Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-03

said vice. In view of this it is sign of the
times that the Ladies' Berkeley Athletic
Club, founded little more than year ago
in New York, should already have become
fourishlng "institution.
I may say here that think it is mis-
take for women to aim directly at the de-
velopment of muscle; the Venus of Milo.
not the half masculine Amazon, must al
ways be the type of physical perfection fol
them. Their exercise should therefore be
chiefly hygienic rather than athletic. A
great French anatomist, Cruveilhier, was
ungallant enough to say that whatever
women might learn to do they never could
succeed in running gracefully. Candol
compels me to say that think the indict.
ment true, but that and throwing the cricket
cannot do with twice the grace and nearly
all the strength of men.
Dropping the Violent Exercises.
In early manhood and at that variable
period which is known as the "prime Of
life" the object must be to keep as much as
one possibly can of the stamina acquired in
the days when tulit fecetQue puer, sudavit
| ct alsit not for the sake of caprlcious
beauty, but to win the blue ribbon of the
athletic. A man cannot expect under the
storm and stress of active life to maintain
his "condition;" he must be satisfied with
having laid foundation Of physical strength
which will make his subsequent life hap
pier, longer and more useful than it would
otherwise have been. His delight in and
capacity for most forms of exercise will con-
tinue unabated for many years past the age
(46) fixed by the Romans as the limit of en-
| listment.
Those requiring elasticity of the bones
will be given up first; football is danger
GUS anachronism after and 20. Those call
| ing for swlttness of foot will be surrendered
next, and the sacrifice IS made easier by in
creasing height OF body and stiffness of
limb. In the borderland between youth
and middle age, many men are apt to ex-
ceed in the matter of exercise, possibly from
unwillingness to acknowledge that cruel
time is beginning to claw them in his
clutch. For them, therefore, a little of
what DR.. johnson would have called 'suf-
| famination" will often be required. On
the other hand, those on whom middle age
has stamped its marx, whose "wind" is like
woman's love, as described by Hamlet, and
whose waIstcoat is beginning to. yield to
circumstances, have, as it were, to Be driven
to the stake of physical exertion.
The Work Done During a Walk.
The amount and kind of exercise required
on individual peculiarities. There are,
however, certain definite standards by
which the amount of physical work done in
! different kinds of exercise can be accurately
estimated. 1t is calculated that an ordi-
nary labo-er does work which is the equiva-
lent of lifting from 800 to 400 tons one foot
on working day, and Prof. Hauehton
reckons that man walking on nearly
level surface at the rate OF about three
miles an hour e1pends as much force as
| would raise one-twentieth part of the weight
of his body through the distance walked.
Now supposing man weighs 160 pounds,
| in his clothes, IN walking mile he would
| raise eight pounds one mile or 18. Sc tons
| one loot; if he walked six miles at the same
rate he would have raised 113 tons one foot.
This would represent fair standard of ex-
ercise for healthy man of 30 years of age;
ii younger he should do rather more, if older
he might do less.
1 have already pointed out that riding is
an excellent "pemmican" or concentrated
essence of exercise, but it is especially in
middle life that Sydenham's aphorism
holds, that the outside Of horse is the
best thing for the inside of man. Steady
going, however, ought to be the rule, and a
bishops cob is the ideal mount after 90, ex-
cept in the case of hunting men, who are as
much at home in the saddle as other folks
are in bath chair. Oliver Wendell
Holmes who, it must not be forgotten, is
doctor and even an ex-professor of anatomy,
as we'll as charming writer, speaks with
almost Plndaric enthusiasm Of riding DUR
ing which the liver ''goes up and down like
the dasher of a churn IN the midst of the
other vital arrangements, while ''tne
brains also are shaken up like coppers in a
money box" Perhaps the mutual collision
of brain cells and "higher centers" may be
as stimulating to the intellect as the "shock
of minds" in debate.
The Tricycle. for the Middle Aged.
For those who cannot afford horse exercise
there is the tricycle., which as a means of
exercise for the middle aged has a great
future before it. DR.. Oscar Jennings, an
English physician practicing in Paris. has
written a book ola Ssnte par lie Tricycle'')
in which he tells how he diminished his cir
cumference, which was beginning to give
signs of Faistafian possibilities, and evicted
host of infrmities by cycling alone with
out any other form of exercise.
To sum up, middle-aged people between
say 35 and So or 60 should ride or cycle one
hour or walk two hours every day. These
exercises may be varied if the opportunity
offers by rowing or fencing. but 1 do not, as
a rule, recommend Nen to practice swimming
after 40.
cannot conclude my remarks on middle
age without an EN- mphatic word of warning as
to the dangerous mistake that is often made
by men who rush off to Wales and Switzsr-
land after year of exhausting brain work,
insufficient exercise and too probably over
feeding, and straightway proceed to climb
the first hillside they come to or take long,
fatiguing walks, thus passing at once from
a long period-of repose to violent e1ertion
with muscles habbv from disuse and a
physique utterly unprepared for any sudden
call. Can we wonder at the result that often
follows? For those over As there can be no
doubt that the best view of mountain is
from Its loot. Of course a practiced mount
aineer like Prot. Tyndal, whose muscles
have been hardened by many years of climb
ing, may continue the exercise with im-
punity up to a comparatively advanced age,
but such cases cannot safely be taken as ex-
amples by 'smen of mold"
slacken Speed and Reduce Pressure.
We pass next to old age, and the first
question that meets US is, When does old
age begin? Some men are old at 40, while
others may be said to be young at 80. A
man is just as old as his tissues, particularly
those of his heart dnd brain, and there are
octogenarians who, for mental and even
physical volatility, might be their own
grandsons.
The secret of such perpetual youth lies
mostly in regular exercise, whether in fell
ing trees or in the humber form of the daily
constitutional" Even when life has at
last fallen into the sere and yellow leaf e1-
ercIse of kind and amount suited to the
"shrunk shanks," stiff Joints, brittle bones