HEALTH AXD RECREATION. 789 



to the suffering statements of these men, is obliged in his own mind to 

 differentiate between the assigned and what is often the real cause of 

 that train of evils to which it is his duty to lend an attentive ear. 



Thus, among the most intelligent part of the community — among 

 the part that can help itself — there is no systematized scale or class of 

 recreations that can be relied upon to afford the change really demand- 

 ed for health. Nor are matters much improved when we take up the 

 kind of change that is sought after by the same classes in the matter 

 of physical recreation. When the Volunteer movement first came under 

 notice, and for some time after it first came into practice, it was the 

 hope of all sanitary men — I believe without any exception — that the 

 exercise, and drill, and training, and excitement which would be pro- 

 duced by the movement would prove most beneficial to the health of 

 the male part of the people at a period of life when the training of the 

 physical powers is most required and often most neglected. I remem- 

 ber being quite enthusiastic at that change and its promises, and I re- 

 called the other day an often-quoted paper or essay which had sprung 

 out of that enthusiasm, and which I dare say at the time it was written 

 seemed common sense itself. I can but feel now that the hope was 

 begotten of inexperience. The movement has been a success, I pre- 

 sume, in a national and political point of view, but a careful observation 

 of it from its first until this time has failed to indicate to me, as a phy- 

 sician, that it has led to any decided improvement in the health gener- 

 ally of those who have been most concerned in carrying it out by be- 

 coming its representatives. Certain it is that nothing affirmative of 

 good stands forth in its favor, and I wish I could stop with that one 

 neutral statement. I can not in order of truth and fairness so stop, for 

 I have seen much injury from the process. To say nothing of the ex- 

 pense to which it subjects many struggling men, to the loss of time it 

 inflicts on them, to the neglect it inflicts at the fireside and home, to 

 the spirit of contest of mind and fever of mind which it engenders ; to 

 say nothing, I repeat, of these things — all of which, nevertheless, are 

 detrimental, indirectly, to the health of the men themselves and of 

 those who surround them in family union — there is a direct harm often 

 inflicted by the service, call it recreation if you like, which is not to its 

 credit. The man who has advanced just far enough in life to have com- 

 pleted his development of growth, and to have lost the elasticity of 

 youth, the man who has rather too early in life become fat and, as he 

 or his friends say, puffy, the man who has, from long confinement in 

 the office or study, found himself dejected and dyspeptic, each one of 

 these men has passed into the ranks of the Volunteers, in order to re- 

 gain the elastic tread, to tTirow off the burden of fat, or to find relief 

 from the dyspeptic despondency. For my part, I have never been able 

 to discover a good practical result in any of these trials ; but I have 

 seen many bad practical results. I have seen the partly disabled men, 

 in the conditions specified, striving to do their best to keep alive and 



