The age-herald., 1898-05-17
BIGGEST SOLDIERS
 IN THE WORLD

vantage for the American in this war. With all his pride of race, the naughty Don is a l little fellow; in stature he is least among
 the Europeans, averaging only 5h inches
 over feet. The soldier who fights under
 the stars and stripes averages feet 7h
 inches In his stocking feet; he weighs 10
 pounds more than the Spaniard and his l chest girth is nearly inches greater
 These are points that count on the field of l battle.
 Of course, size is not everything in sol- 1 dier. Never in history has 1t counted for | so little as it does today. inasmuch as mod l ern warfare is conducted chiefly by ma
 chinery, battles are fought at long ranges, and hand-to-hand encounters are rare | The Japanese smaller than the Span-
 iards, yet there are no fiercer fighters; the
 American Indians, on the other hand, are superior in stature to the Yankees But, 1 other things being equal, the bigger man 1 has advantage. The Yankee is the tall- I est of civilized men;in Europe, only the l Norwegian approaches him nearly in this
 respect, and the Englishman is a full inch shorter.
 1 Recruits for war with Spain have been l subjected to physical examinations of un-
 paralleled severity, 20 and even 25 per cent 1 of many companies being thrown out on
 account of defects The supply of men is 1 so much greater than the demand that re- l quirements have been raised proportion- | ately, and the soldiers gathered for this l conflict on the American side will average I higher in respect to bodily development l and health than any army ever before as- | sembled by a nation. Hedging youths, l such as were enlisted so numerously in the civil war, will be conspicuous by their ab- sence. There will be no drummer boys of
 nursery age, and fat men and bow-legged 1 men will be turned down.
 The average volunteer rejected on his l physical these days is very much as- 1 tonished person. He has been accustomed 1 to consider himself as representing, pretty nearly at all events, the beau ideal of man. l hood, and his surprise is great when cold 1 eyed military surgeon picks out flaws all 1 over him. He is too tall, perhaps. Not 1 that 6 feet and a bit over is an objection able feature, but very tall men are apt to l lack depth of chest, which is quality in- 1 dispensable in a soldier. Dept of chest
 means lung capacity, which implies en- durance, marching ability, etc.
 1 The surgeon inspects the teeth of the
 would-be recruit, as if he were a horse, and turns him down if they are bad. Good I teeth are required for the proper chewing l of food; defective ones mean dyspepsia. | If 1t be true that an army travels on its | stomach" the individual fighting man is 1 handicapped by trouble with his digestive [ apparatus. Maybe the volunteer is too l short or too fat. Plumpness is well enough, | but the war department wants no fat men, l because they lack strength, endurance and l activity. Besides fat is symptom of 1 physical degeneracy, and is apt to mean 1 weakness of the heart.
 l The volunteer, fit" in other respects, is l likely to be ;mazed at finding himself re- I jected because his feet are excessively fiat: | yet the requirements are carried to such | an extreme as this. It seems that a very | fiat-footed soldier does not make a satis- l factory infantryman, because he not march we'll Negroes, of course, are ex- i tremely fat-footed, but data are lacking 1 to show how their marching powers com 1 pare with those of whites During the civil war they did some pretty good marching, | certainly. Necessarily the recruit must l have proper feet and even his toes must ans-aar to certain specifications. An in, gr ~ nail, or even corn, will count SCI ls. ..sly against him. Bow-legged and 1 knock-kneed men are objectionable, partly because they do not look well. The mili- l tary art has it's aesthetic side.
 1 During the present war much attention 1 will be paid to the gathering of statistics | of all sorts relating to the soldiers. This l was done to some extent during the civil | conflict, and some of the most interesting | facts noted had to do with the varying | stature of recruits from different parts of l the country. The biggest men came from I Kentucky, averaging a trifle over feet | 81a inches. Close behind was Kansas, with l Minnesota, Missouri, California and Me-
 vada following in the order given. The 1 men from all these states averaged about 1 feet inches. Maine, Illinois and Michi- 1 gan fell two-tenths of an inch below that mark, and next came Ohio and Pennsyl- | vania- Massachusetts and Connecticut | were at the foot of the list the volunteers l from the latter states averaging only | feet 6A inches.
 The ideal height for soldier Is feet 10a l inches. At that stature the most perfect l physical development seems to be attained. | The popular notion that man stops grow 1 ing at about 20 or 2l years of age is mis- | take; the truth is. that he keeps on grow ing until he is 30 or even more, and his chest increases it's capacity up to the same period. At about 50 the man begins to lose height, and this loss may amount to l1s inches in the next twenty years. This shrinkage is due chiefly to a contraction
 of the cartilaginous tissue between the yer tebrae of the backbone but the bones them selves get.smaller actually The fact is ai- ready familiar that any human being is taller in the morning than in the evening, | the body of the recumbent person lengthen- ing out during sleep.
 
 men are most active and enthusiastic, full of vim and ready to endure hardships. All things considered, however, the fighting
 man is at his best at 30 years of age; at 40 he Is more conservative, less capable of
 exertion, and not so much disposed to take risks During the civil war the average American volunteer had chest girth of about 35 inches, with an expansion Of 2S inches. The men from Vermont, Connectf- cut, Rhode Island, Indiana and West Vir- ginia had chest expansion of over inch- es. The chest expansion of the average
 Spanish soldier is only 2.6 inches. Of course the dark-haired and dark-eyed Spaniards and other Latns are notably inferior in size to the northern people of Europe, be- ing of a wholly different race and origin The individual soldier nowadays is re- garded as a machine Not much intelli-
 gence is required of him; he Is simply to act In obedience to directions, like a piece of a highly complicated mechanism. Fuel,
 in the shape of food. is furnished for his consumption, and in return he is expected