The New Mania

THE NEW MANIA. BY CLAUDE T. BARNES. But not e'en pleasure to excess is good; What most elates, then sinks the soul as low; When spring-tide joy pours in with copious flood, The higher still the exulting billows flow, The further back again they flagging go, And leave us grovelling on the dreary shore. Thomson: Castle of Indolence. Nearly everyone has observed cases of that old sort of frenzy- known in medical parlance as "choromania," a mania for dancing; but iEsculapius has given us no word descriptive of that new mad- ness — the mania for roller-skating.The indications are unpro- pitious; soon the novel craze must be recognized both by patho- logical students and by moralists. Rome became insensate from the atrocities of the Colosseum, and delirious with the joys of the theatres, the tables, and the baths; history repeats itself. Rome fell because its citizens had nothing to do but to eat, to drink, and to be merry, and to give orders to their slaves. Often when a people have become infatuated with an oddity, a retrogression has taken place, intellectually and morally; posterity alone has appreciated the cause. It is a mere truism to say that excess in anything is bad, while moderation may be beneficial. Students of toxicology are well aware that no exact definition of the term "poison" can be given, because it is impossible to select any group of substances that are poisons under all conditions; the salts of potassium, for instance, are, in small quantity, not only non-poisonous, but absolutely necessary to the maintenance of a healthy body, while in larger doses they quickly produce death. As with poisons, so it is with

866 IMPROVEMENT ERA. amusements: pleasure properly chosen and moderately indulged, and exhilarating, while a surfeit produces a slow is indispensable moral death. Epictetus has said: "It is the part of a wise man to resist pleasures, but of a foolish one to be a slave to them." All manias are alike. The person who cannot resist the in- sane desire always to be roller-skating labors under impulses sim- ilar to those of the kleptomaniac, who cannot overcome the fancy to steal, or of the pyromaniac, who has a passion for setting fire to everything. Some people, afflicted with tomomania, long to perform surgical operations; some, suffering from coprolalia, can- not withstand the mania for using obscene words; and others, overcome by oinomania, must have their intoxicating drink. Is there any difference between the youth that is crazy over a skating rink and him who, conquered by melomania, has an excessive pas- sion for music? Many an insane asylum contains inmates who are afflicted merely with melancholia, "the blues." However, a rage for roller-skating may never entirely over- turn a person's mind, and its chief evils lie in another direction. The very nature of the amusement tends to make it immoralizing. No girl would think of going to a dance without a respectable partner upon whom she may depend to accompany her safely home; but to the skating rink she may go anytime and alone, partners not being necessary in the sport. Frequently young girls and even married women, get into the habit of attending the rink in the afternoon, * and of depending upon a chance acquaint- ance to escort them home; and idle men and idle young women soon show signs of what too many cities, too may courts, heartily deplore. It has long been known that a very large per cent of the di- vorces of New York City germinate in the skating rinks, while elsewhere the evils of the craze are being rapidly appreciated. In many cities of America, it is not only unseemly, but disrepu- table to be seen at such places of amusement, and only a lower class

• [A traveler actually reported that in a southern settlement, wives left their dinner dishes, and neglected their duties, secular and religious, to buckle on the skates, and sport in the rink, and, of course, men and boys were doubtless as bad. —Editors. J

THE NEW MAMA. 867 attend?. When one reflects that virtue or vice is, to an immature mind, largely a matter of environment, one cannot resist a feeling of solicitude at the growth of probably the most virulent of all the pastimes found in our communities. Its dangers are recorded in the law reports; but elsewhere little or no warning is given. If,when Damocles was seated at the banquet to which Dionysius had invited him, he had not known that above his head hung a sword by a single hair, he undoubtedly would have enjoyed that sumptuous repast given in his honor. Thousands of the youth of the Latter-day Saints are infatuated with roller-skating without any comprehension of the pitfalls it contains, though if they really knew, the sincere in heart would be as anxious to leave it alone as Damocles was to leave the emperor's table. Public opinion is a very strong force in the maintenance of a moral equilibrium; but even public opinion must be based upon experience. The perils of roller-skating will not be acknowledged by the majority of the Latter-day Saints until some few of our youth have met defilement through it; but then the dehortation will be too late. As Lord Avebury said: When there are so many innocent pleasures, why choose any which are bad, or even doubtful? At any rate, exhaust the good, if you can; it will then be time enough to think of others. Let not Lord Avebury's warning meet the fate of the proph- ecies of Cassandra, which Apollo caused no one to believe. Kaysville, Utah.