i88o.] 
English and American Physique . 
39 
by even a mild cup of tea. The incapacity for bearing the 
gentlest wines and beers is for thousands of oui youth the 
only salvation against the demon inebriety. Thus the 
united forces of climate and civilisation are pressing us back 
from one stimulant to another, until, like babes, we find no 
safe retreat save in chocolate and milk and water. In the 
South for climatic reasons, these substances are far better 
endured than in the North ; but the very day on which this 
page is composed I am called to see a Southernei tran 
siently paralysed, to all appearance, through tobacco alone. 
Tolerance of stimulants is a measure of nerve ; the English 
are men of more bottle-power than the Americans. To see 
how an Englishman can drink is alone worthy the ocean- 
voyage. On the steamer a prominent clergyman of the 
Established Church sat down beside me, poured out hall a 
tumblerful of whiskey, added some water, and drank it 
almost at one swallow. He was an old gentleman, sturdy, 
vigorous, energetic, whose health was an object of comment 
and envy. I said to him : “ How can you stand that ? In 
America, men of your class can not drink that way. He 
replied, “ I have done it all my life, and I am not aware 
that I was ever injured by it.” . . , 
A number of years since I was present in Liverpool at an 
ecclesiastical gathering composed of leading members of 
the Established Church, from the bishops and archbishops 
through all the gradations ; at luncheon alcoholic liquors 
were served in a quantity that no assembly of any profession 
in this country could have desired or tolerated. 
It is with mental work as with drinking : long hours of 
brain-toil are better endured in Great Britain than in 
America ; there is less exhaustion from the strain of over- 
work This fadt is observed by men of letters and scholars, 
and men in public life. Parliamentary leaders, &c., in 
England, can do more speaking, more sitting up late at 
night, as well as more eating and more drinking, than the 
politicians of America. . , 
P It has been said that the strength of a nation is the 
strength of the thighs rather than of the brain ; and an 
Enelish physician of eminence has observed that the best 
nonulation of the cities of Great Britain renew their 
strength from the large-limbed Highlanders of the North 
but for whom there would be a constant degeneracy. It 
would appear, then, that the qualities which are necessary 
to make a good, strong nation are precisely the qualities 
- 8 11 and that he who can ride 
which make a good horseman, - _ 
well makes a good founder of states. The English as a 
