Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/47

Rh A fortnight's fast does not preclude the hope of survival. In the moulting season certain cage birds prefer to get along for a month with a minimum of food, to compensate the lack of facilities for active exercise, and I remember the case of a little dachshund (a species of bowlegged terrier) that survived a fall from the loft of a tall building by three weeks of almost total abstinence. During a visit to the riding-school of a cavalry regiment I had turned over the little waddler to a sergeant, who put him in a barn, and finding that he could crawl out under the gate and was apt to come to grief by being kicked by a horse, finally put him in a bag and ordered one of the men to lock him up in the hay-loft at the top of the building. That checked his restlessness for the time being, but on stepping out on the street, an hour after, I heard a whine as from the clouds, and looking up saw my dachshund crouching on the edge of an open louvre and yelping crescendo, to draw my attention to the discomfiture of his situation. In the next moment he had lost his balance, and after a series of aerial somersaults, landed on the hard pavement, with a crack that seemed to have broken every bone in his body. Blood was