INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
27 
tana in corpore sano —of keeping up manhood, and of maintain¬ 
ing the physical energies 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 fact, the only nobility in existence, which have been enabled 
to resist the deteriorating influences of wealth, luxury, and 
breeding-in-and-in, which have corrupted and effeminated the 
nobility of all other lands ; they are the only nobility , in exist¬ 
ence, which not only equals, 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 acquiring 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 
soi disante 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 
