Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1873-11-28
Walking.


THERE are many men in this city and
throughout the land who, tired and over
worked from business too seden.
tary and exacting, either feel no benefit
from the brief apology for vacation
they took in the summer, or who have
had no vacation at all. None know bet
ter than these that their heads and bodies
will do more and better work in eleven
months if they can rest them the twelfth
than they will in the whole twelve, with
no rest at all; but circumstances have
seemed to conspire to keep them forever
at their treadmills. We would call the
attention of all So situated to the fact that
an excellent remedy yet remains-one
very easy to be had-by which they may,
even before the new year, get themselves
into excellent condition. We mean sim
ply walking. Of all the months in the
twelve, October and November are the
best fitted for this exercise. The roads
are for most of the time in good order,
q the weather is bracing and invigorating
and the scenery in the country beautiful
and variegated even as at no other season.
A man could walk six miles any day last
week, for instance, with scarcely more
effort and more fatigue than three would
have brought in the summer. Let every
one who when evening comes finds him
self fatigued and exhausted, either break
away from his work an hour and
a half or two hours before supper time
and spend it in vigorous walking
wherever he likes; or, if he cannot do
that, let him eat heartily at supper and
take the same walk afterward. For the
first two or three days he may only seem
TO tire more, and to get but little benefit;
but if he will stick to it only day or two
longer it will soon become less difficult,
and the pleasant feeling of increasing
strength which it brings will make him
loath to stop what is plainly bringing HIM
much good. Indeed, he will soon find
that food he hardly cared for at AL before
goes uncommonly well now; that he goes
to sleep Immediately on retiring, and,
sleeping throughout the night, awakens
thoroughly refreshed and ready for the
new days work; that, somehow, it is easy
to be agreeable and CHEEKY; in short, that
his whole system is quite toned up and
strengthened If nothing better than
brick pavements can be had, let him take
brick pavements; but if he can reach the
country road then all the better. The
mere walk to and from work will not do,
for mans mind during such exercise is
too likely to be on his work; but after it
is over let him start away at such a pace
that his legs will take the extra blood
from his brain, and make 1t so difficult to
think protractedly, that at last his brain
will get little Gf the rest it so much
needs, while anything like nervousness
and fever must shortly give way to healthy
calm and quiet
And if besides this daily constitutional
he can capture an occasional Saturday, or,
better yet, Friday too, and stretch his
legs over twenty-five, thirty or forty miles,
he will find Sunday such day of rest as
he had not before known and himself
wondrously fresh and vigorous on Mon.
day morning That Americans need not
be less rugged and sturdy than English
men each can bring instances from his
own circle of acquaintance to prove
and if The life of these favored ones is
looked into it will usually be found that
sensible and systematic effort has had
much to do with this valuable vigor.
"The first wealth is health" says Emer.
son, and here, by the great majority of
the overworked, it is to be had for the
trying. All will recall how Dickens
would have his Six to ten miles daily, and
see from this that the remark of the wri.
ter already quoted, that "for performance
of great work it requires extraordinary
bealth," holds good more broadly than he
had thought. Every man under a hun
dred should have pair of capital walk
ing shoes broad stout and comfortable,
and should use them until once he finds
what true friends they are, and when he
has once found there is nothing more to
fear, they will not stand all the day idle.
All, both rich and poor, can afford our
remedy, and if they fail to use it and
benefit by it, they need blame no one but
themselves Y04k Herald.