[NTRODCCTORY OHSEllVATIONS 



27 



Sana in corpore smio — of keeping up manhood, and of maintain- 

 ing the physical eneigies and capacities of the human race at 

 their highest standard. 



It is an authentic and undeniable fact that the aristocracy and 

 gentry of the British Islands are superior, in physical beauty 

 and power, in robustness, agility, and the capacity of enduring 

 fatigue, to any other class of nobility in the world. They are, 

 in fiict, the only nobUiti/ in existence, which have been enabled 

 to resist the deteriorating influences of wealth, luxury, and 

 breeding-in-and-in, which have corrupted and effen\inated the 

 nobility of all other lands ; they are the only nobility, in exist- 

 ence, which not only eiiuals, but exceeds, in physical stature 

 and strength the peasantry and laborious classes of their own 

 country. And to nothing is this, or can it be, ascribed, but to 

 their habit of residence on their rural estates, and their addiction 

 to manly and laborious field sports. To the like cause, may 

 be, in its degree, attributed the superiority, in vigor and robust- 

 ness, despite of ill fare and hardship, of the British peasant and 

 artisan to his equal in society, in France, Spain, Italy, and on 

 the European continent in general. 



This being, as it must be admitted, true of Great Britain, 

 there are two reasons, worth the consideration of the statesman 

 and the philanthropist, why the encouragement of a love for 

 field sports is even more desirable and necessary in the United 

 States than in that country. 



The first is this — that the wealthy classes of the northern 

 states entirely.) and of all the states, in a great degree, dwelling 

 exclusively in large cities, and not residing at all on rural es- 

 tates, or ac([uiring rural tastes and habits, are infinitely more 

 liable to become effeminated and effete than the gentry, not of 

 Britain only, but of France and Germany. And, in fact, the 

 sol disaute aristocracy, the dandies of our cities, are now softer 

 and more cocknified, as a rule, than the gentry of the European 

 monarchies. 



The second consideration is this — that, standing armies being 

 out of the question in this republic, the defence of the land and 



