EXERCISE NEGLECTED BY WOMEN. 75 running; one which most men of sedentary habits ought to have recourse to as a means of warding off disease. The skipping rope, a toy which is discarded by the young girl when entering a premature womanhood, but which ought to be looked upon as a necessary article in every boudoir, or private room occupied by a woman of civilised life and civilised habits, is one of the best, if not the very best kind of gymnastic exercise that I strength of the user. He might begin with clubs weighing two pounds each. He will soon find, however, that his clubs get too light for him, he gathers strength, and more lead must be put in. The exercise is to stand perfectly erect, the feet close together, the shoulders thrown back, and with a club in each hand, to swing the clubs alternately round the back of the head, from fifty to one hundred times. This should be repeated three or four times a day. The late Sir John Malcolm was in the habit of daily using these clubs, during his passage from this country to India, and he always expressed himself to derive considerable advantage from the exercise. One of the officers on board, to whom indeed I am indebted for all I know about these clubs, and who, now in civil life, daily uses them, tells me that the clubs used by Sir John Malcolm were not loaded with lead; but were made of a very heavy wood. Sir John Malcolm afforded one of the most striking examples of the advantage to be derived from exercise that has perhaps ever been noticed. He used to go on deck early every morning, and amuse the seamen by kicking his legs about, and by all kinds of muscular movements. Sir John was strong and hale, his health but little affected by change of climate. know. It exercises almost every muscle in the body. There are few women who do not neglect exercise. Men, most of whom have some necessary out of door occupation; men almost universally walk more than women. Thousands upon thousands of Englishmen never cross the threshold of their houses oftener than once a week, and then it is to attend the public worship of their Maker, and it is seldom that, in towns, the distance to the church or the chapel is such as to occupy more than ten minutes in going thither. And what is the consequence of this? Pallid skins, blanched lips, sunken eyes, premature grey hairs;-daily exercise is, depend on it, worth all the Macassar Oil in the world * ;— *This simple fact has been rarely, if at all, noticed. Yet the sedentary, the studious, the debilitated, and the sickly are, with very few exceptions, those who are earliest visited with grey-hairs. The agricultural labourer, the seaman; all whose employment consists of or involves exercise in the open air, and whose diet is as necessarily simple, are those whose hairs latest afford signs that the last process has commenced, that the fluids have begun to be absorbed, the textures to dry up and become withered. All whose employment renders much sitting necessary, and little or no exercise possible; all who study much; all who, from whatever cause, have local determinations of blood, particularly if towards the head, are the persons most liable to carry grey hairs. It is well known that mental emotions, violent CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECTING EXERCISE. 77 the consequence is debilitated constitution, functional derangement; the consequence is, that state of system which predisposes to organic disease, to structural disorder, which is most favourable to the development of consumption, disease of the heart, &c.; the consequence is, disordered condition of the uterine functions, and either barrenness, or frequent abortions; and if not one of those, the consequence is, perhaps, even a still stronger appeal to the best feelings of the mother's heart; the consequence is a sickly offspring, which will either be early freed from the misery of a weakly delicate existence, or, with difficulty reared, will carry passions have in a single night made the hair grey. Instances of this are numerous. They are in the same way to be understood and explained. They are owing to the increased determination of blood, stimulating the absorbents into preternatural activity, and causing them to take up the colouring matter of the hair. It will indeed be fortunate if a desire to preserve the youthful luxuriance of her hair, should induce any fair votary of fashion and civilisation to forego late hours and heated rooms, and to try whether it is not better, and productive of more happiness, as well as calculated to produce this end, to exercise her limbs and inhale the fresh and untainted breath of the morning hours; it will indeed be fortunate if this, or any thing else, induce any fair victim of civilisation, who earns her bread by ministering to the gay pleasures of her wealthier peers, to steal from her labours one single hour, as an offering to her health. the mischief through unborn generations, by producing in its turn an offspring, with debility for its inheritance *. * The extent to which diseases are hereditary, constitutes a fearful subject of inquiry; one which lays a vast load of responsibility on parents. Let a man inherit ever so good a constitution; let his family be ever so healthy, or robust; if by debauchery he debilitates his system and taints his blood; if by excess he produces disease; if by sedentary habits he weakens and enervates his system; and if he does this prior to the birth of any child, that child will assuredly, to a greater or less extent, be visited for his father's errors, with a predisposition to that father's diseases. If a woman by similar excess, or by errors in dress, &c., injure her constitution before she become a mother, her children will to a greater or less degree inherit her infirmities. Diseases are hereditary; only to be warded off by a careful avoidance of the errors of our parents: we are only to be prevented from adding to the number of these family encumbrances, by simplicity of life and regularity of conduct. "In this way parents often live after death in their offspring. Of a certainty children are like their parents, not only as to features and the form of their bodies; but as to the disposition, as to the virtues and vices of their minds. The imperious Claudian family long flourished in Rome : family which produced the tearless Tiberius, the most fearful of tyrants: a family which gave birth to the inhuman Caligula, and to Claudius; and, after a lapse of six hundred years, to Nero."— Translated from Gregory's Conspectus. a That Horace knew this will be evident to the classical scholar from the following passage :— "Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis: Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum Carminum, Lib. iv. Od. 4. DANCING. Let fathers and mothers look to this. 79 It is food, not enough that you find your children in and clothing, and the comforts of life. It is not enough that you provide them with the means of mental enlightenment. You have not done your duty, unless you have fortified their health, by making them exercise their limbs at least one or two hours every day; unless you give them the habit of working for their health, for whatever be your rank, or wealth, this you cannot do; you cannot separate from each other health and bodily exercise. They are necessary to each others' well-being. And by exercise is here meant, not the mere quiet and partial muscular movements which the act of walking requires ;although this is not to be neglected, inasmuch as change of air, exposure to the direct rays of the sun, and to an unbreathed and undeteriorated atmosphere is necessary;-but, in addition to this, exercise of the arms and legs by using dumb-bells, or the skipping rope, or by simple gymnastics, or by dancing. Dancing is, I think, an invaluable school-room recreation. I would have every child learn dancing. It gives freedom to the limbs, firmness to the step, grace and equality to the |