it, mixing with the air, will give it the requisite moisture—to be regulated according to the indications of a hygrometer. A difference of from six to eight degrees between the readings of the two thermometers of which the instrument consists, will generally be found to give a pleasant degree of humidity.

We have stated that no less than 12,000 volumes are circulating daily through this establishment, which, together with the immense amount of transport rendered necessary for the distribution far and near, fills the mind with amazement; so that an American, after seeing through 'Mudie's," felt constrained to admit that "they have nothing like it in the States." The people, therefore, who aspire to "lick all creation" have found their match at last, and must "cave in " to Mudie.

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The amount of reading in the community represented by the circulation of this library is thus enormous, and it cannot be denied that, as an educating power, this great institution holds no mean position among the beneficial influences that have been brought to bear on all classes of society during the four and thirty years of its existence.

Its value to authors, moreover, cannot be lightly estimated, inasmuch as its machinery enables a bountiful supply of their works to be distributed to the remotest parts of the island, thereby increasing their reputation in an ever-widening circle. What a gulf of time seems to separate us from that age, when the only means the great master minds of our noble craft possessed of making themselves known to the world was that of cringing to some noble debauchee, or of beslavering a gouty earl in a sycophantish dedication!

In conclusion: whilst Mr. Mudie must be complimented for having deserved all the success of his achievement, it is certain that no commercial enterprise has ever more completely merited the praise of an unalloyed public benefit than his circulating library.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

How many of the good qualities of Englishmen do we owe to our love of games and field-sports! How many of the splendid empires we have founded in every quarter of the globe have had their root and spring in the tussles at football at Eton, the annual boat-races on the Thames, or the cricketmatches on the thousand downs and heaths throughout broad England! The dominant race of the earth—that race which has already seized upon every unoccupied corner of the world, and mastered the most thickly peopled-is dominant because it is great and masculine, because its tastes and habits lead to self-reliance, and because its breeding leads to the development of endurance, courage, and pluck. We have been so accustomed to the habits that foster these noble qualities that we do not, we believe, thoroughly appreciate them-nay, we do not perceive that a current of opinion has set in among a certain small minority amongst us which, if carried to its full extent, would do much to unman the Englishman and to degrade his physical nature to the Continental standard. We have only to look across the Atlantic to see how easily the healthy, jolly, muscular Englishman can degenerate into the sallow, dyspeptic, lantern-jawed Yankee. No doubt the influence of climate has very much to do with this falling-off of the race at the same time, it cannot be denied that a very large share of this deteriorating process is due to the false habits of our descendants themselves. A New England farmer is ruddy enough and stout enough, but your citizen of New York is so different a creature that we scarcely can recognize him as of the same race. The Philadelphia Evening Journal, in an admirable article upon the sorry appearance of the American

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citizen, thus draws a typical portrait :-" The incipient man (we take an extreme case) is a thin, frail creature. His face is sharp and sallow, and has a bleared and bilious appearance. His back can be spanned with both hands, and there will be some hand to spare. The muscles of his arm consist of soft, loose lumps, which give to the touch; his chest, even with the aid of stiff-starched dickey and bulging vest, don't protrude perceptibly, and never makes the mildest attempt at a heave; his legs are matters to be implicitly believed in without any solid proof as to their reality. In fact, the lastnamed members have become so appallingly lean and sameall-the-way-up, that the tailors have established a wide, flabby style of integuments, into which they slip and are lost, the external effect on the casual observer being agreeably deceptive."

Such is the picture drawn by one of themselves of an American man! Out of the solid Englishman, how comes it that the product is this wretched scarecrow? The editor himself gives the reply—the body is wholly neglected for the mind; there is no such thing in the States as manly games. If you were to ask an American "to take a constitutional," he would stare with wonder; the Yankee schoolboy would think the English lad mad to strain 'so at football, or to try his wind in the foot-race or the boat-match. The fairer half of creation across the "herring-pond" have still further degenerated from the standard of their mothers of England; flat-breasted, round-backed, and "rotten before they are ripe," to use a vulgar but forcible expression, instead of being, as was said of Michael Angelo's women, “models of generation," they only seem capable of passing on a fast declining race. The breezy ride upon the heath, the long country walk, the natural attitudes of the maidens of the old country, are unknown to them, and we see the result; they are old women at forty, with black teeth and withered frames.

The New York Times in an able leader says: "The unbalanced despotism of the intellect is the sorest social curse under which we labour in the United States. Sports of all kinds, and especially the hearty athletic sports which develop the body with the brain, and bring forward the sharp, quick, active qualities of what may be termed the 'physical' mind in an equal degree with the subtler faculties of ratiocination, have never been encouraged among

us as they should have been. Our muscular nature rarely gets a fair chance in our life. We exist by and for the nerves; and it is no fanciful theory which attributes the sudden excesses and equally sudden relapses of political feeling, the partisan intolerance, and the coquettish impatience of our public life in no small degree to the want of national games and pastimes, mainly joyous and earnest." No greater instance of the national importance of physical training could be given than the course the American Civil War had to take. Notwithstanding the tropical climate in which the Southern soldiers had been "raised,” yet their athletic habits and their perpetuation of old English exercises rendered them far more than a match for the reedy Yankee, —so much so, that they were seen successively conquering in every engagement, and performing marches which completely bewildered and circumvented their enemy, who, although bred in a colder climate, had ignored all physical training, and had reduced his manhood to the pitiable scarecrow described by the Philadelphia Evening Journal. When, in the hour of a nation's agony, it has to appeal to a last resort of battle, the value of physical education becomes but too apparent; and unquestionably, in the great struggle of their civil war-brought to a conclusion mainly by the aid of foreign mercenaries-the Federals would not have lost honour, had they trained themselves for soldiers by the sports and pastimes they should have learned in their youth.

Whilst Brother Jonathan awakens to a sense of his error, we fear there is a tendency, on the part of the authorities of some of our great schools, to fall off from our good old ways. Dr. Hawtrey, some years since, attempted to abolish the annual cricket-match once played in London by the Etonians; and we have been given to understand that boating is considered injurious to the rising generation. We have heard it stated, by University authorities, that the majority of the boats' crews that pull in the Oxford and Cambridge match are either ruptured or affected with aneurisms! That a poor weakling may overstrain himself here and there in these trials of strength and endurance, we do not doubt; but to deny this splendid exercise to the youths of our great schools on account of these exceptional breakdowns, would be as unreasonable as to prohibit the use of wine or spirits because " Stiggins" gets drunk. The universities and the great public schools, as we have before said, set the fashion

of games and sports to the youths of this country; and we think that medical men should express themselves heartily as to the wrong direction these schools are now taking in these matters. With respect to the more manly sports of the people, there cannot be a doubt that the numerous Acts of Enclosure have powerfully affected them for the worse. The humane tendencies of the age have banished all the rougher sports of our ancestors. Pugilism, bull-baiting, bearbaiting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting, have justly gone; but what have we in their stead? Physical force is ignored. A boy must not be whipped at school if he has done wrong; but the enlightened philanthropy of the present day substitutes an imposition which gives him a headache! With all our respect for the philanthropy of the age, we cannot help thinking that, as regards physical education, it has been content to destroy without building up-to push the head at the expense of the thews and sinews; and to make a clever, sharp lad, instead of a strong, enduring, and self-reliant man. Woe be to England when these qualities shall have departed from her sons! They may be adepts in all the 'ologies;" but they will be no longer the bold, healthy, outof-door Englishmen, whose good sense springs from their sound health, and whose love of adventure and power over men are learned in their contests with their fellows, and in the vigorous pursuit of all health-giving exercises. In our opinion Muscular Christianity did not reappear upon the scene a bit too soon, and we hope it will put to flight the last namby-pamby notions that still linger among some of our authorities at the great schools.

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An official inquiry into the results of gymnastic exercises has recently been instituted at a military gymnastic school in France. The results of the inquiry, which extended over a period of six months, established: 1. That the muscular force is increased, on the average, 15 to 17 per cent., and occasionally from 25 to 30 per cent., while the force has, as we might expect, a tendency to become equal on both sides of the body. 2. That the capacity of the chest is increased by one-sixth, at the lowest. 3. That the weight of the individual is increased from 6 to 7 per cent., and occasionally from 10 to 15 per cent., while the bulk of the body is diminished, thus showing that the profit is confined to the muscular system. The increase of muscular force was generally confined to the first three months of the course.