The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1906-10-25

In the holiday season it Is we'll
that we should occupy ourselves with
the aptitudes OF our body, once more
restored to nature, and in particular
with the exercises that most increase
its strength, its agility, and the quail
ties which 1t possesses as the body
OF fine, healthy, formidable animal,
ready to face all llfes exigencies.
| remember in this connection that
lately, when writing of the sword, I
allowed myself to be carried away
by my subject and that l was guilty
of a certain injustice toward the only
specific weapon with which nature
has endowed us; l mean the fist.
This injustice l am anxious to repair.
The sword and the fist form each
others complement, and If it be not
ungracious thus to express oneself,
are not on good terms together; but
the sword is or should be only an
exceptional weapon, sort of ultima
et sacra ratio. We should not have
recourse to 1t save with solemn pre-
cautions and ceremonial equivalent
to that which we surround those
criminal trials which may end in a
sentence of death.
The fist, on the contrary, is pre-
eminently the everyday, the human
weapon, the only weapon organically
adapted to the sensibillty. the resis-
tance, the offensive and defensive
structure of our body.
The fact is that If we examine our
selves we'll we must rank ourselves,
without vanity, among the most un-
protected, the most naked, the most
fragile, the most brittle and fiaccid
beings in creation. Compare us, for
instance, with the insect. so formid-
ably equipped for attack and so fan
tastically armor cased! Contemplate
among others the ant, upon which
you may heap ten or twenty thou
sand times the weight of its body
without apparently inconveniencing
1t. Consider the cockchafer, the
'least robust of the beetles, and weigh
what 1t is able to carry before the
rings of its abdomen crack or the
lcasings Of its forewings yield. AS
for the resistance of the stag beetle,
1t is, so to speak, unlimited.
In comparison, therefore, we and
the majority of mammals are un-
solidifed beings, still in the gela-
tinous state and very near to the
primitive protoplasm. Our skeleton
alone, which is, as 1t were, the rough
sketch of our definite form, cffers
a certain consistency; but how
wretched is this skeleton, which one
would think constructed by child
Look at our spine, the basis of our
whole system, whose Ill set vertebrae
hold together only by miracle, and
our thoracic cage, which presents
only series of diagnosis which we
hardly dare touch with the finger
tips.
Now, 1t Is against this slack and
incoherent machine, which resembles
an abortive effort of nature, against
this pitiful organism, from which life
tends to escape on every side, that
I'VE have contrived weapons capable
iof annihilating us even If we pos
,sessed the fabulous armor case, the
Iprodigious strength and the incred-
lible vitality of the most indestruc-
ltible insects.
We have here, it must be agreed,
Ia very curious and a very disconcert-
ing alteration, an initial folly, pc
,culiar to the human race, that goes
ion increasing daily. In order to re-
turn to the natural logic followed
by all other living things, though
we be permitted to use extraordinary
weapons against our enemies of
different order, we ought among our
selves, among men, to employ only
the means of attack and defence pro-
vided by our own bodies. Were
mankind to conform strictly to the
evident will of nature, the fist
which is to man what its horns are
to the bull and its claws and teeth
to the lion-the fist should suffice
for all our needs of protection, JUS
tice and revenge. A wiser race would
forbid any other mode of combat as
an irremissible crime against the es-
sential laws of the species. At the
end OF few generations we should
thus succeed in spreading and put
ting into force sort of panic-strick-
en- respect of human life.
How prompt, how exactly in ac-
cordance with natures wishes, would
be the selection brought about by
the intensive practice of pugilism,
In which all the hopes of military
glory would be centred. Now selec-
tion is. after all, the only really i'm
portant thing that claims our pre-
occupation; it is the first, the great
est and the most eternal OF our duties
toward the race.
Meanwhile the study of boxing
gives us excellent lessons in humility
and throws a somewhat alarming
light upon the forfeiture of some of
our most valuable instincts. We
soon perceive that, in all that con-
Germs the use of our limbs-agility,
dexterity, muscular strength, resis-
tance to pain-we have sunk to the
lowest rank of the mammals or bat.
rachians. From this point OF view,
in we'll conceived hierarchy, we
should be entitled to modest place
between the frog and the sheep. The
Ill 90 H.