OCR Text |
Show Is MISERLINESS Disease or Kobby? IS MISERLINESS a disease or a hobby or both'.' "The true miser," snys Dr. Charles W. Burr, an authority on mental diseases, "gets pleasure from sensations which give the normal man -pain. His aesthetic sense is often so perverted that he eats decayed food or shivers in a cold room, not merely to save money but because he derives a special pleasure from such acts. "Mental ability will not prevent your becoming a miser. Many of the worst misers have been men of brain power far above the average. "Social standing has nothing to do with the making of misers they are found among the rich as well as among the poor. "Ouly the sturdiest men become misers, for no others can endure the hardships which miserliness impose. "Up to now there have been few women misers, but if feminism becomes a reality there will be more of them. "Most misers," concludes our authority, 'are thin and often wiry. They are long-faced long-faced and have high or sloping foreheads. Their deep-set, piercing eyes wear a furtive fiance Their faces are marked by a long nose with narrow slits, and a hard mouth compressed firmly." Misers are types of human beings who have existed ever since the, history of mankind man-kind began. But science has until now failed to collect any knowledge of importance impor-tance about them. The reason for this is the difficulty of getting the kind of facts which throw the real light upon the miser and explain why he is the kind of man he is. Information about misers must of necessity be obtained from sources where one does not look for accuracy of statement. state-ment. Hetty Green lias been cited by some students stu-dents of sociology as being a miser because her annual income was o.noo,0u anil she rarely spent more than o.i'UO or at the most y-l.fmo n year. She claimed that her methods of using her finance were actuated by a desire to teach society a lcon In hon- r ' This, science says, is a typical miser's head. A The sloping forehead. B Furtive, intense gaze; close set, piercing eyes. C Long nose and narrow slits. D "Hard" mouth, or Iip3 firmly compressed. esty, thrift, industry and really intelligent charity. In the case of the Dancer family the miser trait was known to have run through three generations. In all the accounts of misers there is the same clinical picture; in all there is one and the same type of man, rarely woman. There have been many men of mental power far above the average who have suddenly lost interest in intelligent pursuits, pur-suits, without any other evidence of insanity, insan-ity, anil have lived the lives of misers. Hut a miser Is not merely a man who is extremely ex-tremely stiney; miserliness is not mere avarice, lie is a man whose life is gov- erned by perverted inlercsls; these ara partly cultivated, but more often born, aj their faces show. |