New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-03-20
on roof.

At the present time there are probably
twenty men and more than double that num-
Der OF women footing it around sawdust rings
in different parts of the country. Every vii
lage has its walking club. College boys meet
yOu with the precise gait of an ostrich, their
elbows out jerking along from the hips down
pretty girls no longer 81 skim with light elias
tic tread the daised PLAIN" but set down
their boots scientifically on the bricks heel
and toe, good for so many miles an hour
All this, we are told. is physical culture.
Perhaps it is. Any transient within which will
drag young people out of furnace-heated
houses into the open air must benefit them
physically to certain degree. young lad
or girl, however, who would take the same
amount of exercise while looking for stones,
beetles, or weeds, or while playing game,
would reap double the advantage from it, as
every tyro in physiology knows. The brain
must be interested and amused while the
limbs are at work, or the nerves suffer Just In
proportion as the muscles are strengthened.
We need not hatter ourselves that we are be-
coming, as a people, anxious for physical Gull
ture. Amateurs are footing it just now, tick
ing of their miles and Boosting of them,
because 1t is the fashion of the hour, just rs
they sing PlnalOre. AS for the professional
walkers especially the poor women, who are
advertising themselves in half the towns of
the country, they are doing it simply to
keep soul and body together. Gold help
them! Nothing of late years gives a
more pitiabe insight into the con-
diton of the labOrng classes than
the rush of women into every employment
i b Va
know of no more miserable or repugnant way
for modest woman to earn money than that
of making herself raree-shOw for days to a
multitude of gaping, and often half drunken
men, whose sole interest in her lies in watch
Ing the strength and endurance of her body,
while she drags it around the ring through
the foul air of breaths laden with tobacco and
whiskey, in a condition of nervous exhaustion
SO extreme that death Is imminent at any
moment. A week or two ago. as our
readers know, strong man was driven
mad by the strain, and attempted murder,
and last Sunday poor girl in Newark
fell IN epllephc fits, and barely escaped with
life. If these poor creatures are driven to
straits so hard 10 earn their living, let us pity
them aad help them il we choose. but in the
name of common sense let us not talk of ply
steal culture in the matter.
1t is quite true that our women need more
outdoor exercise. They are as rule bilious,
neuralgia and thin FLOODED. But it is not their
muscles, but their nerves and digestion, which
need repair. What they want, therefore, Is fresh
air, amusement. interest in outdoor things, and
gentle exercise-nOt tho OverwOrk of long. OBJ
jectless tramps. Precisely the same rule APP
plies to American men. Their brains need
rest ami recreation quite much as their
bodies do work. 1t is true they may gain
good many hints as to the uses of sObriety,
self-control in eating. fresh air and clean
bodies from these professional trainers.
Whiskey and tobaccO-smOke had much
to do with the defeats at Gilmore's Gar
den. But the advantage of. walking does
not lie in making 80 many miles an hour, ex-
cept to men who mean to earn their living by
it. If the college boys whose souls are wrung
with envy of Rowell would spend the coming
vacation in making pedestrian tours through
the mountains, leaving their whislley TASKS
mt home, sleeping on the ground, cooking for
themselves. finding new fun and adventures
every day, they would come back sOunder in
general health, and certainly more vigorous
in mind and morals, than if they had walked
for the Ashley belt and won it.