NOISE-WRACK BOGEY EXPOSED

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 30 September 1933, Page 11

NOISE-WRACK BOGEY EXPOSED

Industrial Health Board in it's recent report states that after close investigation it has been proved that the constant clatter of many typewriters makes no difference to the health of the sufferers amd. practically none to their .efficiency, writes A.. P. Garland in the 1 ‘ Daily Mail.” This may serve to calm- to some extent the panic-mongers who' are always bemoaning the stress! and fury Of modern life. For example, they indict the speeding-up, which ii& the salient f eature of latter-day transport, and' assure us that the raite at which we are borne m our trains, motor cars and other vehicles is making flhiis a nerve-racked age. Yet, on analysis, we see how feeble is this charge. Which is the mo,re soothing /to sit at ease in a comfortable railway carriage or rubber-tyred motor car travelling smoothing at 40 to 60 miles an hour, or to, be jolted about in rattling, springless, slow-moving ve hitelle.4 over rough ground?

Again, if we survey the whole field of human existence we shall quickly realise how modem inventions have greatly ameliorated the disabilities which our forebears had willy-nilly to endure.

In the home, labour-saving devices have gOit rid of 90 per cent, otf the drudgery of domestic work. No longer is th'e housewife an old woman before she is forty. In. the industrial and commercial world, science has provided us with infinite means of avoiding the

Life Grows Easier in Modern World

tccious and agonising labour of the bad old days.

Even in such matters as bodily pain, which surely must be the greatest of all nerve irritants, medical’ discovery has endowed us bountifully with palliatives. No man, for instance, with tablets at 'his dl'bow need endure a headache for any length of time; his grandfather had usually to. grin and bear it. And in grave illnesses the patient of to-day has a luxurious time in comparison’ with his predecessors. . True, i't must be admitted that ours is a noisier world thafn ever before. The growth of traffic and of factories' has produced a volume of sound that might be expected to be gravely injurious to the nerves'. Yet to accept this belief would be to discount unwarrantably the amazing adaptability of the human race to changing conditions. Old and' feeble people may find the noise Of modern traffic oppressive, but it is- their—te'pjr of resiliency that is ,to blame. YU The modem Child, born into a noisy world, suffers no discomfort from the turmoil. To him or her it i 9 the natural condition of things. And the riveter or boilermaker nqikes mo complaint of the din in which he labours. To sum it up, we have mo need to worry about the stress of modern life. It is now smoother and easier than' ever before, as our predecessors, if they got the chance, would be willing to admit. In confirmation one has bat itk» glance at the mortality tables of the life insurance companies.