THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



Captain, ' I would have told your uncle that, although the 

 invention of gunpowder has put men more on an equality in 

 battle, still, as has been proved in our numerous and generally 

 victorious contests with the enemy, physical power in our 

 soldiers has greatly served our cause. It has been ascertained 

 by the means of an instrument called the hynanometer (or 

 measure of strength), that the English are the strongest of 

 all European nations, and, by a fourth part, stronger than 

 savages in a state of nature. Thus it appears that the im- 

 provement of social order does not impair the physical powers 

 of man, as some persons have imagined ; but experience has 

 shown that the strength and activity of the human frame, 

 arising from the natural muscular conformation of its parts, 

 can be nearly trebled by proper food and exercise, or what we 

 call training. It has been ; proved that, under such circum- 

 stances, man is infinitely superior in strength to the horse, 

 relatively to the size of the latter, which is to that of a man 

 as six or seven to one ; and he is capable of being trained to 

 beat him at a continuance of labour. I, myself, walked 110 

 miles in nineteen hours and tv*'enty-seven minutes, and a man 

 named Granville went 142 miles in twenty-nine hours. 

 Takino- the average of horses, not one in a thousand would 

 have performed either of these tasks.^ The mechanical con- 

 struction of man, however, is admirably adapted to his 

 destination under any circumstances in which he may be 

 placed ; but the degree of strength which is attainable by 

 exercise, and lost by effeminacy, is, unfortunately, not gene- 

 rally considered, or it would cause many to withdraw them- 

 selves from the slaver}'- of luxury, and induce them to enlist 

 under the banners of temperance and exercise, the true sources 

 of enjoyment, and the only efficient means of utility. And 

 this state of additional strength in man, together with health 

 which none but those who have experienced it can appreciate, 

 is found by those who are trained for the rinrj to be attained 

 by plain but substantial food, with good malt liquor, or water, 



1 An ingenious Frenchman ascertained the strength of the human frame, by 

 pLacing on every part of a man's body, standing upright, a number of weights, in 

 such a manner that each i)art supported as much as it could bear, relativel}' to 

 the rest ; and it \vas found by this contrivance that a man could stand under 

 2000 pounds. Supposing, then, the bulk of the body of a horse to be as I have 

 stated, he ought to bear a weight of 12,000, or 14,000 pouiuls, which no horse 

 could bear. 



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