i 3 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



After finishing his day's work the Grecian mechanic went to the 

 gymnasium, the Roman to the amphitheatre, and the modern European 

 and American goes to the next " saloon," to satisfy by different methods 

 the same instinct a longing for a diversion from the dull sameness of 

 business-routine. There is no question which method was the best 

 the only question is which of the two bad substitutes may be the worse : 

 the brutalizing, i. e., soul-hardening spectacles of bloodshed of the Ro- 

 man arena, or the soul and body destroying poisons of the liquor-shop ? 



Not a few of the victims of alcohol have contracted their fatal pas- 

 sions with their eyes open to all its consequences but what should 

 they do ? After masticating the dry bread of drudgery for six days, 

 we cannot expect them to content themselves on the seventh with sleep- 

 ing under a tree, or in church ; and the very classes whose want of 

 mental culture incapacitates them for purely intellectual recreations 

 also lack the material resources by which the rich can more easily forego 

 the advantage of public and free opportunities of healthy amusements. 

 The cruel sports to which our bull-fighting ancestors devoted their holi- 

 days have perhaps been justly suppressed, but what have we substi- 

 tuted for them ? Sunday-schools, revivals, and reading-rooms of the 

 Young Men's Christian Association ? Alas ! Deflebilis manet hiatus 

 a deplorable void remains ; man is a compound of body and soul, and 

 the unmixed joys of the New Jerusalem will be found insufficient for 

 terrestrial wants, till the spiritualists have invented the art of dema- 

 terializing bodies as well as of materializing ghosts. 



The pagan Greeks had discovered and divulged a secret which seems 

 not to have been rediscovered yet by our philanthropists,, viz., that the 

 highest well-being of the body and of the soul cannot be attained sep- 

 arately, but must go hand-in-hand like thought and action, or will and 

 force. They also had found out that it is the safest plan to improve 

 each day as it comes, they celebrated life as a festival, and their poor 

 as well as their rich enjoyed heaven on this side of the grave. In going 

 along, they found time to do what we postpone to the end of the jour- 

 ney, which too often is never reached. The joyous love of life, of men 

 to whom existence itself was a luxury, has therefore given way to very 

 different moods sad misgivings and doubts, provoked by ever-present 

 but never-satisfied longings. " He who has done his duty can die in 

 peace," we are told ; but is it a duty to work for such rewards ? 



" So much labor for a winding-sheet ? " 



It may be said that we, too, have our national sports, trials of skill 

 if not of strength, such as base-ball, cricket, target-shooting, and the 

 like, or trials of strength by proxy : horse-races, cock-fighting, etc., on 

 which a man may bestow all the time and stake all the money he has 

 to spare. Well, we cannot afford to despise these things they are the 

 best we have ; but can any man seriously compare the dreary fun of the 

 cockpit with the enthusiasm of the palaestra, or the rapture of a Derby- 

 day or even of a base-ball match with that of the Olympic race, and 



