The free citizen. (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1874-1876, 1875-10-16
MAN NOT DEGENERATING.
The Modern EEHptsnn ns Rig a,s the
Egyptian OF TilOusaIlsis of HrarS &rO.
The Modern English ninn bigger

I rSS.;n "s sr Hi 1Snrs q" .S sns
The 1loticrn E;nglishniIsn bigger
! There never was a dclusion with less evi-
dence for it, except a permanent impress
sion among mankind, which is often the
result, not of accumulated experience,
but OF an ever renewing discontcnt with
the actual state of things. There is not
| the slightest evidence anywhere that man
kwas ever bigger, stronger, swiftcr, o
more enduring under the same condir
tions of food and climate than he is now i.
AS to the bigness, the evidence is pos
tive. Modern Egyptians are us big as
the mummics who were. conqucrors in
their day, and modern Englishmen arc
bigger. There are not in existence Il
Thousand coats of armor which an eng
lishman regiment could put on. Very
| few moderns can use ancient swords, be-
| cause the hilts are too small for their
hands. Endless wealth and skill were
Responded in picking gladiators, and
there is no evidence that a man among
them was as big or as strong as Shaw
No skeleton, no statue, no pictures, in
dicates that men in general were
Fbigger. The Jews of to-day are as large
as they were in Egypt, or larger. The
VI hOJlltSiit uiNc Sll Tile
bearing and more than the size of the
Roman soldiery. No feat is recorded as
usual with Greek athletes which English
|.acrobats could not perform now
\ There is no naked savage tribe which
IInaked C0rnishmen or Yorkshircmen
could not strangle. No race exists of
(which Il thousand men similarly armed
Iiwould defeat an English, or German, or
Russian regiment OF equal numbers.
Nothing is recorded of our forefathers
here in England which Englishmen
could not do, unless it be some fcats of
>archery, which were the results of long
IEtraining of the eye continued for genera
|ttions. The most civilized and luxurious
ltanily that ever existed, the European
Eroyal casts, is physically as big, healthy,
and as powerful as any people of
IIwhom we have any account that science
||can accept. Theirs Frenchman in
ECesar's Gaul in all bodily conditions,
land with an increased power of keeping
|lalive, which may be partly owing to
Improved conditions of living, but is
probably owing still more to developed
SVltality. There is no evidence that
g'seVen the feeble races are feebler than
= becaI,,r after their first nccIimatiza-
lt)ona
! The Bengalee was what we know him
Twelve hundred years ago, and the Chi
namen was represented on porcelain
ijust rs he is now before the birth of
Christ. No race ever multiplied like
the Anglo-Saxon, which has had no adj
vantage of climate, and till lately no
particular advantage of food. Physical
condition depends on physical condi-t
tiOns, and why should Il race better fed,
better clothed, and better housed than it
ever was before degenerate? Because it
eats corn instead of berries? Compare
| the California and the Digger Indian
Because it wears clothes? The wearing
of clothes, if burdensome-which the cX-
pericnce Of army doctors n India as to
the best costume for marching makes cx-
cessively doubtful, they declaring unan-
imously that breechless men suffer from
varicose veins, as men wearing trousers
| do 'not-must operate as permanent
physical training. You carry weight
habitually. Because they keep indoors
Compare English professionals with Tas-
manian sarages, living in identcaIly the
same climate. but living out of doors.
The conditions of civilization not only
do not prohibit Capt. Webb, who would
have Out-walked, out-swum, or strangled
any German that Tactus ever romanccd
about, but they enabled him to live to
seventy instead of dying at forty-fivc, as
two thousand years ago he, then probably
a slave bred for the arena, would have
done.
That the human race, even under the
best conditions, advances very little in.
physical capacities is true, but then it is
true also that those conditions are not
tata! 20 the most powerful of the old inn
| proving forces, the survival of the fittcst.
Still an advance is perceptible in vital
power, and we question whether n Greek
swimmer would ever have crossed from
Dover to Calais, just as strongly as we
question whether the ancient world ever
| possessed Il horse which would have
achiered Il place at EPSON. Why should
men grow feeble in civilization any more
than nflorses.-London Spectator.