152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



respondent of Virchow's " Jahresberichte," constitute the summer 

 dress of the average girl of the period. The blind submission to such 

 demands of fashion can be explained only by a long subjection of 

 human reason to authority, together with that ridiculous dread of 

 nudity Avhich forms a characteristic feature of all anti-natural relig- 

 ions. According to the ethics of the Hebrew-Buddhistic moralists, all 

 naturcdla sunt turpia y the body is the arch-enemy of the soul, and 

 must be hidden, lest the children of the Church might be reminded of 

 their relationship to the despised children of Nature. Boys and girls 

 have no vote in such matters, or they would consent to turn night 

 into day for the sake of getting a little exercise without the dire alter- 

 native of sweating to death or awakening the anathemas of Mrs. 

 Grundy. The misery reaches its climax in June, when the warm 

 weather begins before the vacations ; and in midsummer a person 

 with humane instincts would rather make a wide detour than pass a 

 town school or a cotton-factory and witness the triumph of our pious 

 civilization the daily and intolerable torture of thousands of helpless 

 children to please an Old Hypocrites' Christian Association of priests 

 and prudes ! 



As houses have been called exterior garments, a heavy suit of 

 clothes might be called a portable house a protective barrier between 

 the skin and the cold air ; but in warm weather the most effectual 

 device for diminishing the benefit of out-door exercise. Between May 

 and October man has to wear clothes enough to keep the flies and 

 gnats from troubling him : a pair of linen trowsers, a shirt, and a light 

 neckerchief whatsoever is more than these is of evil. The best head- 

 dress for summer is our natural hair ; the next best a light straw hat, 

 with a perforated crown. Hats and caps, as a protection from the 

 vicissitudes of the atmosphere, are a comparatively recent invention. 

 The Syrians, Greeks, Romans, Normans, and Visigoths wore helmets 

 in war, but went uncovered in time of peace, in the coldest and most 

 stormy seasons ; the Gauls and Egyptians always went bareheaded, 

 even into battle, and, a hundred years after the conquest of Egypt by 

 Cambyses (b. c. 525), the sands of Pelusium still covered the well- 

 preserved skulls of the native warriors, while those of the turbaned 

 Persians had crumbled to the jawbones. The Emperor Hadrian trav- 

 eled bareheaded from the icy Alps to the borders of Mesopotamia ; the 

 founders of several monastic orders interdicted all coverings for the 

 head ; during the reign of Henry VIH, boys and young men generally 

 went with the head bare, and to the preservation of this old Saxon 

 custom Sir John Sinclair* ascribes the remarkable health of the orphans 

 of Queen's Hospital. The human skull is naturally better protected 

 than that of any other warm-blooded animal, so that there seems little 

 need of adding an artificial covering ; and, as Dr. Adair observes, the 

 most neglected children, street Arabs and young gypsies, are least 



* " Code of Health and Longevity," p. 298. 



