H. B. P.
Said High Blood Pressure to the Overworking Man: "Your heart has too much to do; let up, or you'll die within a year."
O. W. M.: "Let up? Why, I need to do thrice as much every day, rather than less."
H. B. P.: "But do you need to do nothing every day? For that is what you are coming to."
O. W. M.: "I seem to be getting along pretty well."
H. B. P.: "Your blood pressure is 245!"
O. W. M.: "But think of my business pressure!"
H. B. P.: "It ought to be about 125,"
O. W. M.: "What of it?"
H. B. P.: "Let up on your work, or it will let you down into your grave."
O. W. M.: "How can I?"
H. B. P.: "How can you not?"
O. W. M.: "I'll think about it. Good-by."
H. B. P.: "And I'll do something more than think about it."
H. B. P. did, and within a year the Overworking Man had entered on his Long Vacation.
Dead Hands at the Wheel.
An automobile was whizzing along Ocean Parkway, New York City, one night. It was coming faster than twenty miles an hour, and a policeman that saw it knew it. He ordered the driver to slow down. No attention was paid to him.
It was a bicycle policeman, and at once he mounted his wheel, and set out after the reckless driver. He followed for many blocks and caught up as the machine had nearly reached Coney Island. "You are under arrest!" he shouted, but the driver did not answer. He had a companion who had brought the automobile to a stop. Not till then was it discovered that the driver was dead. From heart disease or some similar cause he had perished during that mad race.
I wonder that this does not happen oftener. And I wonder that it does not happen in other contrivances than automobiles. Indeed, I am not sure that it does not happen often when men know nothing of it, and perhaps do not learn anything of it.
For the modern world is rushing along so fast that many an institution, many a business firm, many a city, and even nation, is presided over by someone who holds the wheel, to be sure, but in hands that are dead. The pace has been too much for him. The nerve tension has killed him. Of course he still walks the earth, still goes to his office, he still holds his post, but his subordinates whisper that he has "lost his grip," that "his job is getting away from him ”that” he is a back number."
There is danger in this to the rest of us also—to those that are sitting in the automobile back of the driver and to the pedestrians and other drivers along the road.
And there would seem to be only one remedy for the peril, and that is the sound old prescription, "Festina lente," "Make haste slowly." Let us write that motto on every automobile in the land.
A Speed-Controller Needed.
The automobile will yet drive me wild with envy. I could spend the day talking of the points in that wonderful machine which I covet for the machine I carry around with me, the machine that does my work in life; but the latest device for the automobile is, I think, the climax of utility and ingenuity.
It is a contrivance to regulate automatically the speed at which the vehicle shall travel, a sort of governor, like the governor of a steam-engine. The instant the machine gets to going faster than the speed-limit set, the device throws off the clutch, and the automobile at once begins to go more slowly. The instant the machine runs below the speed desired, the brake is removed, the clutch takes hold, and on you flash again. In an instant you can throw the apparatus in gear or out of it. It is a neat little affair, occupying no space at all. Hereafter the conscientious automobilist can bowl along with no fear of policemen or traps or the wrath of country constables; he is in complete control of the situation.
That is what I need—just such a contrivance attached to my life-ma chine. It is so easy to get to going too fast! It is so easy to go too slowly! It is so hard to strike a steady pace, a swift pace, a safe pace, and keep it up day after day and year after year. We may adopt rules, but they will not carry themselves out. Friends may advise, but they are not always at hand. The temptation to overdo when the roads are smooth, and the temptation to underdo when the roads are difficult, is almost irresistible.
To be sure, I have heard of an instrument that, if applied to one's life machine, will do for it all that is claimed for this latest attachment of the automobile; but the instrument is rare and hard to obtain, and still harder to keep in one's possession after it is obtained. I believe it is called common sense.
Wanted-a Plimsoll Line.
Samuel Plimsoll was a London coal-dealer who went to Parliament. He was aroused to the horrible deeds of certain British ship-owners, who sent overloaded ships to sea on purpose that they might sink, crew and all, and the crafty and diabolical owners get the insurance. Plimsoll therefore got through Parliament a law requiring all ships to bear on their sides a plain mark placed there by the government, which was called a Plimsoll mark. This mark shows how low the ship's cargo may cause it to sink in the water. When the ship is loaded to that point, not another ounce may be put on board under severe penalties. Some ships carry a series of marks with appropriate letters, one for the point to which they may be loaded in fresh water (marked F W), one for the winter season (marked W), and one for the summer (marked S), one for the winter in the North Atlantic (marked W N A), etc. These marks must be punched into the plates if the boat is sheathed with iron or steel, and cut into the timber if it is a wooden vessel.
Now, what I should like is some such mark on my physical and mental being, showing just how far I may "load up" with safety. I want to carry a full cargo, and I do not want to go under. It is a great temptation to overload. All kinds of people are shooting burdens on board. Down they go into the hold, and the ship is sinking lower and lower. At what point must I cry "Stop"?
Of course, if I go under, I shall know just where that point is. It will be the point reached just before I went under. But there will be precious little satisfaction in that knowledge. Does anyone know of a Plimsoll for the body and the mind? If so, send him my way with his tape-measure and his paint-pot.
And if there is no such convenient person, I really think it would be better for me to close the hatches and sail off from the dock with a respectable cargo on board, rather than run the risk of depositing the whole cargo on the bottom.