FLUFFY BANGS.
"But this is not all. Girls wear long and fluffy bangs, intercepting the sight, and both boys and girls seldom bathe their faces with clear cold water. In the matutinal face washing the eyes are usually closed, while a wet towel is delicately passed over the eyelids. Few persons can bear the pain of opening their eyes wide in a basin of cold water, yet Mr. A. M. Spangler told, in his interesting lecture on Nassau, how the native population would dive to the bottom of the sea and bring up shells, sponges, etc., that had been pointed out to them by curious visitors through a sea glass. Not only men divers, but also little boys and girls could keep their eyes open in the water and search for cents which had been thrown in for them to pick up. This shows that even salt water is not injurious to eyes accustomed to it, and that habit makes the eye unnaturally sensitive."
As to the statement that "people who live much out of doors are usually very keen-sighted," it is an expression of a popular idea, but, like most popular ideas, is true only to a limited extent. The fact is that persons who do not live much out of doors generally use their eyes more for near work, such as reading, sewing, drawing, etc., and hence are more likely to develop near-sightedness. Persons living indoors who are not near-sighted are able to see as well and as far as those who live outdoors. It is true that the old sailor will recognize a ship in the horizon, or any other distant object at sea, sooner than a landsman. But it is not because he is any more "keen-sighted." It is because he knows just what to look for. He has seen such objects amid similar surroundings a thousand times, and recognizes them, even though his vision be considerably impaired by disease. I have often found, on testing the vision of such persons, that it was not more than one-half the normal, and yet they declared, and, I believe, conscientiously so, that they could discern a ship at sea as far as any one. A very large proportion of the North American Indians, who live much out of doors, have poor sight from inflammatory diseases of their eyes caused by exposure to smoke in their wigwams, and by contagious eye diseases, the propagation of which is favored by their unsanitary methods of living. But, no doubt, many of them can discern distant objects upon the prairies and in the forests farther than their white brothers because of their greater familiarity with the appearances of such objects.
It seems to me that the practice of opening the eyes under water is not to be specially recommended, except in cases of necessity. While many bear it well, to others it is more or less painful and irritating. Moreover, nature furnishes a fluid with which to wash the eyeballs, and applies it herself. It is only necessary to keep the eyelids scrupulously clean, and especially the edges of the eyelids where the eyelashes grow out. For bathing the eyelids when uninflamed, nothing is better than pure cold water. When the eyes become red and inflamed, the best domestic remedy is salt and water, about a teaspoonful to the pint, and applied warm or cold, or at whatever temperature seems most agreeable to the eyes in any particular case.