share of
corporal exertion, as well as with that of mere scholars, I must ask
leave to digress, in order to show that in this part of the country at
least the work of the body probably occasions more strain than in
Europe, and is followed by greater sense of fatigue.

The question is certainly a large one, and should include a
consideration of matters connected with food and stimulants, on which I
can but touch. I have carefully questioned a number of master-mechanics
who employ both foreigners and native Americans, and I am assured that
the British workman finds labor more trying here than at home; while
perhaps the eight-hour movement may be looked upon as an instinctive
expression of the main fact as regards our working class in general.

A distinguished English scholar informs me that since he has resided
among us the same complaints, as to the depressing effects of physical
labor in America, have come to him from skilled English mechanics. What
share change of diet and the like may have in the matter I have not
space to discuss.[1]

[Footnote 1: The new emigrant suffers in a high degree from the same
evils as to cookery which affect only less severely the mass of our
people, and this, no doubt, helps to enfeeble him. The frying-pan has, I
fear, a better right to be called our national emblem than the eagle,
and I grieve to say it reigns supreme west of the Alleghanies. I well
remember that a party of friends about to camp out were unable to buy a
gridiron in two Western towns, each numbering over four thousand eaters
of fried meats.]

Although, from what I have seen, I should judge that overtasked men of
science are especially liable to the trouble which I have called
cerebral exhaustion, all classes of men who use the brain severely, and
who have also--and this is important--seasons of excessive anxiety or of
grave responsibility, are subject to the same form of disease; and this
I presume is why we meet with numerous instances of nervous exhaustion
among merchants and manufacturers. The lawyer and clergyman offer
examples, but I do not remember to have seen many bad cases among
physicians. Dismissing the easy jest which the latter statement will
surely suggest, the reason for this we may presently encounter.

My note-books seem to show that manufacturers and certain classes of
railway officials are the most liable to suffer from neural exhaustion.
Next to these come merchants in general, brokers, etc.; then