Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-02-09
THE ANGL0-sAXON RACE.

The ANGLU-SAAUH hACE'
Thefr Love or Good Eating and Hard
| Work..IVhat is Necessary 10 Keep
Them from Degenerattng.
| The Anglo-Saxon racc-there is no use
| in denying it's most gluttOnous race,
has enormous appetites, and is not always
scrupulous in their qualification; hut it is
also the most industrious and restless
race in the world. There are no limits
to the tasks it imposes ON its brain and
nerves. There are no men who undergo
the tremendous strain to which pro-
fessional and business men here, and still
truly in England, subject themselves. The
! New York or Boston or London barrister
or merchant in the fnll blaze of success.
is phenomenon such rs cannot be wit
messed in any other countries. The Ger
man plods nine hours over his books: but
he is never excited aboEt his work. He
ausorbs slowly, hut he is never intensely
agitated, is not devoured by merciless
ambition, or scourged by an Unsuitable
activity. The Frenchman, as all the
world knows, is an exceedingly clever
fellow, but he is the last man in the world
utterly to scorn the delights of the cafe,
the salon, and the theatre, and the Boulc-
wards, merely to live laboriOus days. 10
find people to whom idleness is misery,
| to whom night brings no restHnd morning
no respite, who spend their days in Court
or in offices, and their nights at meetings
or lectures, or over their books, or in tue
House of Commons, one must study the
English race. Combine with this mucb
devotion to law, and physic, ana scienee,
and theology, and commerce, this icIerISt
thirst for the process which brings fam.
and money, an appetite which is notr
riously equal to an enormous amount
/ GnJ a1 ESI SpOntnhlpS
pastry, and it must be confessed the resu
| is an animal which il is no easy matte
to keep in good health. We have, in short
inherited the love of our Saxon foretathe1
for the good things of this life, out hay
long lain aside the outdoor pursuits whic'
made them impregnable to the assault
! of dyspepsia. Our pursuits arc civiliZe'
and refined. but our hunger continues bal
burian. We work as If we were allnerye'
and eat as if we were all muscle. VIII.
! the result is we all know. England hn
been saved by the flct that am idle an.
wealthy nrisIocracy has made outdoor cX
ercisc, and the leisure tiatit requires, fash
ionG6lc. We. having no such protection,
are falling victims to all the diseases
known to pharmacy. The American
women have already suceumbed, and ow-
ing to the excrtions of piOuS professors,
the ignorant precaution of fond parents, in
early life, and an insane devotion to money-
making in after years, the men are ON the
edge of the abyss of ailing into which
their mothers and sisters have fallen. Al
the influences under which the student
the last generation lived, taught him to
associate muscle with rOwdyiSm. ru'idy
cheeks with cocktails, long-windedness
with profanc swearing, and broad shout
ders with neglect of the ordinances of re-
vealed religion. Tallness was the only
sign of virtue tolerable and tolerated.
Width and weight were held to indicate
/, steady tendency towards the State prison,
and the model young man became pale,
Ianky, dyspeptic, his only rational notion
on the subject of health being contained
in II profound contempt for his own body,
as the author of all his wretchedEess. His
desire was to be all soul. But this gcncr-
alton, we are glad to see, is at last begin
ming to recognize the truth that if we seek
to turn ourselves altogether into soul, we
shall end by having the poorest possible
kind of an article; that crushing the body
on behalf of the intellect is like improving
wine by watering it-whAt you gain in
volume you lose in strength: that the pale,
sickly student may possibly win most pri-
zes in college, but that the hardy. robust
one is he who wins most prizes in the world,
and that, in short, natural abilities and in
OHSlTy DeluS e4uuIt LuC nun - hbOSR SUI
ccssful, who, at the close OF his career, has
digested most dinners With least difficulty.
Tie Count de Segur relates that the tor
lures of hereditary disease, united with
the pangs of fever, wrung from the great
Napoleon, on one of the most critical days
in his history, the exclamation that the
first requisite of good generalshiP was
good health. Jomini records that in his
calmest moments he adhered to the maxim
which his own suffering had suggested,
and we have no doubt that he would, if the
occasion had arisen, have extended its np-
plication to every pursuit in life. Health
is becoming more and more a condition of
success. The "favored races in the strug-
gle for life" are to be more than ever the
healthy races. We trust, too, the Venera-
BILE professors and theologians, whose
magnanimous reproduction of old Preju-
dice, has made gymnastics a legal collegt-
ate amusement, are consoled by the retiec-i
ton that experience and research are daily
showing the intimate connection that ex-
lists between mems morality and the COM
dition of their stomachs. We have been
cherishing too long the absurd conceit that
science and machinery are doing away
with the necessity for physical strength,
and that our mission lIeuceforward was to
devise, aud invent, and think. We are
discovering, before it is too late, that even
to think we'll we must have great deal
besides brains.