Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-28
TRAMP CLUBS.

The Albany Journal advises that our
young men and women pattern after the
example of the Johns Hopkins University
students, who organize tramp clubs and |
cultivate the arr" Of walking. Instead
of travelling with trunks and dress equip
age in cushioned cars, to the seaside or
mountain resort to spend their vacation,
they pocket the money they save, put
stout shoes upon their feet, stout clothing
upon their bodies, and with scrip and staff
"tramp" to the mountains OF down the
valleys, and visit, not the more distant
points of interest, of course, but those
nearer home, that are probably equally
interesting. The test of the club, when
the members are drilled up to the regula-
ton requirement, is the ability to "do"
thirty miles IN day. For this accom-
plishuent they train themselves before
the outing season opens by short tramps liz
the ether seasons. Their trips have never
yet been attended by i'll health or ex-
haustion On the contrary, men increase
their physical strength and general we'll
being by their d" tramp" and arrive at the
objective points, and return home, fresher,
happierand with far better appetite and
digestion than those who come and go by
conveyance.
OF course no arbitrary rule can be es-
tablisked in the matter, and of course
some people can never sbecome good walk
ers. IN truth, only the few can endure
long stages of foot exercise. Walking
tries the brain if the muscular system is
not IL good condition. 1t is open air eK-
ercise, to be sure, economic and healthful
to the systems constituted to endure it;
but some are not by nature fitted
TO engage in it. But, on the
other hand, it is to be said that
avery great mary more people could, if
they would, cultivate the ability to walk
we'll and long, without brain exhaustion.
There are tens of thousands of men who
are upon their feet and moving in nearly
all business hours, who thus accomplish
from six to twenty miles day without
approaching the distance that they have
travelled, and that, too, under the most adj
verse conditions as to freedom of limb,
having neither proper footwear, suitable
and unconfning clothing or cool, light
head-gear. If there were more tramp
clubs"-such, for instance, as that one Just
formed in San Francisco, to explore local
geography-there would be less DYSPEPSIA,
back ache and complainings about malaria
that convenient scapegoat for stomachic
difficulties, irregular eating, bad dressing
worse drinking, misapplication to bust
ness, and mental worry. The art of out
door rural walking, we repeat, ought to be
a very great deal more cultivated, and
especially among women. 1t would cut
short many doctors bill, bring the glow
of health to many wasting cheek, and
strength to many weary and aching
spine. The women of England under
stand this thoroughly, and get all the good
possible out of walking. The result is as
a rule they are vigorous, and can en-
dure without WEAKNESS physical strain
that their American sisters cannot
There Is everything, too, in knowing
how TO walk and how TO avoid fatigue.
Scientific training Will impart this knowl-
edge, and 50 viii share Of common sense,
and tie experience gained by easy and
gradually increasing walking ;asIss. There
Is no land ON the face of the globe that
affords finer opportunities for cultivating
this walking art than California Except
ing those who never can acquire
it nor endure the physical task,
We have plenty of people, in every part of
the State, who ought to swarm on holidays
and outing seasons upon the foothill paths,
mountain trails and coast highways in
e" tramping clubs. Every vacation ought
to see hundreds of loose robed, stoutly shod
and limb-free groups of young and middle
aged people marching out of towns and
cities to the woods and mountains, the
seashore and along the valley highways
Early starts, short stages, gradually in
creasing; frequent restings plain good
food; free breathing, down to the least
cells of the fully expanded lungs, of atmos-
pheres uncontaminated by the smoke and
gas and dust of towns, will put spirit and
bounding strength and hard muscle into
bodies that viii not acquire equal vigor
by the persistent and heaviest physical
toll
There is more of health-renewed rigor,
quickened brain, strengthened stomach
and active liver in hundred miles of foot
bill and mountain tramp, after one is
trained up to doing twenty miles day
with ease, than there is in three months
Of dwadling upon the sands at the sea-
side, merely shifting saline atmospheres or
idling about health resorts and swallowing
conventional hourly draughts of mineral
water from popular springs. We would
not enter so much as a breath of protest
against seaside or spring, but both would
be Il Thousand fold more beneficial if half
the people who ride te them would walk.
and the remainder would, once at the
shore or the mountain resort, indulge dis
creetly in the walking and breathing arts,
and thus get full satisfaction out of the
change of scene and air. OF course this is
not TO be done in minute, nor to be ac-
complished in the regulation attire de-
manded at the fashionable summer resort
hotel. For wEestle with nature upon
the highway, one needs to robe
for freedom of action and comfort |
and to carry light weight all around He
needs, toe, to court the rising sun and be a |
glutton of she fresh morning air and dewy |
ozone Overwhelming nature He wants to |
so tramp as to come in with the enormous |
appetite that makes landlords shudder.
and go out to explore the geography of his |
State with vigor born only of pedestrian
exercise. The business man with fair
health, the clerk who tramps commercial
floors day after day. the desk slave tho |