CITY V, COUNTRY LIFE.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11670, 1 February 1902, Page 4

CITY V, COUNTRY LIFE.

The verdict that "rural populations are happier and healthier in body, mind and morals" than the residents of towns and cities Tv-ill, says an American paper, be accepted without question in some quarters, but in more than one respect the theorem is debatable. •It is to form such an opinion if we look upon the manifest imperfections of city life. Many urban occupations promote disease of various kinds.; The sedentary life has its terrors for lungs, liver and kidneys. Strain of business engenders jiervousness and depression. Vies in its gayer form thrusts itself upon attention at every turn. Yet the country is not without its share of troubles. -The typical fanner bent and anxious; the typical farmer's wife, dulleyed and wrinkled, are not exactly pictures of abounding health. Th# has His diseases and his difficulty to get doctor, medicine and nurse promptly. Runaways and explosions take, him off quite as expeditiously and often more distressingly than they operate upon the city man. The" farmer's wiie grows old before her time. She falls bodily under hard work; she goes insane 1 through loneliness and worry. The sanitary achievements that have*prolonged life in the modern city are all but unknown on the average farm. Health of mind is not synonymous' with emptiness and rest. There are healthful as well as stimulating effects in the social and intellectual stimulus of libraries, lectures, theatres, museums, concerts and good preaching. In the realm of morals and training of the young we have long cherished the tradition that the country is ahead of the city. Herein, perhaps, lies a danger of confusing the country with hard work and the citv with idleness. It is true that poverty gives the young man habits of industry and equipments for life's battle which aje apt to be denied the children of the rich; but it is also true that the successful' "man began life as a newsboy or mechanic or clerk or office boy quite as often as he began on the farm. The city has its peculiar offences of conviviality and artificial pleasures. But in the country are nourished solitary vices, feuds and hardness of heart which the more cultivated and absorbing life of the city tends to eradicate. It is a mistake to suppose that in the country one escapes temptation ; for human nature is the same everywhere and the strongest tempters are those man carries about with, him in his own body and mind.