The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-11
PHYSICAL EXERCISE
WOMEN HEALTHIER THAN THEIR GRAND
 MOTHERS.
Observations Made by Sir Edwin Ar nold--Improvement in the Con-
 dition of Girls.

London Daily Telegraph.
 The last twenty years, according to the testimony of all observers, have worked wonders for the physical good of woman kind. That period is practically a gem eration, and the full issue, therefore. of this great change has yet to be mani tested. The young women who are now becoming or have lately become mothers are healthier, stronger and better fitted for the duties of life than were their mothers and grandmothers. even though they belong to the numerous class which has been herded for many years in mills and factories.
 'It would be difficult to enumerate the causes which have produced this welcome result" says Sir Edwin Arnold, but I should put first the spread of popular education, which has directly or indirectly taught even the most ignorant the great truth that to be healthy depends princi- palfy upon the person concerned and upon the observance of two or three very sim pie laws of nature. Next came the salu- tary incidents attending the invention of more than one out-of-door pastimes wide ly available for girls, such as croquet. lawn tennis, hockey and the bicycle. If accurate statistics could be obtained think we should be astonished to learn how many weakly frames have been rem Qef0Q TODuSt, anu HOW many HVSS uffGCUiy or indirectly prolonged and br1ghtened by those new forms of open-ahr exercise. We want more of them: we ought to encour- age and reward that eminently useful
 kind of social genius which can create
 such a recreation as lawn tennis furnish
 ed. And if, as have often wished, every
 future cabinet in Downing Street contain
 ed minister of public amusement. such | inventors would be specially distinguish ed as benefactors of their age.
 | Healthful Pastimes. | "No doubt 1t is extremely, difficult to hit upon any novel pastime or pleasure which shah be at once attractive. cumulative, in-
 expensive, everywhere available and in it's conditions hygienic. Most good games are
 of immense antiquity, and in their adop-
 ton by modern nations of different race have to be modified and must accommo-
 date themselves to the taste and temper
 of their latest home. Among the most
 ancient may be reckoned knucklebones.
 the Italian game of mora. shuttlecock
 and playing with a ball.
 Mature sometimes permits or forblds
 the success of a sport which regenerates
 the whole people. England, for example
 with her expanse of green grass, seems
 made for cricket. and if that game could
 he introduced and adopted by the Japa- nese I do not know any single reform
 which would prove truer blessing. To tIldke CFlCheI uhllVeTShl duUnR Ine SuD-
 iects of the Mikado would give them an exercise healthy, manly and absorbing,
 which is greatly needed, while the culti- walton of turf would imply the creation of grazing grounds for sheep and cattle. of which they are now so destitute that in Japan you never see two or three cows together; indeed, have paid a copper coin in one of the villages as price of ad- mission to inspect that wonderful animal. sheep. shut up in a cage! Why. then, does not Japan borrow cricket from us. as 1t is to be hoped she will soon take the Roman character for the printing of all her books. instead of that cumbrous and costly Honji." the Chinese characters of which rob every Japanese boy and girl of five or six years of their school time? The l answer is that she cannot. A dwarf bam- boo grows over all her downs and up- lands, which bricks the living membrane of any grazing creature into infiamma- ton and death. and this. 'tis said. abso- lutely forbids her the cultivation of turf, which, indeed, is nowhere to be seen from end to end of the country. W Games for Women.
 Cricket however, is not game for girls or grown-up women and in contin- umg to encourage athletics as a most im- portant, part of female education in the United Kingdom those are wise who in- sist that such pursuits would be pressed
 too far If they tended to change women into men and to create champions and