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YALE UNIVERSITY
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NEWYORKITIS

NEWYORKITIS

BY
JOrn^ H. GIRDNER, M. T>.
AUTHOR OF "THB PLAGUE OP
CITY NOISES"

THE GRAFTON PRESS
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1901,
in the United States and Great Britain, by
John H. Gibdneb.

AU rights reserved.

THE DEVINNE PRESS.

PREFACE
WHZEN a new human soul is born
into this world, with its little red
body, the first to welcome its arrival is
the medical man. And it is to him
that the little sinner records his first
" kick." When this mortal coil is worn
out by age or disease, and the soul
takes its flight hence, it is the medical
man who generally says the last fare
well to it. " All the world 's a stage,"
and most people only see the players in
their masks and make-up, over the foot
lights. The physician more than any
other man goes behind the scenes. He
frequents humanity's dressing-room.

PREFACE 
He knows men's vices, but he also
knows their virtues.
The weaknesses of human nature,
and the ravages of the world, the flesh,
and the devil, are ever before his eyes;
but he also sees the temptations which
beset humanity on all sides. And there
is no man who is called upon more
often to put a new gore in his mantle
of charity than is the practiser of the
healing art whose heart is in the right
place. The following pages are the
result of twenty-five years of study and
observation of the people and conditions
which exist on Manhattan Island. That
a very large percentage of all sorts and
conditions of people lead an artificial
life here, no one can successfully deny.
This manner of life has brought about
a condition of mind, body, and soul,
6

PREFACE

which I have endeavored to describe
under the title of IS^evtyorkitis. l^o
]S"ew- Yorker loves this city and its
people better than I do; and I have
written these opinions and observa
tions with a conscience void of offense
toward any. If I have seemed to speak
plainly, it is because plain speaking to
those we love is often the greatest ser
vice we can render to them.
This book is intended as a plea for a
wider thought horizon, a more genu
ine and comprehensive brotherly char
ity, less materialism, and more cul
tivation and development of those
qualities which distinguish man from
the lower animals.
John H. Gikdnee, M.D.
New York, April 15, 1901.

THE DEFINITION AND
ETIOLOGY OF NEWYORKITIS

" There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the uniTeTse. All
is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his
sphere. The yotmg mortal enters the hall [of the firmament ;
there is he alone with them alone, they pouring on him bene
dictions and gifts, and beckoning him up to their thrones. On
the instant, and incessantly, fall snow-storms of illusions. He
fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways this way and that,
and whose movement and doings he must obey; he fancies
himself poor, orphaned, insignificant. The mad crowd drives
hither and thither, now furiously commanding this thing to be
done, now that. -What is he that he should resist their will,
and think or act for himself? Every moment, new changes,
and new showers of deceptions, to bafBe and distract him.
And when, by and by, for an instant, the air clears, and the
cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting around him
on their thrones— they alone with him alone."
Balph Waldo Emerson — lUuHona.

THE
DEFINITION AND ETIOLOGY
OF NEWYORKITIS
WHEN we walk through a zo
ological garden, we see cards on
each animal cage and inclosure, giving
the name of the occupant, the family
to which it belongs, and its habitat.
By habitat is meant that particular
part of the world where the animal is
found to exist in a state of nature, the
country where it is indigenous. Na
ture's laws are such that each species
of the animal creation is obliged to
confine itself to some particular section
of the earth in order that it shall con
tinue to exist; and generations of its
11

NEWYORKITIS

kind continue to succeed one another,
and each lives out its life history. If
the male and female of any species of
the lower animals be removed from
their own habitat to some other cli
mate, and allowed to live there in a
state of nature, the race rapidly be
comes extinct — after a few genera
tions at most.
Man presents a striking contrast to
his fellow-creatures in this regard.
He is the one animal who can inhabit
the entire globe. He is a perfect cos
mopolite, and the billion and a half of
individuals who compose the human
race, grouped in what are called na
tions, have their homes all over the
surface of the earth-
Climate, soil, environment, and the
gradual effect of heredity have caused

12

DEFINITION

many and various departures from the
primitive type. But the differences
which we observe in the peoples inhab
iting the various parts of the earth are
almost entirely superficial. I am speak
ing now of the physical man. They
are principally differences in stature
and in the color of the skin and its ap
pendages. The same physical laws of
reproduction, growth, development, de
generation, and death hold good for the
human race everywhere. Post-mortem
examinations show that the internal
viscera of an inhabitant of the north-
polar region is identical with that of a
native of Tierra del Fuego. And ex
cept when influenced by extraneous
conditions, as climate, etc., the laws of
disease are the same. And the injuries
inflicted by Cain upon Abel, when he
13

NEWYORKITIS 
slew him, would cause the death of a
man to-day.
Our object here is briefly to point
out that the sciences of anatomy and
physiology, and even of disease, point
unerringly to the common origin of
man. And they furnish the strongest
corroborative evidence of the truth
that all men everywhere are brothers.
While man, the lord of creation, is
permitted to assert his authority over
nature everywhere, and establish his
home and flourish on any part of the
planet he may select, he can do so
only on condition that he submits to,
and obeys, those laws which experi
ence and observation and revelation
teach are for the government of his
continued mental, moral, and physical
existence. 14

DEFINITION

These laws are inexorable, but man
is left a free agent to obey or disobey
them as his will shall determine. In
this respect he again differs from the
rest of the animal creation; for while
the laws which govern the continued
existence of the lower animals are
equally binding, the animals themselves
are not free to disobey them. They are
not endowed with reason and freedom
of will, but are guided by instinct in
the selection of a proper home and in
the care of themselves and their off
spring. A simple illustration of this
truth is found in the fact that in seek
ing their food the lower animals avoid,
through instinct, those plants, fruits,
and substances which are to them poi
sonous and innutritions, and appro
priate the proper quantities of those
15

NEWYORKITIS

which are best suited to promote the
growth and development of their organ
izations, while completing the round
of their natural existence and repro
ducing themselves.
The human race, as we have seen, is
able to assert its authority, and estab
lish itself, and continue to exist, on any
and all parts of the surface of the
planet, so long as its members are
obedient to certain fixed laws which
govern their well-being. If, then, there
is a place where the human inhabitants,
if left to themselves, are unable to
continue to exist from generation to
generation independently, and all ex
traneous causes for their extermination
can be eliminated, the presiunption is
that the cause must be found within
themselves — that in disobedience to
16

DEFINITION

the laws of existence already referred
to will be found the reasons for the
gradual deterioration and final extinc
tion of its inhabitants.
Manhattan Island — old New York
— is such a place. If an impassable
wall were built around this island
which would prevent any one of its
present inhabitants from leaving it,
and would prevent any one from the
outside from coming on it, it is only a
matter of a few hundred years until its
human inhabitants would become ex
tinct, or be reduced to an insignificant
remnant. In other words, the popula
tion of Manhattan Island is not self-
supporting in the matter of reproducing
itself, and but for the continual acces
sions from without, the race could not
continue to exist here indefinitely.

17

NEWYORKITIS 
That physical conditions have some
thing to do with bringing about this
state of affairs there can be no question,
but the principal cause is to be found in
the habits and character of the inhabi
tants themselves, and in the artificial
life they lead. By artificial life is
meant the continual violation of those
mental, moral, and physical laws which
nature has imposed on mankind every
where, and the observance of which is
essential to its existence and continued
well-being. It is no exaggeration to say that New
York is a huge mill, into the hopper of
which is annually thrown raw material
in the form of brain, brawn, money,
and character drawn from the outside
world, and the ground-out product of
this mill is the metropolis.^ with all that
18

DEFINITION

the term means; and if the supply of
raw material were discontinued, the
mill would in time cease to turn out
the finished product.
The^island of Manhattan has an area
of thirty-eight square miles. Two mil
lions of human beings inhabit this space.
This population is made up of all sorts
and conditions of people from all parts
of the earth. The desire to live in New
York seems to be widely spread, not * ^
only in America, but in all quarters of
the globe, as is evidenced by the variety
of languages spoken among the inhabi
tants. The motives which prompt people to
journey from everywhere to take up
their abode in New York are many and
varied. They are attracted by the
"opportunities" offered by this great

19

NEWYORKITIS 
city, we are told. Opportunities for
what? That depends upon the seeker.
The man who has got possession of
millions in some other part of the
country comes to New York, builds
himself a palace, and joins the colony
of millionaires. He does this for sev
eral reasons. Being a millionaire has
come to be a distinct calling or profes
sion, and it has its community interests
the same as any other occupation, and
those engaged in it like to get together.
Like other mortals, they enjoy associa
tion on some common plane, and in this
instance it is the common plane of mil-
lionairism. Their pleasures have their
origin in materialism, and Manhattan
Island offers more and better means of
gratifying the five senses than can be
found elsewhere in the New World —
20

DEFINITION

there are more things.^ to buy with
money, here than elsewhere.
The millionaire finds here the best
opportunities for indulging his pride of
wealth and love of display. He can
enjoy to the fullest that distinction and
high consideration which the rest of
the world has come to accord to the
very rich, and he is certain to have his
sayings and doings heralded to the
world by the daily press as would be
done nowhere else. And last, but not
least. New York is about the last
place in the world where the question,
Hwjo did he get Ms millions f is likely
to be insisted upon.
The poor man, who is often as ma
terialistic and money-loving as the
rich, is attracted to the metropolis in
the hope of getting some of the vast

21

NEWYORKITIS
sums that the rich are spending; and
unfortunately the methods he adopts
of accomplishing this feat are not
always the most commendable.
But there is a large class attracted
to this island by promptings and de
sires which are most worthy. A young
man, engaged in trade or a profession,
finds his native town too contracted.
He feels within himself the desire and
ability for a wider field of action and
harder competition. He does not like
cheap success, and so he takes up his
abode in the metropolis, literally " look
ing for trouble " ; and he will find it.
But let no one be discouraged. Let
the young man who feels himself fit
bring his skill, character, integrity,
brains, enterprise, and health into the
great arena of competition which New
22

DEFINITION

York offers, and enter the strife — not
aiming to accumulate this world's
goods, except incidentally; but let his
aim ever be the education and eleva
tion of his mind and his soul to higher
and better things.
This is the only success or goal worth
a man's striving for. To the growing
man, every other kind will prove to be
Dead Sea fruit, and will sooner or later
turn to bitterness and leave him deso
late. Let him be earnest and diligent
in his business, whatever that may be;
but keep ever before his mind this di
vine injunction: "Seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and His righteous
ness; and all these things shall be
added unto you." To such a one
New York will yield its choicest gifts.
But he will need to have a strong
23

NEWYORKITIS

head, a stout heart, and a firm will to
withstand the illusions, temptations,
and distractions which will beset him
on all sides.
To the young man who is ambitious
for a "strenuous life": Don't put on
a uniform, and sword, and pistols, and
spurs, and go blustering about the
planet, shooting and plundering help
less brown or yellow people; but come
and establish yourself in a useful busi
ness or profession on Manhattan Is
land, adopting methods which are hon
est and upright before God and man,
and you will find that your life will
be as strenuous as you could possibly
desire. If you are ambitious for missionary
work, and earnestly desire to teach the
doctrine of peace, love, and human bro-

24

DEFINITION

therhood, don't go to some far-away
island or strange people, but come to
Manhattan Island. There is no place
on earth more in need of missionaries
than this island. Not so much among
the poor, and weak, and lowly, but
among the rich and powerful. The
East Side and the West Side are fairly
well supplied with missions already. In
fact, missions " on the side " is a New-
yorkitic fad. What we need most is
missions in the center. We need strong
men whose daily lives are missions, and
I earnestly commend this work to am
bitious young men.
On these thirty-eight square miles of
island live representatives from almost
every nation on earth. Here is the
Italian quarter, the Chinese quarter,
the Hebrew quarter, etc., and each
25

NEWYORKITIS

colony has brought with it not only its
own language, religion, and customs,
but each one has planted on this small
area its virtues and its vices. Many
of these people are not here to make
homes and become a part and parcel
of the city and country and their iasti-
tutions, but are simply here, to use a
popular expression, " for what there is
in it." And it is a fact that the per
centage of " homes " is smaller among
Manhattan Islanders of all classes than
among an equal number of people any
where else in America.
This conglomeration of people and
conditions which I have briefly out
lined, acting and reacting on each
other, has brought about an abnormal
condition of existence — a disease —
which I have named Nevtyoekitis, and
26

DEFINITION

which it is now proposed to describe.
Newyorkitis is a disease which affects
a large percentage of the inhabitants
of Manhattan Island, and is making
serious inroads on their mental, moral,
and physical health. It is not a new
malady, but it has not been described
before. Sporadic cases have appeared
among the people of the island since
early in its history; but it is only in the
last few decades that the disease has
become both endemic and epidemic.
Before describing in detail the symp
toms of this affection, it seems advi
sable, in the interest of the non-techni
cal reader, to give a short account of
the etymology or make-up of the term
Newyorkitis. The Greek sufiix itis, as used in
medical science, means inflammation;
27

NEWYORKITIS

and when it is attached to a word, the
term then signifies that the thing for
which the word originally stood is
inflamed. Thus, for instance, itis attached to
appendix gives us appendicitis, to peri
toneum and we have peritonitis; and
so when we say of a person that he
has Newyorkitis, we mean that he
has got his New York inflamed. The
critical reader will ask at this point:
" In what part of the body of a Man
hattan Islander is the New York lo
cated?" I reply by asking: "In
what part of the body of a Boston man
is his Boston located? Or a Chicago
man, his Chicago? Or a Philadelphia
man, his Philadelphia? Or a St. Paul
man, his St. Paul?" I am not writ
ing on anatomy, or on cerebral loca-

28

DEFINITION

tion: I am describing an abnormal
condition. I mentioned above that the disease is
endemic on Manhattan Island — that is
to say, it is peculiar to this locality
and its people, and is constantly pres
ent here in a greater or less degree.
But it must not be supposed that all
cases of Newyorkitis are to be found
in New York. We encounter cases
of this disease in all parts of the
country, but the patient, or infection,
came originally from this island. It
is like Asiatic cholera, which takes its
name from the fact that the germ
which produces it is endemic in Asia;
the disease is always present there; and
when cholera appears in some other
part of the world, it is because the in
fection was conveyed there, directly or

29

NEWYORKITIS

indirectly, from the endemic focus of
infection in Asia.
Newyorkitis is a communicable dis
ease. It seems to spread by mental
and moral contact of the healthy with
the afilicted. Bring a healthy subject
from a rural district to this island,
and he soon begins to show symptoms of
Newyorkitis, and the virulence of the
attack will depend upon the congenital
or acquired resisting power of the indi
vidual. It is doubtful if any one is en
tirely immune from the infection, or can
resist some degree of inoculation after
a few years' residence on the island.
Thus we find all types of the disease,
from the mildest to the most violent
and incurable form.
It is customary, when writing about
a disease, to divide its symptoms into

30

DEFINITION

groups, and then to study each group
separately. I shall follow this rule in
describing Newyorkitis. I shall also
give a few clinical reports of typical
cases of the disease which have come
under the author's personal observa
tion, selecting the cases so that each
phase of the malady will be illustrated.
Sufficient space will then be devoted to
the treatment and cure.
Newyorkitis is a disease in which
the mind, soul, and body have departed
more or less from the normal. In some
cases the mental phenomena are most
marked; in others the moral system
seems to have departed farthest from
the normal; the physical or somatic
symptoms are not so constant, but
when present they are of practically
the same character in all cases.
31

THE MENTAL SYMPTOMS OF
NEWYORKITIS

THE
MENTAL SYMPTOMS OF
NEWYORKITIS
THE mental symptoms exhibited by
persons suffering from Newyork
itis, looked at as a whole, seem at first
glance to be closely allied to the delu
sions of general paresis: they nearly
all partake of the character of delu
sions of grandeur.
The novice in diagnosis may mis
take Newyorkitis for Boston hyper
trophy .^ or Chicago elephantiasis; but
after a little experience he can readily
make the differential diagnosis be
tween these maladies.
It is when we study the delusions in
35

NEWYORKITIS

detail that we fully realize the destruc
tive effects of Newyorkitis on the
mental machinery of its victim.
With all his delusions and hallucina
tions of grandeur, pride of intellect, and
boasted mental acumen, when we ex
plore the mental horizon of a New-
yorMtic we discover the sad fact that
it extends only from the East River to
the Hudson, and from the Battery to
the Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil.
He imagines that the whole of this
country, or all of it worth his consid
eration, is included in that area. He
imagines that any man who has pos
session of one million dollars' worth or
more of this world's goods is a gen
tleman; that he is organized success,
and the highest type of manhood at
tainable, especially if he gives a small
36

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
percentage of his income each year to
so-called charity. And if a Newyork-
itic reads the following simple couplet
he won't understand it:
He that feeds men serveth few ;
He serves all who dares be true.
The victim of Newyorkitis has num
berless illusions, delusions, and hallu
cinations about what he calls " society."
His respect for clothes, and for one
street or avenue over another, is as
tounding. The value of the cloth a
man wears, and the price per front foot
of the street he lives in, play all sorts
of pranks with the diseased imagina
tion of a NewyorMtic, and so distort
his estimates of men, and things, and
institutions, that they become ludicrous
to a healthy subject, or to one less ad-
37

NEWYORKITIS

vanced in the disease. He imagines
that the young woman who walks
Sixth Avenue, unkempt, and dressed in
cheap, illy fitting clothes, is an entirely
different creature when he sees her
powdered and perfumed, and dressed
in the height of fashion, walking Fifth
Avenue, or lolling in the scented at
mosphere of the Turkish room of a
modern hotel.
The mental standards, weights, and
measures which the patient may have
brought with him from the country
seem entirely lost. In fact, the most
constant and widely spread delusion
from which the NewyorMtic suffers is
the belief that the mental processes and
logical conclusions which, in part at
least, guided his conduct while at home
in his native town, are false and use-

38

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
less standards here on Manhattan
Island. The patient has forgotten the fact, if
he ever knew it, that Manhattan Island,
like his father's farm, is, at last, only
a small portion of the surface of the
globe, and that the mental and moral
laws which govern the universe, like
the physical laws of gravitation and
the conservation of forces, are as cer
tain of self -execution in the one place as
in the other. I can never cease class
ing with Christopher Columbus that
small boy who ran to his mother one
day with the announcement that he had
made the discovery that their back yard
was a part of the surface of the earth.
The mental appetite of a Newyork-
itic is morbid and perverted. All
memory of such authors as RusMn,
39

NEWYORKITIS

Macaulay, Carlyle, and Emerson, Long
fellow and Lowell, is hopelessly gone.
He must have a novel written by an
other NewyorMtic, if possible one in
a more advanced stage of the disease.
The mental roast beef and mashed po
tatoes of Shakspere and the genuine
sauce of Sheridan he will not swallow.
These patients demand of the theatrical
managers such plays as " In Gay New
York," "The Passing Show," and
"Zaza." His daily paper must be
highly spiced. It must contain all the
latest gossip and scandal. Divorces
and elopements, suicides and murders,
must be set forth in detail, with mam
moth head-lines. These patients must
have a daily record of the sayings and
doings of millionaires. And if a mil
lionaire has a death, marriage, or birth

40

MENTAL SYMPTOMS

in his family, the NewyorMtic demands
of his editor the most minute partic
ulars of the whole proceeding, with
ample illustrations.
In advanced cases of NewyorMtis,the
gray matter of the brain is never used
to think with, except when the patient
is engaged in getting money, or grati
fying some physical appetite. At all
other times he thinks with his reflex
nervous system; that is, his opinions
and views on all other questions are
simply reflexes of the views and opin
ions of some other man or group of
men he happens to be following at
the time. The NewyorMtic has lost
the power of studying a question on
its merits, and carrying the arguments
pro and con to their logical conclusion,
uninfluenced by greed and selfishness
41

NEWYORKITIS

and the views of other men. Indeed,
he seems to have lost both the power
and the desire of raaMng up his OAvn
mind, and takes apparent pleasure in
having others make it up for him.
If you exclude those who are en
tirely demented, nine out of ten of the
inmates of an asylum for the insane
will tell you in private conversation
that they themselves are not insane,
but that all the other inmates of the
institution are as crazy as March hares,
and they will often express the deepest
sympathy for them in their misfortunes.
The victim of Newyorkitis not only
never suspects that there is anything
the matter with him, but he utterly
fails to recognize the existence of the
disease in another. Indeed, he has a
certain contempt for the man who

42

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
seems to be free from the infection,
and this contempt is only increased
when he discovers that your mental
horizon is not limited by the confines
of Manhattan Island, and that your
mental processes and opinions are your
own, and not, like his, mere reflexes of
some other man or group of men.
And because you think for yourself,
he puts you down as a " crank." And
the air of strutting superiority assumed
by one of these intellectual pygmies is
ludicrous. The contrast between the
assumed and the real mental capacity of
a Newyorkitic reminds one of a patient
in the last stages of general paresis.
Such a patient, unable to stand, or
scarcely to raise his hand to his head,
owing to muscular weakness, will assure
you that with a single blow from his
43

NEWYORKITIS

powerful right arm he can crush the
skull of an ox.
A NewyorMtic is simply unable to
understand how a man can reach a
conclusion and stand by it, uninflu
enced by other men's opinions and his
own personal interests.
These unfortunates adopt a particu
lar creed or party for no better reason
than the fact that their parents be
longed to it, or, what is less commenda
ble, because of fear of some individual,
or of public opinion, or because it co
incides with their material interests.
The NewyorMtic thus forfeits the re
spect of all men of all creeds and par
ties who are mentally honest. You
meet a man, for instance, who argues
that the moon is made of cheese. He
may convince you, for the time, that he

44

MENTAL SYMPTOMS

is sincere in this belief. You do not
agree with him, but his apparent sin
cerity commands your respect. Now
if you learn the next day that this man
is in the dairy business, and that the
general acceptation of his cheese the
ory would be of immense advantage to
his dairy interests, you unconsciously
lose all respect for, and interest in, his
views on astronomy and every other
subject. I admire the honest avowal of mo
tive which was contained in the reply
to a question I once asked of an insane
man. This poor man was chronically
and incurably insane. He had been in
the asylum for ten years. Every time
he was allowed out in the grounds for
exercise, he would walk back and forth
over the same path, some twenty yards
45

NEWYORKITIS 
long, and looMng across the river at
the rows of city blocks, he would repeat
aloud to himself in a monotonous tone:
"All these houses belong to me!
All these houses belong to me!" I
asked him why he continued to an
nounce that he was the owner of all
the houses. His reply was: "I am
trying to create a sentiment of that
Mnd, sir ; " and turning quickly, he con
tinued his monotonous tramp and " All
these houses belong to me ! "
The New York Academy of Medi
cine appointed a committee, some years
ago, to endeavor to induce Congress to
pass certain legislation looMng to the
improvement of the national health
laws. A distinguished NewyorMtic
asked me confidentially this question:
" What is there in tMs bill for you doc-
46

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
tors?" He looked surprised and in
credulous when I told him there was
ndtSnng^n it -except "tbat 'lire academy
believed its enactment into law would
save tens of thousands of human lives
every year.
To many of these patients, such pro
ductions as the Decalogue, the Sermon
on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer,
the Declaration of Independence, and
Plato, are " back numbers." The un
fortunate sufferer has no means of
knowing whether a given piece of lit
erature is new or old, except by calcu
lating the number of years which have
elapsed since it was first written.
As an illustration of how these pa
tients persistently refuse to seek for
the truth, and will investigate a ques
tion only so far as it tends to strengthen
47

NEWYORKITIS

their own delusions, I mention the fol
lowing incident: A certain well-known
NewyorMtic had most pronounced de
lusions, which took the form of opposi
tion to the Christian religion. With
tongue and pen he labored to disprove
the truth and logic of the Scriptures.
And being a clever juggler of words,
and a master of the art of cheap and
shallow sarcasm, he got a wide reputa
tion for intellectual force, and he had
many followers. This patient said to
me one day: "I performed a greater
miracle this afternoon than was ever
performed by Jesus, the founder of your
Christian religion. I sat in my office
in Wall Street and had a long conver
sation with my clerk, who was at the
time in Chicago. I not only heard
every word he said, but the tones of his
48

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
voice and his articulation were as clear
and as readily familiar as if he had
been present in the office with me.
The Nazarene was never able to make
His voice heard even from Jerusalem
to Jericho, a distance of not over fifteen
miles. After such demonstrations it is
surprising that sensible men should
continue to look upon the Scriptures
as anytMng but stupidly constructed
myths and fables."
Now if this man had been in earnest,
and had studied the Master's teachings
without prejudice, and with a desire to
ascertain the truth, he would have
knovsm that in being able, through the
instrumentality of a modern invention,
to send his voice from New York to
CMcago, he was not only performing
a modem miracle, but was fulfilling a
49

NEWYORKITIS

prophecy of the Master, who said: "If
ye abide in Me, and My word abide in
you, the things which I do shall ye do
also, and greater things, because I go
away." He would also have known that the
great modern discoveries and inven
tions — call them miracles if you will,
they are the control of the physical
world and its forces by the spiritual
man — are fulfilments of this prophecy
and promise of the Saviour of man-
Mnd. This NewyorMtic would have dis
covered that the miracle of telephon
ing, and the score of other miracles of
the same character, have been wrought
by just those nations who have abided
most in Him, and in which His word
has most abided. None of these
50

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
modern miracles have been performed
by the Turks, for instance, nor by
any other anti-Christian nation.
No age or sex is exempt from the
disease; in some respects women seem
to suffer more than men. Children of
Manhattan Islanders show symptoms
of the affection very early. In fact,
there is no doubt but that in many
cases the disease is hereditary. As a
case in point, a little six-year-old boy
whose parents are NewyorMtics was
recently asked at the Mndergarten to
name the principal use of the streets of
New York. He promptly replied that
the streets of New York were made
for the cable-cars to run over. If this
boy spends his life on Manhattan Is
land, the chances are he will never have
occasion to amend this answer, and
51

NEWYORKITIS

never think what the streets of New
York are really for, and to whom they
really belong.
NewyorMtis in women presents cer
tain sjnnptoms which seem to be pecu
liar to that sex and are not pronounced
features of the disease in men. The
female of every species of the animal
creation possesses philoprogenitiveness,
or love of offspring, and in the human
female this sentiment is especially
marked when she is in a normal con
dition. But when she is suffering
from the disease which I am describ
ing, the brain center which presides
over this sentiment is entirely para
lyzed, or paralyzed to such an extent
that its function takes on an entirely
abnormal character. In those cases
where the paralysis of this brain center

52

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
is complete, the patient has lost not
only all desire and affection for off
spring of her own, but she exhibits a
marked dislike for the offspring of
others. In another class of cases the
patient shows the natural love of chil
dren when they belong to others, but
she does not wish any of her own.
In another large percentage of cases
of NewyorMtis in the female, the brain
center which presides over philopro
genitiveness is still active, and some
times abnormally so, but its function is
perverted, and the unfortunate patient
lavishes her natural maternal love and
devotion on a dog, a cat, a bird, or
some other of the lower animals. This
class of patients have a settled delu
sion that children are an unmitigated
nuisance; that so-called "society," the
53

NEWYORKITIS

theater, card-parties, late suppers, and
supposed freedom from care and re
sponsibility, are blessings which greatly
outweigh the sacred joys of mother
hood. And the Divine injunction to
multiply and replenish the earth, in
which our fathers and mothers be
lieved, finds no place in the disordered
mind of a female NewyorMtic. The
latter part of the injunction — to sub
due the earth and have dominion over
it — she makes strenuous efforts to live
up to.
As mentioned above, one of the most
pronounced symptoms of NewyorMtis
is a circumscribed mental horizon.
The patient thinks in a circle bounded
by the confines of Manhattan Island,
and when, from business or other neces
sity, he is obliged to visit other portions

54

MENTAL SYMPTOMS
of the United States, he is unhappy, and
counts the time as lost, so far as plea
sure or comfort is concerned, until he
returns to his island.
As a natural result of this abnormal
mental state, when the NewyorMtic
travels for health or pleasure, there is
no place for him to go but out of the
country; and so he crosses the ocean,
and we find him chasing about in every
nook and corner of the Old World.
He suffers from the delusion that
there are no health resorts or mineral
springs or natural scenery in his own
country comparable with those of Eu
rope. His mind is filled with all Mnds
of illusions, delusions, and hallucina
tions about so-called European royalty
and nobility; and if, by any means,
fair or foul, he can touch elbows with
55

NEWYORKITIS

an earl or a duke or a prince, his cup of
joy is full. If this circulating about
the planet had the effect of widening
his mental horizon, and thus starting
him on the road to recovery, it would
be a blessing; but European travel as
a remedial agent, in these cases, has
been disappointing. The patient gen
erally returns from these trips abroad
without any mental improvement, and
he continues to think in the same reflex
way and in the same circumscribed
circle, and his estimate of men and
things and institutions remains un
changed.

56

THE MORAL SYMPTOMS
OF NEWYORKITIS

THE
MORAL SYMPTOMS OF
NEWYORKITIS
I WISH to say right here that in di
agnosticating the moral symptoms of
NewyorMtis the mere opinions of an
individual or of a number of individu
als do not count. There is to be no
sitting in judgment on our brothers;
but by their fruits we are to know
all men. And how far the moral symp
toms in a given case show the patient
to have departed from the normal is
to be determined in all instances by
comparing his moral views and opin
ions and conduct with the code laid
down by the founder of Christianity.
59

NEWYORKITIS

And any one familiar with this yard
stick can do the measuring for himself.
It is like listening to a heart which
is organically diseased: you are able
to determine the presence of disease,
and its extent, because you are familiar
with the movements and sounds of the
normal heart.
When we take the plain words and
simple doctrine taught by Jesus, and
compare them with the moral phenomena
of NewyorMtis, we find that in every
case of this affection the moral sys
tem has suffered serious deterioration.
The moral NewyorMtic is spiritually
obtuse and morally short-sighted. He
is not necessarily vicious; he is more
likely to arouse your pity than your
opposition. He worships gold instead
of God. He strives after material

60

MORAL SYMPTOMS
blessings instead of spiritual gifts.
His brotherly love and charity are in
fluenced by greed and selfishness, and
strictly limited by natural and political
divisions of the planet. How much he
loves a brother, depends on the color
of that brother, and the size of his bank-
account. These patients are no more able to
feel and exercise a love and charity
which encircles the globe, and in
cludes all men as brothers, than they
are to become mentally citizens of the
planet. I pointed out, when speaking of the
mental symptoms, that a Newyorkitic
cannot thinh of the people on this little
globe as a whole, because his thinMng
is only a reflection of the thoughts of
some other person or persons. Neither
61

NEWYORKITIS

can he exercise a religious affection for
the whole human race, because his re
ligion is not taken first-hand from the
Saviour of manMnd, but is only a refiex
of some creed or doctrine constructed
by men in ages past, when they were
far less ably equipped for studying the
Scriptures and determining what is
man's duty than are men of his own
time. The moral NewyorMtic clings
to his religious doctrine with a tenacity
born of superstition and narrow bigotry.
He would, if he could, corner Christ's
love, and dole it out to the rest of man
Mnd as he saw fit.
And it is quite probable that if the
very men who, doing the best they
could with the light they had, con
structed the NewyorMtic's particular
creed, could come back to earth, they
62

MORAL SYMPTOMS

would be so uncouth that he would
not take them into his church, but
they would be sent to worship in the
East- or West-Side chapel with the
poor. The NewyorMtic admits in theory
and talks loudly about the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man;
but he is always the elder brother and
in direct succession. He, as the elder
brother, feels called upon — in fact, is
directed by the Father, so he says — to
take charge of the effects and order the
lives of these younger brothers; and
he is further directed, he says, that if
these younger brothers object to this
arrangement, or question his authority
from their common Father, then the
commandment, " Thou shalt not Mil,"
which the Father made, becomes null
63

NEWYORKITIS

and void, and he is to proceed to shoot
these ungracious and inappreciative
younger brothers to death.
The NewyorMtic is like those dis
ciples who were not yet cured of Jeru-
salemitis, and were surprised to find the
Master communing at the well with the
woman of the hated Samaritans. Like
these Jerusalemitics, his charity and
love of brother is confined by geo
graphical lines. It is this contracted
and circumscribed love-horizon and
narrow mantle of charity that warps
and distorts his moral system. The
patient's moral insights are clouded.
And whether the matter be great or
small, the just relations of nation to
nation or individual to individual, he is
hopelessly unable to reach moral con
clusions of truth, honesty, and God's

64

MORAL SYMPTOMS

eternal justice. This moral short-sight
edness, this seeing in part only, with
selfishness always in the foreground,
involves these unfortunate patients in
all sorts of ridiculous moral incon
sistencies. Cases of moral NewyorMtis are
found in all classes of society, but it
is essentially a disease of the "better
classes." Here again it resembles gen
eral paresis. General paresis may be
designated a disease of strong men,
because its victims are, as a rule, in the
prime of life, when their mental and
physical powers are at their best. You
will rarely see a case of general paresis
under twenty or over fifty-five years of
age. And moral NewyorMtis is not
so often found among the poor and the
lowly as among the rich and powerful.
65

NEWYORKITIS

The statistical tables of life- and acci
dent-insurance companies show that
the followers of the various professions
and occupations are especially liable to
contract certain diseases and injuries.
Physicians and surgeons, for instance,
are more exposed to the danger of con
tracting contagious diseases and poi
soned wounds than others. Engineers
and trainmen are liable to death and
injury from railroad accidents. Soldiers
in the field are bad risks, owing to the
danger of gunshot wounds, and theo
logians are the special victims of New
yorMtis. And strange as it may seem,
as a rule in this class of cases the moral
symptoms are the more pronounced.
Clergymen are professionally good
men. They are specialists in right
eousness; and like all specialists, they

66

MORAL SYMPTOMS
are in perpetual danger of becoming
narrow and bigoted, which is very near
to another name for Newyorkitis. Let
a man become a throat specialist and
look down throats for a living, and
unless he is broad-minded, or has had
a wide previous acquaintance with the
diseases and injuries of the rest of the
anatomy, the human subject soon be
comes to him nothing but a throat. To
many eye specialists a man is nothing
but a pair of eyes, and no matter what
abnormalities may occur in other parts
of his anatomy, they are all referable
by the gone-to-seed specialist to his
pet organ. And the treatment of the
diseases in his specialty must conform
to a plan mapped out in his own warped
mind, if it is to meet with his approval.
The specialist in righteousness is
67

NEWYORKITIS

exposed to the same dangers we have
described above. A clergyman suffer
ing from moral NewyorMtis narrows
the great, broad doctrine of love, truth,
justice, and brotherhood for every in
habitant of this planet, wliich was
taught by Christ, to a picayune creed
of one Mnd or another to meet the
approval of the NewyorMtic congrega
tion which employs him. And his suc
cess, pecuniary and otherwise, does not
depend so much upon the particular
Mnd of vice and crime which he de
nounces as upon the Mnds which he
does not denounce and condemn.
To the narrowing effect of this con
stantly looMng in one direction, add
ihe pecuniary and other advantages
which accrue from not looMng in any
other direction, and it is easy to see how

68

MORAL SYMPTOMS
readily a clergyman may lose his sense
of proportion.
There was once a elergyman,Dr.  .
He was a sincere and earnest disciple
of the Master, and he was therefore a
growing man. He set to himself the
task of preacMng the truth as he
understood it, regardless of whom it
helped or hurt. And as might have
been expected, when he reached a cer
tain point in his moral evolution, a
large percentage of the congregation
began to complain and find fault with
Ms sermons. They said he did nothing
but scold them. And he resigned.
This clergyman's case recalls to mind
the old story of the colored preacher
who was assigned to a new charge. In
his first sermon, instead of painting the
beauties of the other world and simply
69

NEWYORKITIS

denouncing sin in the abstract, he
preached a plain sermon on stealing
chickens and watermelons. He met
with a cold reception, and when the
service was over he was asked to
resign. He inquired the reason, and
was informed that such sermons as he
had just preached had a tendency to
throw a coldness over the meetings.
On a certain Sunday morning I in
vited Mr. B, who was my guest, and
who hails from another city, to attend
Dr.  's church with me. Mr. B is
not a NewyorMtic, nor is he popular
with NewyorMtics. His daily walk and
conversation, however, show him to be
an humble follower of the Master. He
is an official in his own church at home.
After the service was over, and while
the doxology was being sung, a note

70

MORAL SYMPTOMS
was passed to me, I receiving it from
the gentleman who occupied the pew
immediately behind me. The note was
signed by an official of the church, a
man of education and wealth — pre
sumedly a Christian and a gentleman.
The note said in substance: "There
are photographers outside on the street.
Get Mr, B away from the church before
they snap-shot him, for we don't want the
church in the same picture with him."
In other words : " Remove the ' corpse ' ;
we don't want the church polluted,"
In the second chapter of the General
Epistle of James I read: " My brethren,
have not the faith of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect
of persons. For if there come unto
your assembly a man with a gold ring,
in goodly apparel, and there come in
71

NEWYORKITIS

also a poor man in vile raiment; and
ye have respect to him that weareth
the gay clothing, and say unto him. Sit
thou here in a good place; and say to
the poor. Stand thou there: . . . are ye
not then partial in yourselves, and are
become judges of evil thoughts? "
Some of " our best people " have re
vived of late the ancient occupation of
vice-hunting. And like the vice-hun
ters of old, they confine themselves to
certain sections of the city, and to pecu
liar forms of vice.
We have records of tMs Mnd of vice-
hunting which date back to the year
A.D. 32. In that year vice-hunting
appears to have been popular with cer
tain philanthropists and "prominent
business men" of the city of Jerusa
lem. The account is as follows :

72

MORAL SYMPTOMS
" And early in the morning He came
again into the temple, and all the people
came unto Him; and He sat down, and
taught them. And the scribes and
Pharisees brought unto Him a woman;
and when they had set her in the midst,
they said unto Him, Master, this woman
was taken in the very act. Now Moses
in the law commanded us, that such
should be stoned: but what sayest
Thou? . . . Ajid when they continued ask
ing Him, He lifted up Himself, and said
unto them. He that is without sin among
you, let him cast the first stone, . . . -Ajid
they which heard it, being convicted by
their own conscience, went ^out one by
one, beginning at the eldest, even unto
the last: and Jesus was left alone, and
the woman standing in the midst. . . . And
He said unto her. Woman, where are
73

NEWYORKITIS

thine accusers? hath no man con
demned thee? She said. No man,
Lord. And Jesus said unto her. Nei
ther do I condemn thee : go, and sin no
more." In other words, when the Judge on
this occasion called on some member
of the vice committee to qualify as exe
cutioner, the committee sneaked out,
one at a time. The court dismissed
the case, and discharged the prisoner
with the injunction to go and sin no
more. To that class of which the vice com
mittee was composed He said: " Hypo
crites ! . . . Blind guides, which strain
at a gnat, and swallow a camel." It
would be interesting to know how
many of our modern vice-hunters
could pass this civil-service examina-
74

NEWYORKITIS

tion instituted by the Master, and thus
make themselves eUgible to act as
executioners. The moral insight of these patients
is so blunted that they are unable to
see a criminal if he is surrounded by
a sufficient amount of Wealth. A fine
house, fine pictures, conservatories,
gardens, and equipages, with conform
ity to the rules of so-called best so
ciety, and the observance of the out
ward forms and ceremonies of some
church organization, are in themselves
sufficient screens to guard the crim
inal who may be at their center from
detection by the moral NewyorMtic.
No matter how these worldly goods
were obtained, so long as their owner
has managed to keep out of the toils
of the law of man, he need have little

75

MORAL SYMPTOMS
fear of condemnation by the minis
ters of the law of God. The vice-
hunters of 1901 A.D. are maMng the
same mistake that the vice-hunters of
32 A.D. made. They begin at the
wrong end of society: they begin at
the bottom of society instead of at the
top. What would be thought of a
hunter who wasted his ammunition on
cMpmunks, skunks, and woodchucks
wMle large game scampered unnoticed
around him? Old hunters say that the
noise and commotion caused in de
stroying the large game has a tendency
to frighten off the small game.
If our modern reformers are sincere
in their efforts to improve the moral
atmosphere, let them not relax their
present efforts, but in addition let us
have a vice committee whose duty it
76

MORAL SYMPTOMS
shall be to gather evidence and find
out if any among us are practising
"excess and extortion" or are laying
on "men's shoulders burdens grievous
to be borne." Let us know, if any
such* exist, who they are, where their
"places" are, and who is protecting
them. Certainly tMs latter class, if it exists,
received more pronounced condemna
tion by the Saviour of manMnd and
the founder of Christianity than ever
did gamblers and harlots, and under
present social conditions their power
for wrong-doing is much greater than
these. I am acquainted with a man who has
lived for twenty-five years within the
limits of that section of the city known
as the Tenderloin, which is, by the way,
77

NEWYORKITIS

a favorite resort of NewyorMtic vice-
hunters. TMs gentleman has a family
of sons and daughters who are grow
ing up to manhood and womanhood,
and no one could be more interested in
a pure moral atmosphere than he is.
He says that brothels, gambling-houses,
and pool-rooms have never cost him
anything in a pecuniary way, nor have
they ever degraded Mm morally, for
the simple reason that he never enters
these resorts. He does not even know
of his own knowledge where one of these
places is to be found. He says that
no man is obliged to enter such resorts
unless he wishes to do so. This gen
tleman says that he is, however, robbed
every day. He says that every time
he buys heat, light, food, and clothes
for Ms family, he is robbed. These

78

MORAL SYMPTOMS
are games wMch he is obliged to pa
tronize. And he says that the bad part
about it is that it is largely from money
thus extorted from him, and from all
consumers of the necessaries of life,
that churches are built and the sala
ries of NewyorMtic clergymen are paid.
TMs gentleman is thoroughly reliable
even from the NewyorMtics' standpoint,
for he is rated Al at the commercial
agencies. TMs gentleman says that he cannot
say his prayers in church Sunday morn
ings, because he sees men sitting in the
Amen Corner, and carrying round the
contribution-plate and the communion-
cup, and looMng sanctified, who are to
Ms knowledge extortioners and crimi
nals; and the sight of them produces
thoughts and feelings in his heart wMch
79

NEWYORKITIS

ought not to be there when one is trying
to make an humble prayer to the Mnd
Father for forgiveness and mercy and
guidance. Let the vice-hunters and the
experts in righteousness answer this
question: Is it vice and is it crime for
men to band themselves together and
seize upon the necessaries of life —
those physical blessings wMch the Al
mighty has given so bountifully to all
His creatures — and dole them out to
the people in quantities and at prices
dictated only by cupidity?
In the year 33 a.d., while the Sa
viour was still on earth in the fiesh. He
had the following to say of the vice-hun
ters and "business men" of Jerusalem :
" They bind heavy burdens and griev
ous to be borne, and lay them on men's
shoulders: but they themselves will not

80

MORAL SYMPTOMS
move them with one of their fingers,
. , , For ye make clean the outside of the
cup and of the platter, but witMn they
are full of extortion and excess,"
There is no intention of offering a
defense of those who keep gambling-
houses and brothels — and tMs includes
all gambling-houses and houses of ill
fame — where foolish men enter will
ingly and lose their money, and weak
women lose their virtue. And there
can be no defense of the politician or
policeman who protects these resorts or
accepts money from their keepers as a
reward for not enforcing the laws of
man against them. But there is less
defense for churches or clergymen who
give protection to those engaged in
practising excess and extortion on their
fellow-men, 81

NEWYORKITIS

Churches and clergymen are the
spiritual guides of the people, and the
ministers of God's laws; yet there are
many among us who believe that they
offer protection to extortioners by giv
ing them Mgh places and maMng them
dignitaries in the church, and accepting
from them gifts which are the direct pro
ceeds of their unholy and unrighteous
callings. Our modern vice-hunters have so far
confined their efforts at reform to one
or two kinds of gambling only. All
gambling is bad, because it is such
an effectual bar to the progress and
development of those who engage in
it. Some Mnds of gambling are more
destructive to man's best interests than
other Mnds, but the root of the evil is

82

MORAL SYMPTOMS

the same in all. The man who loses a
thousand dollars on a turn in the stock
market, or on the turn of a card, not
only suffers pain and mortification, but
he gets no quid pro quo of any sort.
He learns notMng from the transaction,
— unless perchance it teaches him never
to repeat it, — and will be no better quali
fied to select the right card or horse or
stock another time.
If he fails in a legitimate business,
and loses Ms money, after he has put
forth an honest effort to make it a suc
cess, he yet has a reward in knowledge
and experience from the labor expended,
and can study the causes of Ms loss and
failure, and is better equipped thereby
for a second trial.
The man who wins the thousand dol
lars has likewise been wronged and
83

NEWYORKITIS

cheated, and has lost Ms time. His
winning was an accident over wMch he
had no control, nor did he exercise any
sMU or knowledge to bring about the
result, and he has therefore learned no
thing wMch will aid him in controlhng
the results in other and similar trans
actions. If a thousand dollars comes
into your possession, and does not bring
with it the training, discipline, and de
veloping infiuences wMch justly belong
to the honest earning of it by the exer
cise of sMU or knowledge of some Mnd,
then you have been cheated out of the
best part of that thousand dollars. That
thousand-dollar bill you hold in your
hand is spurious; it is a counterfeit —
not a thousand dollars at all to you, its
so-called owner. You have been de
prived of the elevating and evoluting

84

MORAL SYMPTOMS
influences wMch are inseparable from
the labor necessary to honestly acquire
that amount of money.
The young man from a Mng-ridden
and church-ridden country lands as an
immigrant on these shores. He is dressed
in Ms native uncouth costume, and he
bears all the marks of Ms oppressive
environment. He goes to work at the
best wages he can get. In time he
saves twenty dollars, and with it buys
himself a complete suit of modern
clothes. When he puts that suit on,
he puts on much more than twenty
dollurs. He puts on with it a certain
amount of self-respect and personal in
dependence, born of the toil and self-
denial wMch enabled him to buy it.
Would he have walked forth with the
same sensations had he found that suit
85

NEWYORKITIS

in the street, or had it been presented
to him on the day he landed? TMs is
an illustration taken from down the
line, I admit; but it nevertheless illus
trates the educating and culturing
power of honest labor.
But the evil effects of gambling do
not end here. Winner and loser are
alike unfitted for performing honest
labor for just rewards. Who cannot
recall among Ms acquaintances trades
men, professional men, men of every
calling, who have been rmned by Wall
Street, the race-track, or the gambling-
house ! Not mined because they won
or lost money at these games, but
mined because they became totally un
fitted for any occupation wMch would
render them of use to themselves or to
their fellow-men.

86

MORAL SYMPTOMS
I know of no way to determine how
bad a given form of gambling is except
by comparing its destructive effects
with other Mnds of gambling. If tMs
is a safe rule, then stock gambling is the
worst of all, for it has brought more
wide-spread grief and sorrow than any
other form. More reputations have
been blasted, more men who occupied
positions of trust and usefulness have
been sent to State's prison or made
fugitives from justice, more brilliant ca
reers of usefulness have been destroyed,
and more of other people's money has
been lost, as a result of stock gambling,
than by all the gambling-houses and
pool-rooms in New York put together.
Yet stock gambling is eminently re
spectable from the standpoint of the
moral Newyorkitic. 87

NEWYORKITIS

The moral NewyorMtic has all Mnds
of confused and absurd imaginings
about charities and missions. His
charitable and missionary work par
takes too much of the character of
pernicious activity. It is simply the
better-than-thouness of the better-than-
thou in active operation. The annual
check of a NewyorMtic to charity or-
gamzations is the purchase of an in
dulgence. It permits him to be un
charitable to his brothers in thought,
deed, and feeling for that year, and
still retain Mgh standing in so-called
"best society" and in Ms Newyork
itic church. If this check to char
ity is sufficiently large, it permits the
NewyorMtic to "sit in the seat of
the scornful" and of the oppressor
for six days of the week, and in the

88

MORAL SYMPTOMS
seat of a church dignitary on the
seventh. And there will not be anytMng said
from the pulpit calculated to disturb
Ms seremty; if there is, it will be the
clergyman's seremty that gets dis
turbed, and not the NewyorMtic's. The
pulpits of two of the richest churches
in tMs city have been vacant for a long
time, notwithstanding the fact that
each one has a fifteen-thousand-doUar-
a-year "call" with it. A member of
one of these churches gave me a clear
explanation of the difficulty the other
day; he said: "The clergymen whom
the congregation wanted to fill the
pulpit would n't come, and those that
would come the devil would n't have;
so there you are."
Each church organization struggles
89

NEWYORKITIS

to attract people to adopt its particular
creed or dogma, and come into its fold.
It is not essential that you shall lead a
CMistian life. That is a mere matter
of personal taste. The NewyorMtic
says: "Be one of ms, one of our
denomination, and go tMough the
forms and ceremomes prescribed by
our church one day in the week; that
is all."
It is like when a boy first goes to
college. He is beset on all sides by
the different societies and college fra-
termties, each wanting him for a mem
ber. Nobody asks what sort of a student
he is going to be. The boy is justified
in believing that the principal object in
matriculating was to be able to join a
college fraternity.
In these days of trusts, combines.

90

MORAL SYMPTOMS
and monopolies, it is surprising that
the churches do not unite. The sinner-
saving business is one of the very few
in which open competition still exists.
There are the High-church people and
the Low-church people, the predesti
nation mterests and the close-commu
nion interests, and the eternal-punish
ment plants. One would thmk that
these could all unite on some such
simple agreement as: "To love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and
thy neighbor as thyself."
The " business interests " of the
country have been able to adjust their
differences and form perfect combina
tions for mutual benefit. But the New
yorMtic infiuences in the various church
91

NEWYORKITIS

orgamzations have, so far, blocked
church union.
The churches are sadly in need of
adopting some kind of new and im
proved methods. NcAvyorMtic man
agement is incompetent. TMs is es
pecially apparent in the competition
wMch is ever going on between them
and the saloons. Walk through a street
in the tenement-house district on the
great East Side. You find from one
to three drinMng-saloons on each block.
Go mside of one of them on a cold win
ter's day, when the wind from the icy
river seems to penetrate to the very mar
row of your bones. You find in the
center of the room a red-hot stove,
comfortable chairs, tables for playing
cards and dominoes, with a slate and
piece of chalk for marking the game.

92

MORAL SYMPTOMS
and the mornmg papers. Outside, by
the door, stands the free-lunch bulletin-
board. Written on it with chalk are
such announcements as :

FBEE lilH^CH TO-DAY

HOT BEEF STEW
HOT CliAM CHOWDEE

The poor, half -clad, friendless sinner
who trudges tMs cheerless street, on
whose back, and the backs of Ms kind,
have been placed "burdens grievous to
be borne," can have all tMs comfort if he
will come in and spend for beer the few
cents he has been able to earn, steal, or
beg. And he would not be human if he
did not go in.
Now walk through the fasMonable
streets and avenues, and mspect the
93

NEWYORKITIS

churches wMch are trying to get the
sinners away from the saloon influence.
There is a magmficent church bmlding
on nearly every block. Inside, they
are dark, and cold, and cheerless. The
doors are barred, and a great iron fence
with locked gates surrounds them. A
poor, tired, soul-weary sinner passing
that way could not break mto one of
them with a jimmy; and if he did, he
would get Mmself arrested, and sent
to State's prison. The churches have out
bulletin-boards, too. But the legend on
them never varies. You read, in beau
tiful gold letters, sometMng like this:

John Joistes
Sexton and Undeetakek
No. 200 CoFPiN" Steeet
94

MORAL SYMPTOMS
For sis days of the week these mag
mficent structures serve no other pur
pose than as sign-boards to direct the
passer-by to a man who will bury him
properly, if he has got the money to pay
for that service. But, thank God ! there
are a few of the houses dedicated to His
service wMch are kept open all the time :
where one can enter at any hour, and
rest and meditate and pray, and get ac
quainted with one's self, and go away
refreshed in soul and body.
The millionaire NewyorMtics have
a fad wMch has become popular of
late. TMs fad is the founding of
colleges and libraries in various towns
throughout the country. In other
words, they take a very small percent
age of the money they have been able
to extort from the people tMough vi-
95

NEWYORKITIS

cious legislation and non-enforcement
of the laws against grand larceny, and
give it back to them in the form of
libraries, colleges, hospitals, etc.
Of course this is not charity, for any
one familiar with real charity as taught
by the Saviour knows that you cannot
measure a man's charity by studying
the stubs of Ms check-book. The most
charitable man who ever walked tMs
earth had no money and no check-book.
And money given as charity to some
people, wMch was obtamed by wrong
and uncharitableness to other people, is
" as sounding brass or a tmklmg cym
bal." It may be said that tMs founding
of libraries and colleges by Newyork
itic millionaires is an instance of good
coining out of evil. Perhaps so; but
our point is that it is not charity: for

96

MORAL SYMPTOMS
at no time or place did CMist teach us
to do evil that good might come of it.
But there are good reasons, from
the standpoint of the NewyorMtic, for
founding libraries and colleges among
the people. These patients are m much
the same position before the public that
a juggler is before his audience. The
juggler has the band play low, soft
music, and he keeps up a steady conver
sation wMle performing Ms sleight-of-
hand tricks. The music and the talk are
intended to distract the attention of the
audience from his mampulations, and
thus prevent them from discovermg
and exposing Ms methods of deceiving
them. The NewyorMtic millionaire does, in
effect, the same tMng. He beats the
tom-tom over his gifts and donations.
97

NEWYORKITIS

He has gallons of printers' ink used m
announcing Ms plans for helping man
Mnd. He writes books and magazine
articles and gives interviews about the
duties and obligations of the rich. All
tMs distracts the attention of the pub
lic from the vital question. Like the
juggler, all tMs Mgh-soundmg talk,
and these fairy stories about what he
calls success, and the obligations of
the rich, etc., keep the people mter-
ested in him,, and what he is doing
with Ms millions, and take their atten
tion away from how he is getting Ms
millions. The daily press is filled with an
nouncements of gifts and donations.
Letters and checks giving away mil
lions in the name of charity are repro
duced in facsimile ad nauseam. The

98

MORAL SYMPTOMS
following words of Jesus, in the sixth
chapter of Matthew's Gospel, seem to
be entirely forgotten by moral New
yorMtics : " Take heed that ye do not
your alms before men, to be seen of
them: otherwise ye have no reward
of your Father wMch is in heaven.
Therefore when thou doest tMne alms,
do not sound a trumpet before thee, as
the hypocrites do in the synagogues
and in the streets, that they may have
glory of men,"
We have no vital statistics of Pales
tine at the time that Jesus lived and
traveled tMough that country. We do
not know what percentage of the
inhabitants were sick or died during
those years. But we do know from
the gospels that the whole number of
those who received His active charity
99

NEWYORKITIS

in the healing of their diseases, and
being raised from the dead, must have
been a small percentage of those who
were ill and died around Him during
His mimstry. The point is, that He was
never officious in His efforts to do good.
His active charity was confined to a few;
TJispassive charity was extended to every
human being on the planet.
He never went looMng for sick peo
ple to heal, or dead people to raise, or
hungry thousands to feed with loaves
and fishes; they or their friends had to
come to Him. He never swerved from
His course except when properly ap
proached, and then He never failed to
give prompt relief, not stopping to " in
vestigate the cause" of the sufferer's
phght, as do some of our modem char
ity orgamzations. The one great thmg

100

MORAL SYMPTOMS
wMch the moral NewyorMtic needs to
learn about charity is, not alone to do
tMngs for people, but to quit doing
things to people.
But this founding of libraries and
colleges by NewyorMtic millionaires
has a bit of grim humor in it, and
is essentially poetic justice. Colleges
and libraries are places where people
go to learn things. And the presump
tion is that Ms dealing with the masses
has satisfied the millionaire that they
are stupid and sadly in need of en
lightenment and knowledge; hence the
colleges and libraries.
But the millionaire of to-day shows
little regard for the millionaire of the
future. In fact, the profession of mil-
lionairism is a good deal like the pro
fession of medicine in one respect.
101

NEWYORKITIS

The doctors are busy trying to find
out how to 'prevent disease, and the
logic of it is that in future generations
there will be no disease, and of course
no doctors can exist. And if the mod
em professional millionaires fill the
country with libraries and colleges, —
and it can only hold a certain number,
— then this field of action will be closed
to the future millionaire.
Besides, if the people should take to
using these colleges and libraries, and
should become sufficiently enlightened
and thoughtful so that they would
cease being interested and entertained
by what he does with Ms millions and
begin to study how the millionaire gets
Ms milUons, it is possible that this
profession would also cease to exist,
I am acquainted with a reformed

102

MORAL SYMPTOMS
millionaire. He got Ms millions by
inducing the people of various towns
and cities to present him with valu
able francMses wMch permitted him
to bmld and operate car lines in their
streets. Before Ms francMse was valid,
he had, in each instance, to get the
consent of two thirds of the property-
owners along the streets he wished to
bmld in. " I often wondered," he said,
" at the readiness with wMch men signed
away to me, for notMng, their valuable
assets in the streets in front of their
property. Nobody seemed to be aware
of the fact that the value of real estate
on a given street does not terminate at
the building-lme."
A moral NewyorMtic wishes only to
be called religious; whether he is inno
cent or not is of little consequence to
103

NEWYORKITIS

him. He cannot see that no man or set
of men are fit to renovate or reform
abuses around them until they have
renovated and reformed themselves and
their own set. They wonder, for in
stance, why the CMnese do not take
more kindly to CMistiamzing influ
ence; but they never see the absurd
and ludicrous position in which an
American missionary is placed when he
asks a CMnaman to adopt Ms religion
and to go to Ms heaven after death,
when the CMnaman is not permitted to
live in the missionary's country while
on earth.
When speaMng of the mental phe
nomena of NewyorMtis I pointed out
the fact that mental contraction is
the most marked and characteristic of
this class of symptoms. The measure

104

MORAL SYMPTOMS
of a mind is the circumference of its
greatest circle or horizon of thought.
These patients cannot tMnk widely be
cause they do most of their tMnMng
with the reflex nervous system. They
are thus unable to get a mental grasp
of the planet we are on. To tMnk of
this earth and its billion and a half
of inhabitants as a whole, is utterly
beyond the mental capacity of one of
these patients.
TMs same tendency to contraction is
found when we study the moral symp
toms of NewyorMtis. The measure of
a man's religion — that is, the extent
to wMch he lives up to the teachings
of Jesus — is to be found in the breadth
of Ms mantle of love and charity. It
all depends on how much of these
he habitually exercises in word, deed,
105

NEWYORKITIS

thought, and feeling toward all Ms fel
low human beings, regardless of race,
color, or the part of the planet on
wMch they happen to reside, and to
what extent he is willing to accord
to all others the rights, privileges, and
blessings, both spiritual and material,
which he demands for himself.
These patients suffer from other
pronounced moral delusions. They
imagine, for mstance, that the rules
of common honesty and "business in
tegrity," wMch they insist upon to the
letter when individuals deal with each
other, do not apply when a group of
individuals deals with another group of
individuals. They cannot be brought
to see that a nation is only a group of
individuals, and that a group dealing
with another group is bound by the

106

MORAL SYMPTOMS
same laws of honesty, "business in
tegrity," and CMistian fair dealing as
apply to the individuals composing the
groups. On the contrary, when their nation
by fraud and deception gains an advan
tage over another nation, they shout
themselves hoarse over what they call
" clever diplomacy." And when their
armies crush and destroy a weaker na
tion, murdering the men, burmng their
homes, and driving the women and
cMldren into the jungle to starve and
die, they call it military glory. They
tMow the teacMngs of Jesus to the
winds, and Mde their cupidity and
covetousness beMnd their pretended
love of country and worsMp of its flag.
These patients cannot see that a nation
cannot wrong another nation without
107

NEWYORKITIS

suffering for it any more than an indi
vidual can wrong another individual
and not pay the penalty.
When you tell one of these patients
that a man or a collection of men had
far better suffer a wrong than wilfully
to wrong some one else, he thmks you
a fit subject for a hospital for the in
sane, A moral NewyorMtic seems to
learn notMng from Mstory and obser
vation of the laws that govern right
and wrong. He does not see that these
moral laws are as fatal, and as certain
of self-execution, as are any of the
laws in the physical universe. Ex
plain to Mm that if he fastens one end
of a chain about the neck of a man the
other end of that chain inevitably fas
tens itself in one form or another about
Ms own neck, and that tMs law holds

108

MORAL SYMPTOMS
as good for nations as for individuals,
and he only tMnks how tMs proposi
tion affects Ms individual bank-account
and the "business interests" of the
country. TMs nation, by force, held the black
race in slavery for a hundred years.
The motive for tMs was selfishness and
greed. The wMte man wanted to get
the black man's labor for nothing. The
wrongs, and griefs, and sorrows, and
prayers of these black people finally
reached the ears of Him whose teach
ings we pretend to follow, and who dis
poses of the affairs of men and of na
tions; and awful vengeance followed,
and no man can calculate the cost in
blood and treasure and sorrow wMch
tMs nation had to pay. And now, nearly
forty years after tMs crime ceased, the
109

NEWYORKITIS

wMte people of a whole section of the
country contmue to suffer in many ways
as a result of it, and the sins of the fathers
continue to be visited on the children
to the third and fourth generation.
But the NewyorMtic learns nothing
from tMs example of the operation of
the Divine law, although it took place in
his own time and directly under Ms eyes.
He only laughs at you, and if he happens
to be m a state of excitement and exal
tation, wMch is common among persons
of unsound mind, he abuses you and
calls you a " traitor " when you tell him
that tMs nation is again engaged in
wronging a colored people. He turns
a deaf ear when you tell him that
covetousness — a desire to possess their
lands, mines, francMses, and cheap la
bor — is the motive for the war car-

110

MORAL SYMPTOMS
ried on by tMs nation agamst the m-
habitants of the PMlippine Islands, and
that the people of the United States
will sooner or later be made to suffer
in some sort for the vsrongs done to
these brown people, just as they were
made to suffer for the wrong done to
the black people.
New discoveries and new inventions
in the material world have followed
each other so rapidly that they have
turned the heads of these patients.
They imagine that the Sermon on the
Mount, the Ten Commandments, the
Declaration of Independence, and the
Constitution of the Umted States may
have been useful in the days of the
stage-coach and pony express, but that
they are out of date now.
Newyorkitics cannot see that no
111

NEWYORKITIS

amount of material evolution, or so-
called new commercial and social con
ditions, can set aside the law of right
and wrong, or can enable men or na
tions to escape the rewards and pun
ishments wMch are inseparable from
tMs law. As well imagine that the
law of gravitation was any less fatal
in the days of the cave-dwellers than
in tMs day of steam and electricity,
or will be less when aerial navigation
is an accomplished fact.
All intention of entering mto politi
cal discussion in these pages is dis
claimed. If social and political ques
tions are touched upon, it is merely
incidental in describing the phenomena
of the disease under consideration.
And m studying moral samty or in
sanity we are obliged to have respect

112

MORAL SYMPTOMS

to the moral law as set forth in reve
lation, and as we see its operation in
the Mstory of individuals and of na
tions. In some parts of the world, in Siam
for instance, the people worsMp and
hold sacred the wMte elephant. There
are dun elephants wMch can do every-
tMng that a white elephant can do, but
the people for generations have suf
fered from the illusion that the white
elephant possesses certain inherent vir
tues not possessed by any other mem
ber of the animal Mngdom. They
have worsMped it so long that the
delusion has become a fixed and un-
thinMng fetish with them. And the
priests who are materially benefited
by the prevalence of tMs doctrine will
kill you if you attempt to dispel the
113

NEWYORKITIS

illusion. The NewyorMtic suffers from
a similar illusion about one of the
metals, namely, gold. You cannot get
it out of Ms mind that tMs one member
of the mineral kingdom possesses cer
tain intrinsic virtues not possessed by
any other metal,
A moral Newyorkitic will go to
church Sunday morning, and drone out,
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any
graven image, or any likeness of any
tMng that is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth: thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor serve
them," and for the remaimng six days
of the week he worsMps gold, and he
will break the other mne command
ments in Ms efforts to get it. If you
suggest to him that Ms affection for

114

MORAL SYMPTOMS

this particular metal is an illusion, you
are fortunate if he applies no stronger
epithet than " crank " to you.
There is another curious and inter
esting phenomenon connected with tMs
disease. And tMs symptom is espe
cially marked m those cases where the
patient is a " business man," A " busi
ness man " suffering from NewyorMtis
may have the very highest ratmg in
the " business world," He prides him
self that Ms word is as good as his
bond. He boasts of Ms high standard
of business integrity. He promptly
pays in full every just pecumary claim
against Mm, except one — that is, taxes.
He will resort to any expedient, even
to bribery and false swearing, to avoid
paying Ms pro rata for the support
of the government he lives under
115

NEWYORKITIS

and wMch protects him. The very
system of taxation wMch Ms vote and
influence helped to establish he de
frauds without suffering a qualm of
conscience. Such a patient as we are
describmg would feel nothing but con
tempt for a man who failed to pay his
annual dues and house-account to a
social club, but Ms Mgh standard of
business integrity goes all to pieces
when it comes to paying Ms annual
dues and house-account to Ms govern
ment. His patriotism, about wMch he
talks so loudly on occasion, ends when
the tax-gatherer calls.

116

THE PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS OF
NEWYORKITIS

THE
PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS OF
NEWYORKITIS
THE physical or somatic symptoms
of Newyorkitis are not, as a rule,
so constant, so pronounced, and so
characteristic as are the mental and
moral phenomena. As we have seen,
the disease is essentially a functional
disorder of the brain and nervous sys
tem, and a degeneration of the moral
standard. But there are certain physical signs
in NewyorMtis which are worthy of
consideration. Rapidity and nervousness and lack
of deliberation in all muscular move-
119

NEWYORKITIS

ments are prominent symptoms, TMs
is especially marked in the patient's
walk, and in all movements where the
feet and legs are involved.
When a NewyorMtic walks the
streets of another town or city, he
passes other persons walMng in the
same direction. The constant neces
sity of dodging cable-cars on Ms is
land, and prompt obedience to the oft-
repeated order of the conductors to
"Step lively!" doubtless accounts, in
part at least, for the characteristic
rapid foot action of a NewyorMtic,
Another physical symptom of New
yorMtis wMch is present in many cases
is near-sightedness. The walls of the
high buildings wMch line the streets
of New York City effectually limit the
field of vision. The only opportunity

120

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS
for using the eyes for distant vision is
to look up at the sky, and these pa
tients rarely look in that direction.
The constant use of the eyes for see
ing at short distances results in weak-
emng, from want of use, the muscular
apparatus which adjusts the eye for
seeing at long distances. So when the
patient has an opportunity, at sea or in
the country, of wide vision, he finds
that he has lost the power of ad
justing Ms eyes to the widened ho
rizon. TMs fact can be easily demon
strated by comparing the ability of a
NewyorMtic for detecting objects at a
distance with that of a ranchman or a
professional sailor. It is a curious and
interesting fact that tMs physical short
sightedness is closely allied to the con
tracted mental horizon referred to when
121

NEWYORKITIS

describmg the mental symptoms of tMs
disease. These patients also have a habit of
readmg the newspapers wMle traveling
on the cars. And the bad light, and
lurcMng and jolting of the car, make
it difficult to follow the printed Imes,
and this fact doubtless has much to do
with the large percentage of eye trou
bles among these patients.
Flat-foot cannot be called a charac
teristic symptom of NewyorMtis, be
cause it is frequently seen in persons
who are free from the disease, but it is
so common in NewyorMtis that it
deserves mention among the physical
symptoms. Flat-foot is a breaking
down of the bony arch of the instep.
It results in partial destruction of the
natural curve of the instep, and causes

122

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS
the foot to appear as if it was fastened
at a right angle to the lower end of the
leg, TMs collapse of the arch also de
stroys or fills up the natural hollow of
the foot, so that when a person with
flat-foot walks, " the hollow of the foot
makes a hole in the ground."
We have already referred to the ra
pidity with wMch persons suffering
from NewyorMtis walk over the hard
street pavements. TMs doubtless ac
counts for the frequent occurrence of
flat-foot in tMs affection.
In advanced cases of NewyorMtis
there is always perversion of the appe
tite and of the sense of taste. The ap
petite has to be aroused and the gastric
juices started flowing by a cocktail, or
some other irritating drink, before each
meal. The desire for food is natural
123

NEWYORKITIS
and physiological, and when in a nor
mal condition the stomach announces
the fact that the human engine, of
wMch it is the fire-box, is in need of
fuel by naturally pourmg out the gas
tric juice, and irritating the nerve ter-
mmations in the stomach-wall, and
the individual becomes conscious of a
desire for food, or an appetite, and
proceeds to satisfy it.
TMs natural recurrence of the nor
mal appetite is forestalled and finally
destroyed by taking mto the empty
stomach cocktails and other mixed and
irritating drinks, and m advanced cases
of NewyorMtis it is doubtful if the pa
tient ever has an entirely healthy and nor
mal appetite, but is obliged at all times
to resort to the use of artificial irritation
to start the flow of the gastric jmce.
124

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS

WMsky and other spirituous liquors,
thoroughly diluted with water, are not
irritating to the stomach-wall, or only
slightly so, and taken in moderation
when the stomach is not empty they
are possibly slight aids to digestion.
But they are not appetite-creators,
and therefore do not meet the require
ments of a NewyorMtic. All those who
drink cocktails are not advanced New
yorMtics, any more than all those who
have gray hair are suffering from old
age; but using cocMails to arouse the
appetite is one of the group of symp
toms of NewyorMtis, just as gray hair
is one of the signs of old age.
In NewyorMtis the palate demands
that the food shall be of great variety
and Mghly spiced. The patient likes
the table d'hote, with its variety of
125

NEWYORKITIS

dishes, each one so spiced and smo
thered in hot sauces, dressings, etc.,
that the real make-up of the dish is lost.
Deviled Mdneys, Welsh rarebit hot
with mustard, and oyster cocktails
are also favorite dishes. In treating
these patients, they complam bitterly
of havmg to give up tMs favorite
diet, and it is difficult to get them to
stick to such plain and simple food
as roast beef, bacon, hominy, steak,
milk, and brown bread, and to lay
aside the irritating cocktail and ab
sinthe. Reference has already been made
to the Mghly stimulating character of
the mental pabulum demanded by these
patients. Their physical tastes and
appetites are of the same character.
Another one of the five senses is
126

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS
always more or less affected m New
yorMtis, namely, the sense of hearmg.
Boilermakers' disease is a conges
tion amounting sometimes to cMomc
inflammation of the middle ear. It is
caused by the shock and irritation of
noise, and those who work m boiler
factories are frequently found to suffer
from it; hence the name. But any Mnd
of noise, if sufficiently constant and
discordant, can produce it. What is
thus described in the books as boiler-
makers' disease is not an uncommon
condition in NewyorMtis. TMs symp
tom is, of course, the result of exposure
to the din and roar, the screams and
yells, wMch go on in the streets at
nearly all hours of the day and night.
The high walls of the houses also
play an important part in producing
127

NEWYORKITIS

tMs symptom, for they reflect the noise
and cause the sound-waves to rever
berate back and forth many times, thus
greatly increasing the evil effects of a
smgle discordant sound on the ears.
The capacity of city streets for trans-
Doitting and intensifying sounds is
shown in the great distance at which
the rap of a policeman's club on the
pavement can be heard. The patient
in the street surrounded on tMee sides
by solid walls is somewhat m the posi
tion of the boilermaker who hammers
rivets on the mside of the boiler, so
far as mtensification of the noise is
concerned. Thus careful exammation
of the ears will show that in some
cases of NewyorMtis the sense of hear
mg is more or less defective.
The Newyorkitic has become so ac-

128

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS
customed to noise that he requires it at
all times, even at Ms meals. The per
fect digestion and assimilation of food
requires that durmg meals and for half
or tMee quarters of an hour after
ward the senses and the emotions
should be at rest and free from excite
ment of all Mnds. But in the last few
years, since NewyorMtis has become so
common, every restaurant and eating-
house wMch caters to the " best peo
ple " seems obliged to have a band of
music to play during meal-hours.
Nasal and nasopharyngeal catarrh
is also frequently found. TMs is
caused by the extreme and sudden
changes of temperature, by badly ven
tilated and overheated houses and
apartments, and by general ignorance
and negligence of proper body samtation.
129

CLINICAL REPORTS OF
NEWYORKITIS

CLINICAL REPORTS OF
NEWYORKITIS
THE tMee typical cases of New
yorMtis wMch are reported below
have been selected almost at random
from the thousands of cases wMch
have come under the author's observa
tion and of wMch he has made mental
notes. Case I, Male, aged fifty years, mar
ried, bom in New York City. The
family Mstory of this patient shows
that he was one of five cMldren, His
parents were plain, honest, thrifty peo
ple, exMbiting no signs of NewyorMtis,
133

NEWYORKITIS

nor can any case be found in the tMee
generations of ancestors of which rec
ords could be had. His brothers and
sisters are all living, and free from the
disease, except one brother, who has a
mild form; but it is plain that heredity
plays no part in tMs case. This patient
married, at twenty-five, a Newyorkitic
of about his own age, and after living
together for four years the wife ob
tained a divorce. They had no cMl
dren, she lavisMng her maternal affec
tion on a poodle-dog. After the patient
was divorced, he spent five years in
idleness and dissipation, and then
eloped with the young NewyorMtic
wife of an old man. General paresis
attacked the patient a few years later,
and he died of tMs disease in Ms fiftieth
year. This patient had many of the

134

CLINICAL REPORTS

typical delusions and hallucmations of
NewyorMtis. He had a low moral
standard. He had entirely discarded
the religious traimng of his youth, and
was a pronounced disbeliever in the
power of everytMng except dollars.
Like the Siamese, who attach intrinsic
virtues to the white elephant over all
other beasts, tMs patient imagined that
the metal gold possessed intrinsic value
not possessed by any other metal. The
physical symptoms already described
were well developed in tMs case.
Case II. Male, aged sixty, clergy
man, born of healthy parents in an
adjoimng State, married, no children.
This patient came to Manhattan Island
when thirty years of age, as a-ssistant
to the pastor of a fasMonable church.
135

NEWYORKITIS

Later he was "called" to take entire
charge of a church. He began to show
signs of NewyorMtis soon after takmg
up Ms residence in the city, and the
disease has steadily increased until, at
present, Ms is a most pronounced case,
with practically no hope of recovery.
It is of the " moral " type, as is usual
in cases of NewyorMtis in clergy
men. At times he becomes violent and
excited, especially when speaMng of
those who differ from Mm in opinion.
On one occasion he was seized with a
fit of narrow bigotry and uncharitable
ness to the opinions of others, in the
midst of a sermon. SpeaMng of the
" attempts " of six and a half millions of
Ms fellow-countrymen to establish cer-
tam principles of government m wMch
they honestly believed, he said: "I

136

CLINICAL REPORTS
dare in God's pulpit to brand such at
tempts as accursed and treasonable."
TMs statement, of course, amounts to
nothing except as an illustration of a
phase of the disease I am writing about.
It is of mterest only as an illustra
tion of the contracted love horizon and
thought horizon of the patient; just
as the statement of a general paretic,
that he can crush the skull of a horse
with a single blow of Ms fist, is mter-
esting only as exMbiting the presence
of general paresis with its delusions of
grandeur. TMs patient's opposition to mdivid-
uals who, tMough poverty, ignorance,
and bad example of the "better
classes," are gmlty of small crimes and
vices, knows no bounds. But with pen
and tongue and vote he supports a
137

NEWYORKITIS

great, rich, powerful, so-called Chris
tian nation in breakmg the command
ments wMch say : " Thou shalt not Mil " ;
"Thou shalt not steal"; "Thou shalt
not covet."
Short-sightedness was the only phys
ical symptom present in tMs case.
Case IH. Male, aged forty-six, mar
ried, bom m New York City. TMs
case is of special interest, because it
illustrates how NewyorMtis, hke other
chronic diseases, is sometimes cured by
a sudden mjury or shock to the patient.
The parents of tMs patient showed no
signs of NewyorMtis. They were
honest, frugal, hard-worMng shopkeep
ers, and accumulated a fortune wMch
was called large in their day, and
wMch was inherited by the patient, he
138

CLINICAL REPORTS
being the only cMld. He attended a
modern college, along with the sons of
other rich men, where drinking, card-
playing, football, boatmg, and other
" sports," athletic and otherwise, re
ceived far more attention than did
Latin or Greek or mathematics; in
fact, books were very much of a side
issue. The faculty of the college, as
usual, could not interfere, as this would
drive away wealthy young men and
their fathers' donations. The patient
contracted his NewyorMtis wMle at
college, receiving the infection from
other cases with whom he associated.
The disease developed rapidly. After
going through all the forms and cere
momes of attending college for four
years, and of graduation, the patient
returned to the city a most pronounced
139

NEWYORKITIS

NewyorMtic. He showed all the men
tal and moral symptoms of a typical
case. He would spend weeks m the
country, wearing a red coat and other
ridiculous clothes, mounted on a horse
wMch he rode at breakneck speed
Mther and tMther, trying to catch a
bag of amse-seed; all the time imagin
ing that he was in England and after a
fox. When in town, he spent Ms tune
in the clubs, drinMng, and gambling at
cards, or hanging over the " stock
ticker," as he always had a few hun
dred shares on margin. He wore a
monocle, and cultivated an English
drawl. His clothes were made m Lon
don. He was more famiUar with Eu
ropean cities than with New York, He
had traveled all over the Old World,
but had seen notMng of the United

140

CLINICAL REPORTS
States, never leaving Manhattan Island
except in summer, when he went to Ms
country house on Long Island, or
cruised in Ms yacht on the Sound.
The only exception was once when he
traveled to PhiladelpMa to attend the
funeral of an aunt who had remem
bered him in her will, and tMs trip was
"a most infernal bore." Manhattan
Island represented to Mm the whole of
Ms native country, or all of it worth
Ms consideration.
He had a large collection of ancient
armor displayed in a room bmlt for
that purpose in Ms country house. He
was in the habit of having Ms valet
dress him in a suit of tMs armor, and
with sword and lance he would strut
in front of a mirror, imagimng himself
a valiant English Miight of the Eliza-
141

NEWYORKITIS

bethan period. On one of these occa
sions he fell down a whole ffight of
stairs, landing on Ms head m the
marble hall. The metal helmet was
dented in against his skull, causmg a
dangerous and painful mjury.
The fastemngs of the armor got
jammed, and the valet could not get it
off, so the patient, unable to rise, had
to remam lying on the cold marble
fioor for upward of an hour, imtil the
valet could run to the neighboring vil
lage and fetch a plumber, who, with
hammer and cold-cMsel, extricated him.
The patient was badly stunned. TMs,
with the exposure wMle waiting for
the plumber, brought on an attack of
pachymemngitis. He was unconscious
and delirious for two weeks, and it was
several months before convalescence

142

CLINICAL REPORTS
was fully established. When the pa
tient was finally able to go out, he was
a changed man. He altered Ms habits
and associations. He forsook the soci
ety of NewyorMtics, and sought that of
sensible men. He traveled over Ms own
country, studied its needs, resources,
and institutions, and began to develop.
His Newyorkitis gradually disap
peared, and at the present writmg he
occupies an important public position,
and has become an honored and useful
citizen.

143

THE TREATMENT OF
NEWYORKITIS

THE TREATMENT OF
NEWYORKITIS
THE treatment of NewyorMtis may
be summed up in one word: culture.
And the term is used here m its widest
signification. Most men are born with
a bias, more or less pronounced, of one
kind or another. Each one has a
talent for doing a certain Mnd of work,
and tMs talent too often makes a pris
oner and a slave of Mm. Here, for
instance, is a man born with a taste and
a talent for accumulating material pos
sessions, and money-getting becomes a
monomama with him. NotMng is too
sacred for him to sacrifice to this end.
147

NEWYORKITIS

The more he gets the greater miser he
becomes, wMch is only another name
for beggar.
When a social or economic measure
is proposed, a patient suffering from
tMs particular form of NewyorMtis
does not ask: Is it just? Is it honest?
Will its adoption be helpful to all the
people? but: How does it affect my
individual money-getting? And Ms
decision on tMs one question deter
mines Ms attitude. Culture will cure
a patient of tMs money mama, by re
minding him that, at most, he has only
a few years to stay on tMs planet, and
can take notMng away with Mm, not
even the material body in wMch he
lodged wMle here. It will bring him
to a realizing sense of the fact that,
according to all our knowledge of the

148

TREATMENT

hereafter, the amount of Ms eartMy
possessions can have no sort of effect
on Ms standing in a future state, but
that the manner in wMch he treated
Ms fellow-men wMle here, and the
methods he adopted to accumulate ma
terial possessions, are going to have a
great deal to do with Ms status in the
next stage of Ms existence.
As the treatment continues, the pa
tient is more and more able to study
all questions apart from himself and
with selfishness in the background.
He gradually gets rid of the delusion
that the vast millions wMch he has
been able to accumulate were the result
of Ms superior intellect and industry
over other men; but that unjust and
vicious social and economic conditions
in wMch he found himself, and for
149

NEWYORKITIS

wMch he may not be responsible, made
it possible. The patient ceases to care for what
the law of man permits Mm to do, and
is interested only in what he can per
mit himself to do, to others. His care
up to tMs time has been that no man
should wrong him, or deprive him of
Ms rights under human law. Now Ms
whole aim is not, directly or indirectly,
to wrong other men. His cultured
and awakened conscience is now sub
ject to a Mgher law than is on the
statute-books 'of Ms country.
The NewyorMtic millionaire will not
only give his millions to found colleges,
libraries, hospitals, and to other chari
ties, but he now strenuously traces the
sources of his wealth to their ultimate
origin, and he sees to it that notWng
150

TREATMENT

comes into Ms possession wMch is not
his under that higher law which he
now obeys. He not only sells what
he has, and gives to the poor, but he
takes up Ms cross and follows Him.
Culture will teach the Newyorkitic
that a nation has a perfect right to its
own revolutions and civil wars when
these are necessary to its onward march
to Mgher and better things.
We had a civil war in this country
which got us rid of black slavery, and,
so far as the finite mind can understand,
if we had been deprived of this calam
ity we would also have missed the
blessing wMch followed it, and would
not have taken the great stride up the
line of national evolution.
If, for instance, as some say, inde
pendence to the people of the PMlip-
151

NEWYORKITIS

pine Islands and withdrawal of our
soldiers means revolution and civil war
there, then let them have it. If it is
true that a certam percentage of these
people must be shot before the islands
as a nation can attam to a Mgher plane
of national hfe, then let them shoot
each other. The people of these Umted
States certainly insisted upon that right
and privilege in 1860 and for the fol
lowing four years.
It is of httle moment to a dead man
who MUed him, but a very important
matter to the MUer.
Culture of the head and the heart
will teach the Newyorkitic that the
individual or the nation wMch goes into
the business of maMng widows and
orphans is assuming an awful responsi-
bihty.

152

TREATMENT

Culture takes a man out of the tread
mill of Ms calling. You meet a lawyer
of national reputation, and you are
likely to fitnd him notMng but a stand
ing interrogation-point, and a man of
most surveyable limits outside the con
tracted horizon of Ms profession. Some
eminent medical men make one tired
with their everlasting talk of " shop."
Literary folk and eminent divines, too,
often suffer in the same way. There is
a nervous affection knoAvn as chorea., m
wMch the patient sometimes turns round
in a small circle when he attempts to
walk. The egotism of NewyorMtics
seems to be a metaphysical variety of
tMs disease.
I know a clever and observing man
who declares that when he enters a
public conveyance he is able to name

153

NEWYORKITIS

the occupation of each male passenger
by simply looking at Mm; he says
each one bears the marks of the har
ness m which he works. It will be
said that the work of the world is done
by such enthusiasts, and so it is. But
the world's work ought not to be done
by slaves. A man should be master of
Ms profession or calling, whatever that
may be, but he should not let it be
master of him. He should come to the
labor of his specialty from a Mgher
and wider plane of thought and con
templation. The truth is that the greatest benefit
wMch the mastery of any profession
can confer on a man is, not to furnish
him with a means of earning a suffi
ciency for his physical wants, or of
maMng Mm a useful member of society.

154

TREATMENT

or of getting him a reputation for sMU
or goodness, but as a stepping-stone to
a plane from wMch he can contemplate
all professions and religions and be rid
of illusions concerning any of them.
How often we meet a man again
after years, and find that he is no
worse and no better, no wiser and no
sillier, than when we met him last!
He has learned nothing and forgotten
notMng. And so far as you can judge
from Ms physiognomy and Ms talk, he
has not had a new mental or moral in
sight, or made a new generalization, or
drawn a new mental circle, or changed
his estimates, or enlarged Ms mantle
of charity, since you last talked with
him. He has had births, deaths, and
marriages in Ms family; he has had
business troubles; he has been done

155

NEWYORKITIS

up by a sharper, and steadily robbed
by corporations of one Mnd and an
other; he has toiled every day for a
livmg: but all of these angels found
the windows and doors of Ms mmd
and soul closed when they called, and
could leave Mm notMng of benefit.
I know a lawyer of considerable
pronunence in Ms profession, who, in
conversation, dates every incident of
his life either before or since he had
the typhoid fever, wMch was twenty
years ago. That incident seems to
have been an epoch in Ms Mstory, and
he has never gotten rid of its domi-
neermg infiuence over all Ms mental
processes. Culture, culture of head and heart, is
the only remedy for the malady we are
considering. Teach the Newyorkitic

156

TREATMENT

to open wide the doors and wmdows of
Ms mind and heart, and place himself
in a receptive attitude to the Divine air
and sunshine, and they will destroy the
mold and drive out the bats of greed,
selfishness, hate, and narrow bigotry.
Culture reduces a man's egotisms
and infiammations, and stops Ms harp
ing on one string. It will widen out
the NewyorMtic's mental horizon, and
destroy Ms exaggeration and conceit
concerning Ms own city. It will teach
him that there is a limit to the mterest
wMch the rest of the world takes in
him and Ms performances, and that it
is a poor investment of Ms time to lay
traps for men's praise and commenda
tion, or endeavor to adjust Ms words
and deeds and opimons to avoid their
censure.

157

NEWYORKITIS

He will learn to study questions
apart from himself, and settle them on
their merits, and reserve the right to
make up Ms own mind, and not allow
others to make it up for Mm. He will,
for instance, come to see that the wor
sMp of wealth is vulgar, and he will
learn to give it its proper place in Ms
scale of estimates. His interest in what
the rich do with their millions will be
lost in the study of how they got their
millions. If Ms illusions concerning riches and
the rich have been of the nature of
exaggerated hatred, culture will also
correct tMs, and teach him that wealth
honestly acquired is a blessmg to all.
As convalescence progresses, the pa
tient begms to see that he has been
heretofore nothing but a walMng appe-
158

TREATMENT

tite or a bundle of appetites. It be
gins to dawn on his awakened intelli
gence that Ms physical body itself is
nothing but a possession of his; and
that, up to tMs time, he has treated it
with much less care and consideration
for its welfare than Ms horse or dog or
any other of his earthly possessions.
As the patient's Newyorkitis grad
ually disappears under tMs culture
treatment, he sees his mental and spir
itual horizons steadily widemng, and
knows that, if it continues, he is becom
ing, and will become in time or etermty,
a citizen of the universe. He gets
new and clear views of the impor
tance, and lack of importance, of the
purely human or animal part of him
self, and its relations to Ms real exis
tence. The illusions, delusions, and

159

NEWYORKITIS

hallucinations wMch he formerly held
concerning birth and so-called death
begm to clear up. He sees that getting
born and dying are merely two physio
logical incidents connected with his so
journ on tMs planet; and that he has
heretofore attached too much impor
tance to these and other physiological
changes — as growth, development, de
generation, and death — of the tenement
of flesh in wMch he happens to lodge
for the mght he spends on tMs partic
ular speck of the umverse of God.
And he appreciates the vast impor
tance of the fact that in all conversation
we imconsciously serve notice on our
hearer that what he sees of me is not
me at all. We each use the possessive
case when referring to any part of the
body, or all of it, just as we use it when
160

TREATMENT

mentiomng any other possession. My
head, my heart, my foot, my body, are
expressions wMch convey the idea of
possession, just as my house, my horse,
my coat, conveys the intelUgence that
these tMngs are not me, but possessions
of mine.
Until a man has a clear mental grasp
of the impersonaUty of Ms animal na
ture, and is able to contemplate Ms
material self as a tMng apart from
Ms real ego, he has, to speak paradox
ically, Ms body on Ms hands. Until
he classes Ms body along with the rest
of Ms earthly possessions, and is able
to recogmze its identity and preserve
Ms own, he is the slave of its appetites
and desires, whether they be coarse or
fine. A man should feed and clothe and

161

NEWYORKITIS

water and exercise and rest Ms ammal
body with at least the same care and
intelligence as he does a valuable horse,
or dog, or other ammal he happens to
own, and break it of bad habits or
vicious appetites, as he would these.
He now ceases to struggle and worry
to have sometMng: Ms principal care is
to he sometMng,
I am fortunate in bemg able to en
rich tMs part of our subject with the
following lines from the pen of Ernest
Crosby, NEW YOEK
O sprawling, jagged, formless city ! City with
out a face !
Vast stomach of a city, with countless hands
grasping for more !
162

TREATMENT

Huge agglomeration of people trying to get
the better of each other,
With scarce art and literature and distinc
tion enough to furnish forth a country
village !
And yet in your seething energy, beneath the
fever and delirium, there is something
to admire :
I like your boundless enterprise, your power
to manage and combine, to make light of
obstacles, to will bigly and to work your
monstrous will.
This is the strength of the Alexanders and
Caesars, of the Drakes and Frobishers,
though it stUl flaunt the pirate flag.
There is something here worth saving, some
thing that will spare you from utter de
struction, something to differentiate you
from the Sodoms and Gomorrahs of old.
There are new continents to discover, had
you the eyes to see them ;
There are other worlds to conquer, waiting
163

NEWYORKITIS

for the spell of your voice, had you the
lips for utterance ;
Treasures untold lie yonder beyond the reach
of your writhing arms, needing only the
evolution of your face to bridge the void.
Conceive something worthy of expression ;
Dream something nobler than a full stomach
and prehensile hands ;
Become now at last conscious of the germ of
soul that is in you, and stake your over
weening energy on that !

164

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