TOPICS OF THE HOUR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue XLVII, 12 March 1912, Page 2

TOPICS OF THE HOUR.

(From an English Paper.) NERVES. We* arc every one of lis "bundles of nerves." Such is the compressed substanee of the allegation. It i's at least a relief to find an indictment which does not invidiously differentiate between the sexes. If we must be accused of nerves, by all means let us have the male half of humanity in the dock with us. For everyone kiiow s that nervous breakdown, whatever that may precisely mean, is ilot the peculiar property of woman. Everv day we hear of men who have insisted upon their share of it. Whether or not it is just to plead in answer that men bear more of the stress of modern existence doe 6 not affect the point. With the cause of the disease we are not for the moment concerned. The question is the extent of its prevalence, 'The very thought is enough to produce brain-storm or neurasthenia do vou prefer your slang in American or. reek ? Yet we must confess that it is. not altogether the baseless fabric of a vision We will not speculate as to what will become of our great-grand-children. What, after all, has posterity done for us? But there is no doubt that we live i n times trying to the nerves. The reference is not to ware and rumours of wars, to the heathen furiously raging together and Chancellors of the" Exchequer imagining vain things. All these wcos, even a Chancellor are transient. The rczil trouble consT6"6s in the very conditions of modern life. This is not, as you had begun to fear, just developing into a diatribe against the modern hunger for luxury, the modern cult of oleasure. It happens' to be the opinion of the writer that upon the whole tlie nation has not very much more pleasure, and wastes not much more-tinic.about.it, than it did o»e century or two centuries or

three centuries ago. Wherevc-r you hear some Jeremiah de nos jomv proclaiming the horrid deterioration of English people in devoting golden hours to .•-port er amusement, you will find :t a wholesome corrective to consider for a litticwhile the amusements and the -sportwhich used to flourish. But all thi.is merely parenthetical. The danger to the nerves in our mo dern life lies not in the hurry of pleasure, but in the- hurry cf busine-.-. \\ lthin the last centurv. and yot more within the last- half-century, the progress of mechanical invention has been Po great that every kind of work, from to the Prime Minister has become vastlv easier to do. \astiy easier, and yet- vastlv harder. W c - are all of us, from the humblest to the highest, provided with appliances which save us a huge amount of commonplace "humdrum work. The mechanical paits of our task are done by machinery. lou touch a switch, you talk into a telephone, you cover 20 miles as quickly as you could six. But "unto whom much is given, of them much is required. If the details have been abolished we have all the more to do. We are all of us, from the Prime Minister to the housemaid, expected to do more, and to do it better. Life has become more comfortable, and yet much hardei. "What I ha' seen since I began." says Mr Kipling's engineer, "leaves me no doubt <>' the machine. But what about the man?" We have saved our hands and feet trouble, but we have given the brain much more to do. And the change has been so swift that in many people human nature has not had time to adapt itself to the change Hence all the lamentations about the ferocity of the modern struggle for life, and the nerve strain, and the decenera.tion of the lace. But, after all, it is only a natural Ft «nge in the evolution of humanity. From the time that primeval man determined to specialise in brain, to live-by his wits instead of- size, like the elephant, oi speed like an antelope, the human race has been steadily putting more am more strain on its 'nerves, and less and less on its body. And. on the whole, experience has proved it right.