The San Francisco call., 1896-02-09

1nlS Is WnaI San FRANCISCAN said
to me. recently, when L spoke of the
picturesque charm which this Won
derful City has ever had for me.
exclaimed at the heresy. Did he realize
what San Francisco would be without the
hills, investing her with beauty that has
made her famous?
Yes, he knew. She would be a city
where suburban life would have some COM
fort and uptown building lots some value.
As though city realty, uptown or down,
were not already higher than any of
our city hills!
Then he swung aboard a Clay-street car
to ride from Montgomery street to Taylor.
What will be the fate of the human race
few generations hence if we continue, as
we are doing at present, to neglect the
natural uses of the body and to rely upon
artificial substitutes for the organs nature
has provided for our use?
We have covered our heads with hats
until our hair has grown sparse and in
sufficient for the purposes it was meant to
fill. We have augmented our sight by
spectacles until we have greatly lessened
the power of the eyes. We have so re-
duced to science the preparation, mace
ration and fabrication of food that our
teeth are falling into decay, and the sail
vary glands, through inactivity and abuse,
are becoming the seat of queer Affections.
We have almostly entirely lost the use
OF our toes, once useful, active mem
bers of the body, and the majority
of US are in a fair way to forget
for what lungs and legs and arms
were given human beings. We are rem
Airhf #
stairs. We are exhausted after elm bing
one of our city's hilly blocks, and we are
quite worn out when it comes TO carrying
a moderately heavy package any distance.
In fact. we are in fair way to realize that
scientific picture of the twentieth century
man as a toothIess, hairless, sightless
creature, with limited power of self loco
motion, with an enormous nervous devel-
opment. Elevators, cable and electric
cars, bicycles and horses, are all combin-
ing to make US comparatively helpless
creatures as regards natures methods of
locomotion. In time Yankee ingenuity
may invent creature that can carry on
the work of the world independently of
human effort, and when this happy time
arrives we can sit down quietly to the
leisureIy task of growing our bones out
side our bodies, for the better protection
of the soft, feeble organisms they are
likely to become.
But while the race al large may be con-
tent to permit its physical faculties to ia IL
into "innocuous desuetude,' the fortunate
d3 eliers in San Francisco will have to bear
heavier weight of responsibility than
falls to their fellows share, for, in neglect
ing the natural exercise for lack of VI hich
our progenitors, we are SHINING against cir
cumstance. as we'll as against ourselves,
. and against the richest environment nature
ever bestowed npon a happy people.
The everlasting hills" that lift our city
heavenward on their broad, service-loving
shoulders; "the heart-breaking and back
breaking hills" / heard them called re-
Gently, by one who knew not the wrong
she did them. The benefcent hills they
are, if we only knew how to use them, are,
could we but understand it and know its
value, sending us perpetual invitation to
let them help us to health and strength
and beauty and inspiration. We are poor.
tame-spirited creatures, that we are con-
tent, day after day, with letting ourselves
be dragged up and down them, elbowing
each other in crowded cars, breathing
stale air and covering before drafts, when
we might climb them of ourselves, to the
expansion of our lungs and the develop
ment of muscle and digestive power, to
say nothing of the greater mental and
moral force that comes from free use of
the body.
If we patronize the ca ble-cars at all, il
should be to bring us down the hills, for
the actual jar, upon back and nerves, of
coming down a steep, tagged grade, is
greater than the muscular exertion and
demand upon the lung power of ascending
the same grade. This is not wholly true
of an unpaved hill road, although, in anv
case, the descent, while apparently easier,
is greater strain in the long run than the
ascent. In this, as in some other things,
it is easier to go down than up, but it is
harder upon you in the end.
But, going down or up hills, even San
Francisco hills, should not unduly tax the
strength of an ordinarily well person. We
make terrible bugbear of them, we who