Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/158

Rh weight), which moved only a few inches even when struck heavily, was good, mainly, for one thing which, it is to be hoped, is out of date and unnecessary—the hardening of the knuckles and skin of the hands. For practice in hitting, it was not good. One might as well strike the wall. It calls for no rapidity, no swift directness, no agile "ducking," retiring, or stepping aside to escape a return.

The air-bag (a leathern foot-ball is best) is as quick and as straight in return as a first-rate boxer. To strike it hard, very hard (so that it rebounds from the ceiling three or four times, according: to the force of the blow and height of the room), is an excellent kind of solitary boxing exercise; so, also, is the rapid and continuous hitting it with one hand. Besides this, it is interesting exercise. A man has to work with a sand-bag; he has fun with an air-ball, and he can return to it with pleasure and interest two or three times a day.

For muscle-hardening exercise, there is nothing better than the dumb-bell—only it must be a very small dumb-bell—not a very large one, as of old. The best size is an iron, two-pound dumb-bell. This is the size with which the strongest men exercise nowadays.

It is admitted, at last, that the object of