There are people who get up in the morning for the express purpose of making somebody uncomfortable before the day is out. They generally pitch upon some sunny-faced, happy, singing human lark carolling high above the ditches and marshes of life, soaring in the blue ether of his happiness, nearer God and the angels than he himself knows anything about, and, taking practised aim at some vulnerable point, bring him plump down, with maimed wing, to flutter in the dust. Now what is good enough for such a miscreant? The more you flutter the better he likes it; every writhe of your agonized spirit is delicious music to this vulture; there is one other person in the world as uncomfortable as himself. What right had you to be happy when his liver was out of order? It was clearly a piece of impertinent presumption, and so there you lie moaning and turning, the sunshine all gone, the chill mist of despondence gathering thick about you, and your persecutor standing by, turning you over now and then with his foot, to see if there is life enough left for a fresh attack.
[COUNTRY DIET.]
FOREIGN missions and missionaries. These have their place and their work. What I want to see is a Home Mission and Home Missionaries, having for an object the extermination of the unhealthy and immoral bread of New England. When matters have got to that pass that a perfectly sound, healthy person cannot decline eating this poison without being supposed to have an imperfect digestion, the climax of stupidity and ignorance is reached by its makers and defenders. "The heathen?" Great Cesar! who are heathen, if the makers of this bread are not? I know of a factory where pie, whose principal ingredient is "lard," is the staple article of food placed before the operatives. And so imperfectly is it baked, that the lard is not really melted in the process. This for breakfast! with muddy coffee and sour bread! This for supper, with sour bread. This "pie" taken to the factory for lunch or dinner also. Imagine a hundred or so of young women feeding on such poison as that. Future wives, possibly, of hard-working mechanics, expected to do the family washing, and bear and rear children, on the results of such an atrocious diet. It were enough to expect them even to bear themselves, robbed of the vitality and spring of their youth by these fiendish providers. The man who sets fire to a house at night, and smothers all the inmates, is a saviour in comparison. They die at once. These linger weary years, fighting disease, fighting gloomy thoughts, as truly needing compassion and sympathy as any victim of delirium-tremens. Now take a girl, fresh from the old country, her cheeks red with the rich, pure blood manufactured from sweet-milk, potatoes, and oatmeal, and place her in one of these factories on this fare. It needs no seer to tell how long, even with such a stock of health as she brings, that she can stand this exterminating process; how long before those sound white teeth will begin to ache and blacken, and the bright clear eyes dim, and the cheek wear yellow instead of red roses, and the flesh become flabby, and the whole creature become demoralized. Now, I ask, Is nobody guilty for all this waste and wreck? Is it any more trouble to make sweet, wholesome bread, than to manufacture and multiply bad pies? As a matter of policy, wouldn't these operatives work better on a piece of beefsteak and a slice of sweet bread, than on pie and pickles? As a matter of morality, ought not such caterers to be held to strict account? Can virtue even flourish where the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint; when morbidness takes the place of hope, and faith is merged in despair? What wonder that of dyspepsia should come the suicide's rope?
And as to the usual country boarding-house or hotel fare, for which the keepers of these places coolly pocket their fees, I propose some deduction be made by them for the doctor's bills consequent the ensuing winter; some reduction for the sour milk that the children have drunk, because the cans in which it was kept were not properly washed and aired, or the ice-house kept in good order; some reduction for the state of the stomach caused by taking refuge from bad bread in poor crackers; some reduction for generating such a disgust of meat, from the sight of it in its various stages of raw, burnt, and grease-soaked, that weeks or months even of wholesome food can scarcely tempt one trial of the article; some reduction for aching limbs produced by bunchy beds an entire "season;" some reduction for boarders performing the part of "waiters," through the season, in the total absence of bell-wires in the establishment; some reduction for inhaling the noxious gases of refuse kitchen matter, carelessly thrown around the house, or the nuisance of beating about the country in search of a washerwoman. Before the bill is finally settled, and the trunks packed, I would like to see these questions considered by the country landlord.
But you say, "It is all ignorance; they don't know any better." As if that was not just where the agony came in! As if an "ignorant" person had any right to take such a position, or any right to expect anything like the same pay as a competent, intelligent one receives.