The Express.
London, England, 1852-05-17 00:00:00

• We have spent the winter and spring in debating
end squabbling about our militia. Summer is com-
ing, and we may have • militia, worth all others,
without consent of parliament—without any need of
asking, "with bated breath," how Loeb MAK/LION
Will like IL A nation with stoat limbs, bro id chests,
• merry heart, and • cheerful accordant will, is the
best militia that ever was and ever can be. Summer
is coming; and before it is gone, we may, if
we choose, me whether the brawny limbs and
merry heart of Old England cannot be re-
stored. Let us make our own muster on
cricket-grounds. Let us have wrestling-matches
be our exercises. Let us have fout•races and leap-
ing matches, as our preparation fur marches. Let us
set up our targets, and see how nicely we can pick
out the hull's eye. Let our swimmers seek out the
strongest streams, and show how valiantly they can
charge the enemy, and cast him off from their bread
breast. Men must have sports. What are they
now I—and what might they not be ? It sickens
dm hearts of old-fashioned people to see what they
ere now. We see mind in one place, and body in
another. Look for mind, and you see wizen-faced
men crowded into hot rooms, thick with tobacco-
gawks and bitter with beer, wrangling with cracked
voices about the charter and truck, and blas-
pheming the bishops, and contradicting each
other without cad, about the eights of
man. You see the pale-faced mechanic trail-
ing home from a feeble walk in sorry fields,
as if tired with the weight of his own baby on his
arm. You are lads swilling bad porter in penny
theatres, leering at indecent melodramas. At best,
you see men who have been standing still all day,
yawning over book' in reading-rooms, trying to
study, but finding • heavy mist between their minds
and the dizeying page. If you look for body, you
act country boys " daundering" through the lanes,
with their hands in their pockets, and lead in their
heels, and a pipe in their mouths. If they see
the clergyman or a lady coming, they hide their
pipes, and pretend to be looking over the hedge.
You see the labourer " doin' nothin',* with wide
dyes mouth and haltshut eyes. If you want to open
hie eyes, tell him that the stars (if only he happens
ever to have looked up at them) are not spangles,
and that the sun is miles higher than the
clouds, and see how he will stare • how
curiously he will peer at you, to see if you
are in earnest. You will see the rustic, who cannot
endure Lis home, cowering under the river bank,
crouching and hiding while he flings his line, and
carrying his poached fish home in his hat, in fear of
the great man's steward, and with the feelings of
the thief in his uneasy heart. The best you will see
will be the very little boys, setting u? their wand in
the meadow, and jumping and tumbling. Now they
bap—and now down they go—they roll, they laugh,
and get up, and run to try again. This is something
like—this is education. Their limbs thrill, their
blood quickens, their minds are more truly awake
than perhaps they may ever be again. Look at their
vehement action, if they dispute; see how clearly
they understand what they mean, and how earnestly
they say it. See how the majority call out for fair
play, and how some strong one announces
that the weak shall have it. This is edu-
eatioo , sanitary reform, and training for defence, all
in one. Let us only extend it to men, and we shall
have done more both for national defence and for
popular education than parliament alone can do by
many nights—by whole sessions of lamplight contro-
versy. For both objects the thing to be desired is
to bring mind and body into consentaneous action.
However various may be the methods of effecting
this, one of the most prominent is the recovery of the
manly exercises which distinguished our people of
old. This is not an institution which betimes anti-
quated—worn out by time. The need and the means
he in the constitution of man, which des aetebange
and become obsolete in parts, like polideal institu-
tions. The muscular form and nervous mew of the
people err always with en, like our island maid diffs
and our eternal meow They enact be abrogated, like
putrescent laws, nor ill ire desmatods, want-
oat customs. They ere as pun eat es bury Sol-
Islip and old Thum., Themes are the spurts el
the oldest days (provided they are thoroughly
sportive, and in no way cruel) as fit he Beglidmosa
now as when HAILEFOOT sped after the pose. est
Rome HOOD lent a hand at a boat at moutordoi
Englishmen have brains still, the same as ever; end
brain needs general use, in order to Moldy as musk
as ever : and where shall me Iliad a sere t
enerciee of brain than in a match at miskethr
arm grows strong—the feet barn to be swift—the
faculties become keen—the emotions ere all alive.
The heart opens, the spirits rim; in sympathy and
emulation men find themeless esildsoly Newsom
sad brave. If the infirm Loon MAXIMS, eltended
by his collected armies, laid milk bra*, mod
jingling their bribes in thew psis% were
end-
dsely to appear on one of efts eimmene, brim the
meembled cricketers of Netessi. is the edit
el a mighty game, we would dome book the milk.
Mere, with their bats and is thdr shirt shove%
against the bristling Frame meible•—the lore
body, with a heart in its breast and a bobby brain,
sonnet the steel-clad body, without a bust and with
a tipsy brain. We are told that oar sembere would
make a clever soldiery, Let us Men them into
cricketers, and they will be more then a clover—
they will be • liessetems esidkry. list in a day.
There are same that must kappa first. It
may be that a army may bee good as a
bood-eallag ass titis as wen est to let our
national du se rem an that suggrides. Fns
toads is gibs men essugh breed Meet. It will go
on, we may him le glee them daily meat; bat'
theemeds at the peal sot drop into
their graves beim we as slew nrIMAN
Sisal troops ea ay Aside—of lade or sport. list
we ma beglibis wry anommu,—Ain we, mesa
-4/MarilifeWo—i• demise the andonal End% sad
skew lam Missal heart, by ofi Wag ego tau the
chile air together, and making muselves merry
_ _

It is mournful to hear um rem rasa talk,—mare
se than even to see the. wok. Haw oar young
lawyers, and merchants, and menafacturers go
almilling along in the streets, sad serefaUT climb a
Mile, instead of clearing it at a bomb 'Hass arm
they who shake their heads when Asir debts and
old aunts propose their forming rilleilabs ; them are
they aho think that rifle-clubs
_may do aped &el
et barn,—may put it into the heads of the Plena
to some and interfere with Wines. These are dig
who stare whoa amok' fake, nasalising the spirit
of half a aster/ age. awl begetting ha woes,
wish that the Frosit wadi belly us a little
est the yelling men might awake to th;
hamar •
and biending et ia Old England.
If the Fran& will fist bul y Isi=cro.hallerip sae
anether--Yeebshie• Let see
holiday Ms mike Ve taw fhb swam Me
Oerawall se Camberlaied. sad isquirs set the wrest-
les* there. Let them such the seel•hewees Dur-
hem and Northumberland, and inquire of themselves
whether there need he anything lasi is musk
breadth and sinew as they see. Let them leek CO at
any row in Ireland, wen shillelaghs are swinging.
sad say, from their hearts, whether the gay rage and
sinless blood-spilling there are really wens than
the election tricks and sordid gin-drinking that they
have (or ought to have) seen among their
Neighbours at home. Let them throw open
a great play-ground between the two, and see
whether men will not like sport better than
tricks—fresh air better than gin—and roars of
laughter better than shouts of wrath. They may
do en without any secession from the spirit of the
age; for such a movement is =inhere— very sanitary
—though commissioned by no boa a; yes, even the
more so for that. It is very religion., " lifting up
the hawk that hang down, and strengthening the
feeble knees r—very religious, with the advantage
o' being neither popish nor anti-papal, but reconcil-
able with the go,d part of all faiths. It would be an
Exhibition t seeding that of last year,—this calling
upon a whole nation to enjoy themselves, summer
after summer, in that mighty Crystal Palace which
is given as, re Lay lighted by the sun and moon.
It is opening the noblest of hospitals, with
the • airs of heaven for our medical staff. We
are much mi,tuln n if it would not turn out
to be a bleswd iniiwion to tl.e heathen,—
those most wrete:i d heathens, whose ghosts walk in
our daily paths, w Lilt their real Wire& dwell ill tome
far off purgatory, wh,,e hope is left behind. It is
education, al we la .ey said. It is political safety;
for there is soiltiag like the breeze of hilarity for