Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/127

102 condensed and particularized; but it will be found to contain matter of common interest, needing only the change suitable to individual circumstances.

It is undoubtedly true that the mass of those who live in cities, and whose occupations involve little manual or physical exercise, allow their bodies, at an early age of manhood, to sink out of all trained and athletic strength and shapeliness. It is only necessary to visit a Turkish bath to find abundant evidence of the muscular collapse which has overtaken the modern city-dweller: bodies "developed" everywhere in the wrong direction; arms like pipe-stems, while the beautiful muscles of the shoulders and back are smothered in layers of vile fat, and spindle-thighs and straight calves weakly support bellies like Bacchus.

When the observer beholds the superb condition of trained oarsmen entering a race, or of boxers going to fight for a championship, he stands in admiration of the firm and massive muscles, the light and elastic step, the strong wind, and the insensibility to blows that would produce concussion of the brain in a common man. Can the rules which produce these results be taken out of the training-school, and followed in common life, even with large modifications?