and to provide 
 the male element in a considerable number of male 
 teachers. And then I thought that after the school was 
 established we might introduce young men as pupils. 
 I now think this was an error. If, instead of thirty 
 girls during the first year, we had had fifteen boys and 
 fifteen girls, we should have laid a much better founda- 
 tion ; and great as we all think the Lexington experi- 
 ment proved, I have no doubt now that it would have 
 been much greater if we had not fallen into the blunder 
 of the separate system. 
 
 To those young men who think that the coeducation 
 of the sexes would lower the standard, to those who 
 think the girls would hold them back, I have only to 
 say that I should like to see you, my smart fellows,
 
 392 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 pursuing a course of studies with a company of bright 
 girls such as they have in the various departments in 
 the Michigan University. If you were to study law or 
 medicine or the classics with those young girls, it would 
 probably cure you of your hallucination. 
 
 THE OPENING OF THE SCHOOL. 
 
 We assembled one pleasant morning in September, 
 1864, with about thirty girls. The school came of a 
 new idea. The public generally regarded me as a 
 monomaniac upon the subject of physical training, 
 while Mr. Weld was known to be a radical. It was 
 scarcely possible for any but thinking, independent 
 people to patronize us. 
 
 These thirty daughters constituted a rare company. 
 
 OUR COSTUME. 
 
 The costume which for years had been worn in my 
 gymnastic classes was adopted as the dress of the 
 Lexington school 
 
 The words " dress reform " mean, to most people, a 
 short skirt. Say to them dress reform, and they reply 
 with the question, "How short?" 
 
 The features of the dress worn by our pupils may be 
 put as follows, arranged in the order of their impor- 
 tance. The first is tenfold more important than the 
 last:
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 393 
 
 1st. Perfect liberty about the waist. 
 
 2d. Perfect liberty about the shoulders, permitting 
 the arm to be thrust smartly upward without the 
 slightest check, and without moving the waist of the 
 dress. 
 
 3d. Warm flannels, extending to the ankles and 
 wrists. 
 
 4th. Broad-soled, low-heeled shoes, with thick, warm 
 hose. 
 
 5th. A skirt falling a little below the knee. 
 
 In regard to the material, each pupil was left to her 
 own taste. One or two began with silk, but soon gray 
 flannel became the common dress, a Garibaldi waist, 
 and often no ornament, save a plain white collar and 
 wristbands. A considerable proportion of the pupils 
 and among them girls who at home had worn rich 
 silks and jewelry appeared every day of the school 
 year in a gray flannel dress, which cost perhaps five 
 dollars. 
 
 When I look at one of those stunning curiosities 
 composed of glaring silk, frills, laces, ribbons, bows, 
 and jewelry, I- wonder if all this is the real outcome 
 of a girl's nature. Some people seem to think so ; 
 but then how does it happen that among all our pupils 
 in Lexington we had not a single girl with a girl's 
 nature ? 
 
 I wonder if there is any such difference in the natu- 
 17*
 
 394 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 ral tastes of the sexes as is shown in their dress? 
 Here are two babies, one of either sex. Will the boy 
 naturally take to black and the girl to the rainbow ? 
 May not this remarkable dress of women be traced to 
 the same source as the seven hundred and thirty-nine 
 drinks of a famous Parisian saloon ? Are not both the 
 outgrowths of a morbid civilization fostered by idle- 
 ness ? 
 
 Our girls at Lexington were dominated by a high 
 purpose, and soon forgot the follies of dress. The fact 
 greatly interested me. It is hard to think that this 
 extravagant ornamentation is natural and inevitable ; 
 and so it was most grateful to find that as soon as the 
 girls of Lexington became interested in something else, 
 they ceased to ornament. That the difference in dress 
 between the sexes among us is not the outgrowth of a 
 natural difference in taste, but the result of certain 
 social conditions, is illustrated in the fact that among 
 most savage tribes, where the men are idlers or do the 
 fancy work and the women do the plain, hard work, the 
 feathers and bright paint appear only upon the person 
 of the male. When women become interested in lit- 
 erature, especially in that class which appeals to the 
 heart, or when they enter upon some Christian work 
 like the military-hospital services in the great war, they 
 shed their finery as if by magic.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 395 
 
 OUR GYMNASTIC EXERCISES. 
 
 As I have said, at the time of the opening of our 
 school I had been busy for more than ten years in devis- 
 ing a new system of gymnastics. Indeed, it was the 
 promulgation of the new gymnastics which called the 
 attention of the public to myself as an educator. This 
 system was, as so many physiologists have pronounced, 
 the result of much careful study. 
 
 The old or German system of gymnastics was so con- 
 trived as practically to exclude women from any con- 
 siderable participation in its benefits. This statement 
 requires no illustration or proof. It was the only sys- 
 tem extant. Some trifling calisthenics were known and 
 somewhat practised, but nothing at all comprehensive 
 physiologically, and nothing calculated to interest the 
 mind. Nothing of value was known outside of the Ger- 
 man gymnasium. 
 
 It was a curious state of things. Girls and women 
 had tenfold more need of a physical training than men 
 and boys ; and yet, while all sorts of games boating, 
 ball-playing, boxing, small-sword, cane, hunting, fishing, 
 and a dozen others were in vogue for men, nothing 
 had been contrived for women, except, perhaps, corsets 
 and long skirts. Sometimes they attempted base-ball, 
 but were quickly assured that the thing was mon- 
 strously improper and entirely outside of woman's
 
 396 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 sphere. The case was perfectly plain. The prejudices 
 of society forbade women any participation in vigorous, 
 physical labor; the number of women able to live 
 without remunerative employment was rapidly increas- 
 ing, the width of the chest and jaws constantly de- 
 creasing. Some means, some comprehensive system 
 of muscular training which should be adapted to girls 
 and women, which could be participated in by both 
 sexes conjointly, and which should possess elements 
 of interest and fascination, were urgently demanded. 
 Comprehending the situation, I began, more than twenty 
 years ago, a course of studies and experiments. The 
 system of gymnastics now known as the " new system " 
 was the result of these studies and experiments. Per- 
 haps I should say, for the information of such readers 
 as may not have an opportunity to witness exercises in 
 the new school, that the main features of this system 
 are the following: 
 
 1st. The movements are all executed with very light 
 apparatus, wooden dumb-bells, wooden rings, light 
 wooden rods, small clubs, and bean-bags. 
 
 2d. The thoroughness of the training depends, not 
 upon the slow movements of heavy weights, but upon 
 the width, sweep, and intensity of the movements. 
 For example, instead of " putting up " an iron dumb- 
 bell of great weight with a very limited and slow 
 motion, with the light wooden dumb-bell of the new
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 397 
 
 school an immense variety of difficult feats and postur- 
 ings were achieved, thus securing an infinite variety 
 and combination of muscular movements. 
 
 3d. Every movement is adapted to music, which 
 enhances the interest in arm-movements quite as much 
 as in the leg-movements of dancing. 
 
 These gymnastic exercises figured conspicuously in 
 the Lexington school. Each pupil began with a half-hour 
 or two or three half-hours daily, the amount being 
 determined by the strength of the pupil. I believe 
 that the gymnastic exercises in that school were more 
 complete than have ever been witnessed in any other 
 educational institution. Conscious that I was making 
 the first effort in the education of girls to combine 
 thorough physical with thorough intellectual training, I 
 gave much attention to the gymnastic exercises. Among 
 the hundreds of girls who were in the school during its 
 history, and all of whom joined in the physical training, 
 not one was injured, although the exercises were exceed- 
 ingly comprehensive and thorough. It was the common 
 fact that in the thirty-six weeks which constituted our 
 school-year, a pupil gained three inches about the chest 
 under the arms, while two inches' gain about the arm 
 near the shoulder was common. Girls who came to us 
 under the stipulation that they should not go up more 
 than one flight because of physical inability, walked, 
 before the school-year ended, twelve to sixteen miles on
 
 398 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 a Saturday, which was our day for long tramps. Peri- 
 odical and sick headaches, with which a majority of 
 the girls began the school-year, disappeared entirely 
 before the end of it. Stooping shoulders and pro- 
 jecting chins soon gave way, while the carriage of our 
 pupils was the subject of general remark and admira- 
 tion. 
 
 OUR SLEEPING HABITS. 
 
 Believing, as I do, that our young people, with their 
 large, active brains and small lungs, need more sleep, 
 we began at once to retire at half past eight o'clock. 
 At nine o'clock the watchman made his first round; 
 and if he saw a light in any of the pupils' rooms, he at 
 once reported the fact at head-quarters. This retiring 
 at half past eight o'clock was kept up throughout the 
 history of the school, but no other feature so troubled 
 the pupils. Just in proportion as the head is too large 
 and needs more sleep, there is a nervous longing to sit 
 up to a late hour. Many petitions were presented, 
 signed by scores of the pupils, and by many of the 
 teachers on their behalf, asking me to extend the retir- 
 ing hour to nine o'clock. In one case I think such a 
 petition was signed by every teacher in the school. To 
 this retiring at half past eight o'clock I attribute much 
 of the remarkable improvement in the muscular devel- 
 opment and health among the pupils.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE GHATS. 399 
 
 I have spoken of the watchman. This was a feature 
 in our management. An intelligent person was em- 
 ployed in this office, while the German detective-clock 
 told us at a glance in the morning if he had failed to 
 visit any one of the fourteen points in the school build- 
 ings every half-hour during the night. This was an 
 indispensable precaution against fire and other enemies. 
 
 OUR TABLE. 
 
 Our table was an embodiment of certain convictions 
 which I had cherished for many years. That we all 
 ate too often I had long thought. Twice a day was 
 my idea. Many friends said, " Twice a day may do 
 very well for adults, but is it often enough for growing, 
 hungry school-girls ? " Yes, I was sure of it. And so 
 we ate our first meal at half past seven o'clock, and our 
 second and last meal at two o'clock. When parents 
 came to our school in order to leave a daughter, and 
 learned about the two-meal plan, they were sure that 
 Maggie would starve, and might they not send some 
 boxes of food, which the poor dear child could resort to 
 if she got too hungry ? The girls were very sure they 
 should starve to death ! But all these ominous proph- 
 ecies failed. The girls did not starve, but, on the con- 
 trary, gained in flesh, health, and strength. 
 
 The two-meal system was one of the really valuable 
 features of the management. With two meals a day,
 
 400 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 and the last one not later than two o'clock, forty-nine 
 girls in every fifty will improve in digestion, their 
 skins and lips will become softer, their breath sweeter, 
 they will sleep better, and gain in flesh and strength. 
 
 The third meal, taken as late as six o'clock, is an 
 enemy to sleep, and to that complete recuperation 
 which the night's rest is intended to secure. If there 
 has been a good honest day's work accomplished, there 
 is fatigue ; and when a man is fatigued, he is tired all 
 over, his stomach not less than his back and head ; and 
 while it may be quite proper to drink a pint of weak 
 tea and milk, or thin, hot oatmeal porridge, it is as great 
 a mistake to fill the stomach with food, and set it to a 
 task of three to six hours, as it would be to put the 
 head or back or limbs at a four-hour task. The whole 
 man is tired. The stomach, on account of its marked 
 weakness among us, is likely to be quite as tired as any 
 other part of the man, and needing rest quite as much. 
 The whole man needs to sleep and recuperate. You 
 may, if there be a sense of faintness, swallow a little 
 gentle stimulant, such as already suggested, or any 
 other similar liquid requiring little or no digestion. 
 
 Among our girls there was hard work ; fatigue came 
 with the night, and they went to bed at half past eight 
 o'clock, with the stomach and every other part of the 
 system prepared to rest. 
 
 The best food for girls during the usual school
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 401 
 
 season, which is mostly cool, is, in my judgment, beef 
 and mutton, bread and potatoes, cracked wheat and 
 oatmeal. In great part the preference of each pupil 
 for more or less of each of these articles should be 
 found. 
 
 Our pupils were often instructed in the manner of 
 eating, an art much neglected in this country. They 
 were informed that the only direct contribution they 
 could make to their digestion must be made in the 
 mouth, and that contribution must be made in a 
 thorough use of their teeth. After the food passes into 
 the stomach, one may feel never so anxious about it, 
 one may cherish the strongest desire to digest well, one 
 may wish and pray over it, he can make no distinct 
 contribution to the digestion of his dinner. But while 
 the food is in his mouth he can easily determine 
 whether it shall digest well or ill ; he can easily de- 
 termine that it shall not sour in his stomach, or " sit 
 like an iron wedge." In other words, the saliva is a 
 potent agent in digestion. If the food is thoroughly 
 ground, changed into a perfect paste with the teeth and 
 saliva alone, a perfect digestion is almost certain. 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SCHOOL. 
 
 Having briefly considered the physiological and hy- 
 gienic conditions of our school, I come naturally to its 
 discipline. I have known something of the life of
 
 402 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 about twenty ladies' seminaries. If I were asked for 
 my opinion about their faults, I should say that their 
 gravest error is not in their lack of physical train- 
 ing, but in their discipline or government. Girls 
 are not absolutely angelic, as so many young men 
 think, but they are human, and susceptible of de- 
 moralization. A certain system of discipline not 
 uncommon in ladies' seminaries does more to demoral- 
 ize them than any other influence or agency to which 
 they are exposed. I will illustrate the vicious system 
 to which I refer by an actual case. 
 
 In Seminary there are usually about one hun- 
 dred and twenty girls. These girls are from fifteen to 
 twenty-two years of age, and of a good class. They 
 are almost all from families attached to one religious 
 denomination, and I think that more than half of the 
 pupils themselves are members of that church. There 
 is a wall around the grounds of the establishment, and 
 the girls are never allowed to go outside of it, except 
 when attended by one of the teachers, and none but 
 certain prudent teachers of mature years are allowed 
 to accompany them. The pupils are never permitted 
 to correspond with any one outside their own family 
 circles, and all their correspondence, no matter with 
 whom, must pass through the hands of the principal, 
 subject to such examination as she may think proper. 
 
 No young lady shall call upon another in her room.
 
 FIFE-MINUTE CHATS. 403 
 
 Pupils must not speak to each other without per- 
 mission, not even when passing in the halls of the 
 dormitories. 
 
 Pupils occupying the same bed must not speak to 
 each other after getting into bed ; and so on, and so on. 
 
 When those one hundred and twenty girls entered 
 that school, they came from their mothers' arms in 
 great part transparent, honest, and pure. More than 
 one of them has assured me that she was shocked by 
 what she saw upon entering the school. One intelli- 
 gent young woman said: "The greatest intellectual 
 activity of the school Was seen in dodging the rules. 
 We were not allowed to speak to each other in the 
 passage-halls nor to visit other pupils in their rooms. 
 To make sure of obedience, a teacher or a teacher 
 pupil was kept constantly at the end of each hall to 
 watch. To circumvent this rule, we wrote messages on 
 thin bits of paper, and, squeezing them into little balls, 
 we threw them across the halls into the bedrooms of 
 our neighbors, or, passing their doors, we dodged them 
 in. Then we cultivated the sign language, and, open- 
 ing the opposite doors in a passage-hall, we communi- 
 cated in that way. We might have nothing to say, 
 but we contrived to think up something. 
 
 " We were called upon every morning after prayers to 
 report if we had transgressed any of the rules. The 
 rule was that we must not speak to each other in the
 
 404 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 passage-halls. I arn confident that a large majority of 
 those who actually did speak denied it, and those who 
 did not speak concealed the communication in other 
 ways. Another rule was that we must not converse 
 with our bedfellows after we were in bed. "When I 
 wanted to speak with my companion, I addressed an 
 imaginary person, and requested that imaginary person 
 to whisper in the ear of my bedfellow so and so. She 
 in turn would request the invisible third party to tell 
 me so and so. We sometimes kept up this conversa- 
 tion for an hour; and when we were asked to report 
 any violations of rules, we said nothing of this com- 
 munication through Bridget, for we had not conversed ; 
 we had corresponded through a third party, and that 
 was not forbidden by the rules. Another rule forbade 
 correspondence except through the principal There 
 was hardly a young man in town who cared to do it 
 that did not correspond with one or more of our girls. 
 Indeed, a girl who had not a stone-fence correspondent 
 was considered rather slow, and one who had an active 
 correspondence with two or more young men via Stone 
 Fence post-office was ' considered particularly bright, 
 The letter was slipped under a stone in the fence, and 
 perhaps the next day an answer was found in the same 
 place. It was a perfectly understood thing among scores 
 of young men. If among our girls there was one who 
 had no correspondent outside the lines, another girl
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 405 
 
 would arrange for her through her own correspondent. 
 During the nine months thousands of letters were thus 
 passed through the stone-wall at the rear of our 
 grounds." 
 
 I have given bnt a faint glimpse of the life in the 
 school under consideration. In brief, it was a life of 
 trickery, deceit, and falsehood from day to day through- 
 out the year. 
 
 Tens of thousands of the women of the better classes 
 in our country have been sadly demoralized in this way. 
 For myself, I had rather my daughter should never 
 learn to read the name of the God who made her than 
 to pass through such a school of cheating and lying. 
 
 I repeat what I said in the beginning, that the 
 greatest error in the management of many ladies' semi- 
 naries is in the discipline. The pupils are systemati- 
 cally taught to conceal and deceive ; and though they 
 leave the seminary with additions to their French and 
 music, they are no longer the simple, trusting, honest 
 girls that came from their mothers three years before. 
 It is this moral mischief which has broken the con- 
 fidence of so many of our best people. Girls' private 
 schools are waning. Scores which were flourishing a 
 few years ago have disappeared. Their advantages in 
 many respects no one doubts, but their moral training, 
 their pious discipline, has undermined public confidence. 
 Many mothers have been themselves the victims of this
 
 406 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 bad system, and will not expose their daughters, and 
 many others have heard and are frightened off. It re- 
 quires, even here in educational New England, constant 
 effort in advertising and personal appeal to keep up the 
 patronage ; and even with all this engineering, ladies' 
 seminaries are constantly disappearing. And yet, after 
 a very considerable acquaintance with them, I affirm 
 that their intellectual standard and training are high ; 
 that, indeed, outside of their utterly vicious system of 
 discipline, these schools are worthy of public confidence 
 and patronage. But without a radical change in the 
 spirit of their government, they must entirely disappear. 
 The life of the convent cannot succeed in this country. 
 Such schoools may flourish in Spain and France, but 
 not in these free States. The drift of woman's life in 
 Spain is one thing, the drift of woman's life in America 
 is another. In each country the school for young 
 women must reflect public sentiment. A ladies' semi- 
 nary in Spain which should permit personal liberty to 
 its pupils would lose the confidence of the public and 
 die out. A ladies' seminary in America whose policy 
 deprives its pupils of personal liberty must lose the 
 confidence of the public and disappear. In other words, 
 a girls' school is a part of the life of the people, and 
 must in spirit and manners reflect the intellectual, 
 social, and moral life of the people. 
 
 Excuse me for this extended criticism of some of our
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 407 
 
 ladies' schools. It seemed to be necessary as a back- 
 ground for what I have to say of the government of the 
 school at Lexington. 
 
 I had noticed that when young ladies were in society 
 in a drawing-room with persons of their own age, and 
 with older people whom they respected, their conduct 
 was good, that they observed the laws of propriety, and 
 promptly performed every duty. And yet there were 
 no written rules. Why did they behave themselves so 
 weH? 
 
 I observed that in church, in the street, everywhere 
 outside of the school, girls were admirable in their con- 
 duct. Why do these creatures that realize our ideal of 
 a beautiful life everywhere else need to be put under a 
 strict police, every step watched, and every letter super- 
 vised, as though they were political prisoners, as soon 
 as they enter a girls' school ? The consciousness of 
 being the object of suspicion is itself demoralizing. It 
 humiliates one and destroys one's self-respect. 
 
 I resolved that in the Lexington school this bad 
 policy should find no place ; that there, at least, girls 
 should be treated with respect, and their individuality 
 recognized. 
 
 The pupils corresponded with their friends at pleas- 
 ure. No laws were laid down to govern their conduct, 
 no record was kept of their behavior. They were 
 treated exactly as young ladies are treated outside of
 
 408 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 school, with respect and kindness, and they responded 
 in school to this treatment just as they respond to it 
 outside of school. They were the best behaved per- 
 sons in our community. 
 
 Of course to secure these results there must exist a 
 certain public sentiment. 
 
 At this point I must say something again of the 
 character of our teachers. These were not selected on 
 account of their familiarity with the text-books, 
 though this was of course necessary, but because of 
 their years, general intelligence, good manners, and 
 moral dignity. With a score of teachers of high char- 
 acter and refined manners, and no others should 
 ever find a place in a school, a public sentiment 
 soon grows up which makes it as difficult for a girl 
 to do an improper thing, or neglect a duty, as to be 
 guilty of an impropriety in manners in a drawing-room 
 under the eye of intelligent and refined people. The 
 girls at Lexington who had been in other schools were 
 never tired of contrasting the spirit of our school with 
 others. 
 
 " Here," they would say, " we are trusted, and could 
 not think of doing a mean thing." One excellent girl, 
 who had spent two years in the school referred to in 
 this chapter, said : " There I had to be good, but I could 
 not avoid joining in some of the tricks, or the girls 
 would have laughed at me ; but here I have not heard
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 409 
 
 a dodge or evasion suggested. After being here two 
 years, I have not heard a pupil hint at a disobedience. 
 What, indeed, is there to disobey ? If one of the girls 
 should suggest a naughty thing, I am sure the rest of 
 us would hoot her "out of the school." 
 
 I am confident that the largest contribution to the 
 development of our girls was in the moral region. Our 
 girls learned to respect themselves and to act on honor. 
 If they were inspired, it was toward a true, noble 
 womanhood. With such teachers and companions as 
 Mr. and Mrs. W^eld, and many others of our corps, 
 even a common nature was soon filled with high and 
 holy ambitions. 
 
 I have met teachers with the text-books at their 
 finger-tips who were no more fit to teach school than is 
 a man who cannot read or write. 
 
 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Some years ago I attended a teachers' convention, in 
 which the subject of corporeal punishment was up for 
 discussion. There was a remarkable difference of opin- 
 ion among the speakers, and I fancied, as each speaker 
 rose, I could tell from his face before he spoke what his 
 opinion would be. One man got up, and I whispered 
 to my companion, 
 
 " He will go in for the rod strong." 
 
 He referred immediately to Solomon's injunction, 
 
 18
 
 410 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 and expressed the conviction that one of the duties of 
 children was to obey. And if they would not obey 
 willingly, they must be made to obey unwillingly. 
 Without obedience there was no organization, no school, 
 no education. He was as much in favor of kindness as 
 any man, always preferred moral suasion to whip 
 suasion ; but when moral suasion failed, then of course, 
 etc., etc. Immediately upon his taking his seat another 
 person rose, and I touched my companion, aud whis- 
 pered, 
 
 " Now you '11 hear another story. This one won't go 
 in for lick-suasion." 
 
 His opinion on the subject of beating children in 
 school was written all over him. He began with, 
 
 " Mr. President, I agree with the last speaker. We 
 must have obedience. Without it a school is a pande- 
 monium, and education impossible." 
 
 Then he went on to give something of his own personal 
 experience. He said: "I have taught school twenty- 
 two years. During the first year I whipped four boys, 
 and am ashamed whenever I think of it. Xever since 
 then have I been guilty of such a brutality. I have 
 taught in several schools reputed, to be unruly, and 
 which had had serious struggles or actual fights with 
 my predecessors, but I have in no case been obliged to 
 resort to corporeal punishment. In one instance it 
 seemed to me I had come to the end of my moral
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 411 
 
 influence, and must appeal to the whip. Indeed, I 
 secretly provided myself with a raw-hide, and had 
 made up my mind that upon the recurrence of a cer- 
 tain impropriety on the part of a certain pupil, I would 
 fall back on Solomon and the rod. After thus fully 
 arming myself, I suffered a revulsion of feeling, and 
 determined to try one other expedient, which I had 
 often thought of, but never resorted to. I requested 
 about a dozen of my largest pupils to remain after 
 school, for a little consultation. When all the others 
 had left, I opened my heart to seven girls and four 
 boys. Expressing a thorough abhorrence of the whip, 
 I. told them that I saw nothing but resignation or a 
 resort to the old barbarism. I reserved nothing, but 
 spoke with them as if they had all been teachers, and 
 concluded by asking them if they had any suggestions 
 to offer. After some moments of reflection, one of the 
 larger girls said, ' "Will you let Mary, Susan, and my- 
 self speak to Dan, " labor with him," as the church 
 folks say ? ' 
 
 " I need not tell you that the three girls were made 
 a committee to labor with my refractory pupil. I am 
 sure I need not inform you that the girls were com- 
 pletely successful. From that time to the end of my 
 connection with that school my relations were pecu- 
 liarly pleasant. Nothing appeals so successfully to the 
 better nature of the larger pupils of a school as to be 

 
 412 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 called to consult with the master in a matter of disci- 
 pline. I have never forgotten that lesson, and have 
 ever since looked back upon it as the most fortunate 
 incident of my career as a pedagogue. That teacher 
 who cannot squelch any insurrection by a confidential 
 appeal to his older pupils must be on very bad terms 
 with his school, and ought not to be permitted to kick 
 and cuff and beat his way through his term." 
 
 The first speaker sprang to his feet at this point, and 
 in a loud voice wished to know if the gentleman would 
 permit him to ask a question. Upon being assured 
 that he might ask questions, or have the floor to speak, 
 at his pleasure, he replied by saying, 
 
 " I wish to ask one question : Does the gentleman 
 mean to say that he regards whipping under all cir- 
 cumstances as brutal and barbarous ? If he does, I will 
 inform him that he is now in a company of brutes and 
 barbarians, and I would advise him to seek better com- 
 pany." 
 
 The moral-suasion gentleman replied that in the dis- 
 cussion of so grave a problem he should not engage in 
 mere personal sparring. If it appeared that a school 
 could be managed without resorting to personal vio- 
 lence, he should not hesitate to pronounce the inflic- 
 tion of physical torture as brutal and barbarous. 
 
 I came away from the discussion with the conviction 
 that the proper subject for debate in that convention
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 413 
 
 was not, " Is corporeal punishment necessary in the gov- 
 ernment of a school ? " but, " What degree of intellect- 
 ual and moral development is necessary in a school- 
 teacher ? " That some persons can teach school even 
 a large unruly school without a resort to corporeal 
 punishment is admitted by all. I have known several 
 striking illustrations of this power. Indeed, I think it 
 is common with reference to the management of an 
 average school. 
 
 When I was a boy our school was reported unruly. 
 Mr. Jennison came first. The boys put a big cat in 
 his desk, which jumped out in the middle of the fore- 
 noon when he opened his desk to get his reading-book. 
 There was a great laugh, and the teacher gave us a long 
 and angry lecture, and told us that if the thing occurred 
 again, he would certainly find out who did it, and that 
 that boy would never forget his punishment the longest 
 day he ever lived. 
 
 Tom Goodrich, who put in the cat, said he would 
 never put in another cat, because the teacher was dis- 
 pleased with it, and for his part he would never dis- 
 please a teacher, not if he knew it. He thought it was 
 wrong for scholars to disobey their teachers. He put 
 no more cats into the teacher's desk, but he succeeded 
 in finding some other means of annoyance, and the 
 master was soon compelled to leave. 
 
 Samuel Lathrop was our next teacher, and he stayed
 
 414 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 almost a month. For a teacher among us, he got to 
 be almost an old settler, but after four long weeks he 
 got into trouble, and left. The mischief began in that 
 fatal desk. Tom Goodrich, the bad, was unfortunately 
 an ingenious boy, and contrived what he called a back- 
 action friction-machine, and put it into that desk. It 
 was so contrived that when the lid of the desk was 
 opened, it set a bunch of matches going, and that in- 
 stantly ignited a little train of powder which ran in 
 among six bunches of fire-crackers. It worked per- 
 fectly the first time the master opened the desk. 
 
 After the screaming was over, the frightened girls 
 coaxed back, and the smoke had cleared away, the 
 master called out, "Thomas Goodrich." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Come here." 
 
 Tom went to the teacher as quick as he could go. 
 
 " Thomas, do you know who put those fire-crackers 
 in my desk ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Who was it ? " 
 
 " It was me." 
 
 Tom was a great fighter and a rowdy, but he had 
 a capital habit of telling the truth. Sometimes he 
 would n't answer questions about certain neighborhood 
 scrapes ; but if he spoke at all, his worst enemy would 
 assure you that it was certain to be the truth. The
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 415 
 
 master, looking Tom strong in the face, cried out, in 
 fierce tones, 
 
 " Thomas Goodrich, what did you do it for ? " 
 
 Tom looked at the master in the quiet manner of a 
 bull-dog, and answered, 
 
 " For fun." 
 
 " Thomas, take off your coat. I '11 show you another 
 kind of fun." 
 
 Off went the coat, and Tom stood still, with his arms 
 folded, while the master pulled out a large whip from 
 behind a seat. 
 
 " Thomas, stand here and put up your arms." 
 
 Tom did as he was told, and down came the whip. 
 
 Tom had great confidence in a clinch. In that he 
 had never been beaten. The girls and young children 
 screamed and fled, but the large boys formed a ring 
 around the combatants, and no matter which was on 
 top, the boys cried, 
 
 " Let 'em alone ; keep your hands off ; give 'em fair 
 play." 
 
 For some minutes the result seemed doubtful. The 
 master was a success in body-work, but in face-work 
 Tom was undeniably the better man. In biting and 
 gouging he had won a high reputation. The antago- 
 nists, after some minutes of struggling, stopped for 
 breath, and the master contrived to extricate himself 
 and get on his feet. He gasped out,
 
 416 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 " Now take your seats ! I '11 teach you to put fire- 
 crackers in my desk." 
 
 But the woful condition of his face and coat made 
 his assumption of authority and superiority too ludi- 
 crous ; and when Tom, without a scratch on his face, 
 stood up and said, in his quiet, bull-dog way, " If you 
 want t' other eye shet up, and the rest of your clothes 
 torn off, just say the word, and I '11 try to accommo- 
 date ye," it was too much for the master, and he 
 sneaked away to his boarding-place, and that night 
 disappeared. He never came back for his month's 
 
 pay- 
 
 Charles Clapp was our next, a slight, pale young 
 man. He began with a little speech, in which he said 
 that he came to teach, and not to fight ; that just as 
 soon as he could not get on without beating his pupils, 
 he should leave. 
 
 The district had a reputation as being the hardest in 
 all the country ; and as soon as the new teacher had 
 announced that in no case should he whip his scholars, 
 the wise ones gave him three to five days to stay in our 
 school. The irrepressible Tom came to the front again. 
 His success with the last teacher had made a lion of 
 him, and now, as it was agreed all round that Clapp 
 could not stay long, Tom was determined to multiply 
 his honors. Young Clapp had studied medicine, and 
 was now teaching to get the needed funds for his last
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 417 
 
 course of lectures and diploma. Tom called him the 
 young quack, and the pupils generally caught it up, 
 and the master was spoken of among the scholars as 
 the young quack. Then Tom put four ducks into that 
 fruitful desk ; and when the master opened it, the 
 creatures began the cry of Quack, quack, quack! to the 
 great delight of the pupils. There was a long and up- 
 roarious laugh. The master took out the ducks one 
 after another, smoothed their backs and set them at 
 liberty at the door, and then, joining in the laugh, 
 turned to his work as if nothing had happened. But 
 Tom was not discouraged, and watched for another op- 
 portunity. It was not long wanting. He wrote the 
 word " quack " on a bit of paper ; and, making a hook 
 with a pin, he contrived, when pretending to ask the 
 master's assistance about a sum, to hitch it to his coat- 
 tail. As he moved about, the scholars saw it, and the 
 amount of snickering was prodigious. At the end of 
 the first week things looked pretty bad, but the teacher 
 kept on in the even tenor of his way, doing his own 
 part of the school-work promptly, cheerfully, and well. 
 Soon the larger girls and boys, whom he arranged to 
 give three lessons in history each week, meeting in the 
 evening here and there among the patrons of his 
 school, became greatly interested in the new master, 
 and before long it became evident to Mr. Clapp that a 
 new current had begun in the school. In a month it 
 
 18*
 
 418 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 was a model school ; and when the spring came, the 
 trustees responded to a petition signed by almost every 
 patron of the school, when they offered to double the 
 master's salary if he would return the next autumn ; 
 but he had made up his mind that he would launch his 
 medical bark. 
 
 From the beginning to the end of the school at Lex- 
 ington, the policy in the government was to preoccupy 
 the minds of the pupils. A pupil who is interested in 
 her studies will always behave well. 
 
 ORAL INSTRUCTION. 
 
 The conviction is growing among educators that 
 class-books occupy a too prominent place in our schools. 
 The idea that the class-book should be used as a book 
 of reference, and not kept in the pupil's hands con- 
 stantly, is becoming familiar to teachers. This was our 
 thought at Lexington, and had much influence in deter- 
 mining the character of the instruction. 
 
 For many years I had been lecturing upon physi- 
 ology and hygiene, and had been constantly assured by 
 young people who had been studying the subject in 
 school, with the aid of a class-book and a teacher to 
 hear them recite their lessons, that a half-hour's lecture 
 from me gave them clearer notions of a subject than 
 they had obtained in weeks of class-book study and 
 recitation. I had myself passed through a similar expe- 

 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 419 
 
 rience in iny medical studies. Certain professors gave 
 me as muck as I could fairly grasp and make my own 
 in one hour as I could get from the books in a week. 
 A part of this is without doubt the fault of the style 
 of the class-books. They differ widely in the style of 
 composition from conversation and extempore lectures. 
 If they were made as clear, chatty, and familiar, as full 
 of illustration and anecdote, as our conversations, it 
 would greatly enhance their practical value ; but even 
 then they would lack the power of adaptation. Almost 
 every class, to say nothing of each individual, requires 
 peculiar treatment. Only the living teacher is capable 
 of this adaptation to the case in hand. 
 
 The drift toward specialisms in all professions and 
 trades is one of the fruits of a ripening civilization, and 
 in no profession is it so vital' as in that of the teacher. 
 That is a rare person who can teach well in more than 
 one department. If he is a teacher of mathematics, he 
 must be a very large man if he will bear cutting in two 
 to give one half to the languages. Even in surgery we 
 find one man devoting his whole life to the eye, another 
 to the ear, another to the nose, and another to the 
 throat. No great advancement was made in any of 
 these until the specialists divided the work ; and yet in 
 great part these specialisms involve little more than 
 mechanical manipulation. A really successful teacher 
 in moral science must expend more intellectual force
 
 420 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 than all these medical specialists put together. A suc- 
 cessful teacher of history must be a person of more 
 brains than a surgeon who should successfully manage 
 the eye, ear, and nose. He may conduct his pupil 
 through the stereotyped events of chronology, but there 
 is about as much history in such a service as there is 
 of a man in his bony skeleton. 
 
 I have rarely seen anything more pitiful than one of 
 these little hundred-pound dyspeptic-sick graduates of 
 a female seminary in the position of teacher. She has 
 been engaged to teach algebra, history, natural philos- 
 ophy, and moral science, with primary instruction in 
 French and music. Each of the seventy-five pupils 
 who recite to her daily has a class-book with questions 
 and answers. She poor little machine ! filling about 
 one third of a teacher's arm-chair holds the class- 
 book in her hand, and watches to see if in their answers 
 they miss a word. Perhaps the two hundred and twen- 
 ty dollars a year, with board and washing, is about right 
 for such services ; but both teaching and compensation 
 challenge our pity. 
 
 Under such conditions as I have related, the Lex- 
 ington school soon became a vital force in the com- 
 munity. Its numbers rapidly increased ; the novel and 
 original method by which it was conducted commend- 
 ing itself more and more to people of intelligence and
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 421 
 
 refinement. Its destruction by fire was felt to be a 
 public calamity by all, as the most beneficial results 
 were hoped from its permanent establishment in our 
 midst. 
 
 A CURIOUS LETTER. 
 
 FRANS HERMAN WIDSTRAND, the Swede, ex-royal 
 secretary, becoming disgusted with the tyranny of a 
 kingdom, came to America in 1855, sought and found 
 employment in the Treasury Department at Washing- 
 ton, but afterward removed to the northern shore of 
 Lake Constance, Wright County, Minnesota, where he 
 has since resided. His principal occupation is writing 
 for newspapers and magazines, which he does in five 
 different languages. The following letter from this 
 gentleman to the Cincinnati " Commercial " will be 
 read with interest : 
 
 " To THE EDITOR CINCINNATI ' COMMERCIAL ' : I 
 have seen quoted from your pages an article concerning 
 Dr. Dio Lewis and cheap food. Cheap properly means 
 obtained with little labor. Sometimes one will for little 
 money get things that are very dear to the producer, re- 
 quiring much labor. The producer of wheat, beef, but- 
 ter, etc., does not get one tenth as much for his labor as 
 a clerk in the Departments in Washington ; and still 
 clerks complain of high prices of such things, although
 
 422 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 their labor is not one tenth as hard as a farmer's. I 
 have tried both, and know whereof I am writing. 
 
 "About a year ago there was an article in ' Hunt's 
 Monthly' concerning Indian corn. It stated that it 
 contains more than four times as much oily matter as 
 wheat-flour, and that its composition makes it capa- 
 ble of alone sustaining man ; that one pound of it, 
 parched or made into bread, is more than equal to two 
 pounds of fat meat. After having read that, I con- 
 cluded to try it. Mixing corn-meal with water, I put it 
 in a spider and baked it on the coals in the parlor 
 stove. A cake seven inches in diameter and one inch 
 thick was more than sufficient for a meal. Three 
 times a week for weeks I ate nothing else, did not long 
 for anything, retained my weight, and was never sick. 
 Corn boiled, not too soft, will probably do as well. 
 
 " Here it takes about ten days' work, besides fencing, 
 for an acre of corn, which will yield fifty bushels, or 
 about one hour's work to produce half a bushel of corn, 
 which is more than sufficient for ten days for one per- 
 son. At the present price in money (thirty cents per 
 bushel), it will cost about one and a half cents per day, 
 about five dollars per year. A rational person will 
 be more satisfied on that than on the fare at the best 
 hotels in Europe or America. 
 
 " So much for the staff of life. From one eighth of 
 an acre of ground one can raise all the garden-stuff one
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 423 
 
 wants, including five bushels of strawberries, apples, 
 squash, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, 
 asparagus; and three eighths more will be enough to 
 raise the corn, half an acre for all the food a person 
 needs for a year. This requires no hard labor. One can 
 work it with light shoes and thin clothing, be dressed 
 like a true gentleman, and have no hard washing. 
 When the weather is warm, it is very comfortable and 
 healthy to go barefoot. Clothing, shoes, bedclothes, etc., 
 need not cost more than ten dollars per year. It is folly 
 to keep any animals. The Chinese and Japanese know 
 that. Steam, caloric, wind, water, etc., can do their work. 
 A very comfortable house, large enough for one person, 
 eight by twelve feet, can be built here for less than 
 twenty dollars. Most everybody can do it for himself. 
 Land costs less than twenty-five cents an acre under 
 the Homestead law. So we need no agrarian laws. 
 Able-bodied persons do not need to steal or cheat or He 
 or go to banking or dickering to make a decent living. 
 If they will associate, be of one soul and one mind, and 
 have all things in common, as the first Christians, they 
 can soon have all the comforts that money can buy, and 
 many which they cannot obtain for money, without 
 the infernal antagonistic competition generally prevail- 
 ing, where the good and gentle and weak succumb to 
 the bad and strong, where not more than one out of a 
 hundred can set himself to work properly and know
 
 424 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 how to make a living, where the best are treated badly 
 and prevented from doing good to themselves and others, 
 where isolation on the large prairies or in the dense 
 woods is almost as bad as the crowding in large cities. 
 Political economists ought to. study the economy of the 
 Shakers, Icarians, Zoarites, Perfectionists, etc., etc., and 
 may then be able to get an answer to the question of 
 the abolition of misery, suffering, and wrongs, which 
 ought to be done before the Fourth of July, 1876." 
 
 The above very curious letter I publish for its in- 
 trinsic interest, and as the occasion for some remarks 
 upon that class of philosophers of which Thoreau is an 
 eminent modern representative, and of which this dis- 
 tinguished Swede is another. 
 
 Obtaining the best education which the schools can 
 give, using freely the books, magazines, papers, postal 
 facilities, pens, paper, clothes, crockery, money, and fifty 
 other things which the combined industries of the world 
 have created, this sort of philosopher abandons every 
 obligation to children, to society, to the State, refuses to 
 return anything to that civilization which has done so 
 much for him, abandons the poor and helpless, and 
 crawls away into a cabin in the Concord woods or out 
 upon a prairie, and spends his life whining and scolding 
 over the evils of civilization. I know what has been 
 said in defence of this eccentricity, but to a healthy, 
 brave soul it must ever seem puerile and cowardly.
 
 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 425 
 
 Mr. Widstrand talks of living on five dollars a year ; 
 but if he thinks such an economy pays for living alone, 
 away from society, I can suggest something better. 
 Let him go to the pine forests of Chili, in South Amer- 
 ica, where he can live splendidly on the cones of the 
 pine, without the cost of a penny or an hour's work in 
 a year. All he has to do is to pick them up and eat 
 them ; and the climate in some parts is such that he 
 can live the year round without clothes or a house. 
 Mr. Widstrand's five dollars for food, ten dollars for 
 clothes, and twenty dollars for a house, is a wild, reck- 
 less extravagance. 
 
 To live plainly is a source of health, and therefore a 
 duty ; but to live cheaply for the sake of squeezing 
 one's self into the smallest possible corner in the world, 
 is despicably mean. 
 
 To come out of a university laden with the world's 
 best riches, and then sneak away into a box on the 
 northern shore of Lake Constance, where he hears no 
 sound save that made by the wings of wild ducks, 
 may tickle Mr. Widstrand's conceit, but I regard him 
 as a selfish, narrow-minded, ungrateful, silly egotist. 
 
 And it may be here remarked that all the growling 
 and groaning over this bad world may show a clear 
 moral vision, but it certainly does not show a brave 
 soul. Those who have made up their minds to con- 
 tribute something to the world's welfare spend very
 
 
 426 FIVE-MINUTE CHATS. 
 
 little time in whining over the world. They have some- 
 thing else to do. When you hear a man exclaim, " 
 the selfishness of men ! " " Virtue has departed ! " 
 " Every man has his price ! " while he is doing nothing 
 to help his fellows, you may not doubt his good pur- 
 poses, but you may set him down as weak and cowardly. 
 Whining and scolding are not the language of sym- 
 pathy, hope, and courage. 
 
 THE END.
 
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