From Town Drudgery 243 



can remain a healthy animal or get the enjoy- 

 ment out of life which the mere sense of phy- 

 sical well-being gives. The doctors tell us that 

 the physical trend of people who live in great 

 cities is one of steady deterioration ; the cities 

 must be constantly recruited from the country. 

 To me the persistent city man who never goes 

 beyond the brick walls and paved streets is en- 

 titled to pity very much upon the same ground 

 as are the animals we see in our menageries. 

 Centuries of wrong living have evolved a peo- 

 ple who stand confinement and bad air wonder- 

 fully well, but Nature takes her revenge in one 

 way or another. Nevertheless, we stand our 

 artificial existence so well that most of us for- 

 get that it is an artificial existence. As animals 

 we ought, by rights, to be in the sunlight from 

 morning till night. Our ancestors of a few 

 thousand years ago, who foraged the woods 

 and waters for birds and fish which they de- 

 voured raw, slept well in their caves after the 

 day's chase, and knew nothing of half the 

 ills we now live in dread of. When Thoreau 

 notes that the sports of civilized man were the 

 labors of uncivilized man, does he not indict 



