224 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



no anxieties, and getting the most out of 

 the sea-breeze and the sunlight, has not a far 

 better lot than his city brother who wears 

 more expensive clothes and talks about the 

 price of lard or leather instead of the fish and 

 the tides. As to the essentials of intellectual 

 culture, the fisherman with a taste for reading 

 and his long winter evenings has by far the 

 greater opportunities. 



With regard to the physical advantages of 

 country life modern science has brought statis- 

 tics to bear. Not a physician can be found 

 who does not preach the value of better air 

 than can be found in cities. 



Upon this subject Dr. G. B. Barren, in a 

 paper entitled " Town-Life as a Cause of De- 

 generacy," read at a recent meeting of the 

 British Association, at Bath, England, said : 



" I venture to advance the proposition that 

 the ' vital force ' of the town-dweller is inferior 

 to the ' vital force ' of the countryman. The 

 evidence of this is to be found in a variety of 

 ways. The general unfitness and incapability 

 of the dwellers in our large hives of industry to 

 undergo continued violent exertion, or to sus- 

 tain long endurance of fatigue, is a fact requir- 

 ing little evidence to establish ; nor can they 



