CHAUTAUQU.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12013, 16 March 1920, Page 8

CHAUTAUQU.

The Fenwick Newell Concer. Party entertained a very large audi enco last evening. Mr Newell has a pleasing tenor voice and was recalled. The violinist, Miss Oaples, also made good. Dr Giosel is an oratress, and she had the deepest attention of her large audience. Her lecture, “The Road to Happiness ” .was not a cheerful on©, and she treated her audience to a number of painful truths. Although the war. wasover the end was not yet. We had to lace reconstruction, and build a nation of men. Annually we were losing 11,000,000 men, deaths due to preventibie diseases. If we could save that many lives for one y*-ar wo would save that much for democracy. Chronic diseases were the cause in the majority of deaths and she instanced Bright’s disease, which could be cured but could not bo prevented. The speaker condemned excessive meat eating and harried eating. We did not chew enough. No man had a right to die a: 40 years. Apoplexy could not be cured, but could bo prevented, ana the speaker emphasised the benefits of drinking water —two and a half quarts a day. Infirmity did not come with old age—it came with offences against the body. The speaker laid great stress on the middle-aged men safeguarding their health and taking an interest in current affairs. The world needed them because of their experience. The middle-aged or older man had no right to retire and leave,his son to carry on. There was wcfcrk for ooth. The speaker quoted famous men whose real work did not begin until they had reacihed a great age. Id urgihg the men to a sense of their duties she reminded them that what would happen during the next few years would determine our 20th century civilisation. She did not mince matters in dealing with social problems, and in pleading for men to load cleaner lives. She quoted figures which w ere appalling. Idiocy had increased by 500 per cent in 50 years, and yearly 90,000 children were born blind. “History repeats itself, ” she quoted and told of ancient Greece and Romo, which had fallen through degeneracy. Italy too had fallen. Would history repeat itself in our case? , • ' .