Vacation

About this time of year the thoughtful student of mankind tinds his respect for his race suildonly revived and increased. It is the season when men are either beginning or ending their vacations. There is no nobler quality thanthatof fortitudo under suflering, and when we lind a weak and sickly man starting boldly on a vacation, or returning with the marks of suffering and mosquitoes on his brow, but disdaining to utter the slightest eomplaint, we reeognize the verv highest type of manly fortitude. The isum of ïnisery suüerea oy me thousands who lcave their confortable oity bornes for theír August vaeation n the country ia sinily ipaHig. We eatoh :t K-li'ins(i (f il '" thl' hagg?rd coMiiii'iiaiices oí tlioso wlin bard just returned and the endden and vast incroase in the practice of physicians in the tnonths of early :nitnnin, wre his niisery endurecí for tho sako oí money or reputation wc oould foei Httlo sympathy with the victims, but as it is met with a lofty and lieroic spirit at the sole dWtate of" duty, the sufferers desorve to rank with the noblest niartyrs. The man who goos on a summer vacaion knows that he must sacriflee moaey, time, health and peaco of mind, and with no reward but tho consciousness that he has done what mankind has igreéd to cali his duty. Avacation may be spent in three ways. A man may either go to a fashionable hotel, a country boarding-house or the wilderness. There is little choice among them, so far as the misery incidental to each is concerned. Let us suppose that the oceupant of a cool and pleasant house in the' city deserts his business at the cali of duty and goes to a watering-place hotel. After enduring the wretchednes3 of a railway journey, he finds himself simt up in ;'i miserable little room, whcre tho heat is tolerable and thu niosquitoes maddening, and wherc the noise in the corridor nrevents him from ing. He is compelled to (line amid the Uprpar of a vast and crowded diningroom, where a swarm of vaiters are eonstantly playing their favorito hideand-seek game of eluding the calis of hunory guests. In the evenkig, life is rmuie v bunlen to hiin with hops and concerts, and he is lucky if he escapes the picnics and ridcs wherewith ctmning landlords hope to make their hotels"seem comfortable by way of contrast. If the martyr selects a country boarding-house 'h!s case is littlc better. Ilis room is, perhaps, smaller and hotter thanthe average room at the ionable hotel, and his diet of penitential pork aml indigestible pie undermines his health with fearful rapidity. He is, of coursfifree trom the noise and bustlo of the hotel, but after he has. spent two conecutive afternoons in the parlor, examining the family photograph3, reading the bound volume of the "Lady's Boák" and the illustrated gift-book published in 1829, he knows the bitterness of life. The vacation spent in the wilderness is, porhaps, the most painful of all. The constant hard work, the daily tramp diet, the frequent wettings, and the wearisome ntghts spent on Uio naru o-round would breuk down any but the Srmest rosolution. It U estimatcd that it takes the man who has passed a vacation at a watering-place or a farmhouse three months to recover his usual health and spirits, but at least ten are roquired to repair the ravages of a fortnight in the wil.derne3s. Of course, the time required to repair such incidental injuries as sprains, bruises, and shot-gun wounds are not included in this estímate, which lias reference solely to the injury whieh the miseries of "camping out'1 intlict upon the constitution. The actual physu-al sufferig wmcuis undergane during a vacation is, howeVer, of minor consequence compared with the terrible necessity of enjoying one's self. This is what the conscientious man constantly does. He reasons that the object of gojng on a vacation is enjoyment, and he makes a point of enjoying himself from dawn to midnight. A man in good kealth, who is regularly eraployed in business, can enjoy himself at odd moments without inflicting any permanent injury upon himself, but a fortnightof aainterréptëd enjoyment is piobably worse than tlie rack or the other ingenious rccreations of the Inquisition. In whatever part of the country we may go during August, we are constantly liable to be shocked by the hagard countenance of the man who is enjcying himself. Some men nerve themselvos to the task, and pass througrh their two weeks of ment wilh a stern unmoved fa -e that commands our adm'tration while it thrills us with plty, but the average man, after steadily enjoying himself for a week or ten days, wears an expression of anguish and despair that would draw tears f rom cyes of stone. No one knows how luany brave and persistent men break down in this treraeudoua effort to enjoy themselves, and perisli with a sweèt, sad smile, comforting themselves with the refiection that they are going whcre they can never again be compelled to enjoy :i vacation. The ottier miseries oi vacation are as nothing in eomparison with the misery of rising up etery morning with the bnrdcn of enjoying one's self weighing on. thö miad, and lytng clown every night witli the knowledgi; that the next day must be spent ia further enjoyment. If ono could go on a va atiou with the knowleclgi; that enjoyment coultl be wholly omittc .1 froni it, all other ills could be borne with ease, but this awful necessity of enjoying one's self might well uppall the stoutest heart. While we must admire and reverence the horoism displaved by the thousands who annually undergo the sull'eving of a summer vacation, it is reasonable to 9,sk oursolves if, after all, vacations are aneeessity. ís it evevy mnn's duty to devoto two weeks n every year to cnjoyment and other miseries? Why ueed we lcave our eomfortable homes and undergo a fortnight of fearful penalice? This is a question for moralista to discuss, and could they decide that a good man need take no vacation, life would suddonly be filled with a burst of simshine. - N. Y. Times. - One of the extraordinary and unaccouutable anics which every nonand theti break out in different parts of India appears to be novv prer&Uing In Madras city. A rumor has got abroad, and is tirmly belicved in by the lower classes of the natives, that the Governinent is about to sacrifice a number of human bèings in order to insure the safety of the new harbor works, and has ordered the pólice to seize victims in the strects. So thoroughly is the idea mplauted tlmt jieople are afraid to venture out aftev nigntfall. Theve was a similar scare ín Calcutta some seven or eight years aso, when the Hooghly Brida was bemg constructed. The nativos tlien got bola oí tue mea 1.11 tu Mother Ganges, indignant at being bridged, had at last consented to subinit lo tíe insult on the condition that each pier of the structure was fomided on a layer of children's heads.