THE EXERCISE FOLLY.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 November 1925, Page 1

THE EXERCISE FOLLY.

The morning sun. peering into m numerable bedroom windows, sees ;

sight which would be ludicrous wore it. mil so saddening. It- sees counties!' rotund hull -clad men bending and coil lorting their suffering bodies while their parted lips count one-lwo-three-fotir; one-t wo-three-four : according to the directions on the physical culture' chart (writes Neill Bell in the “Hail;. Mail”). It is a lamentable spectacle. No slave in the galleys ever worked harder than these deluded gymnasts. And yet they are merely straining tlioi." hearts, thickening their arteries, an) shortening their lives. This passion for exercise is the la-1, insanity of manknd : by it the grea l civilisations built by men of giant n - tclleet. eager purposes, sane vision, and immobile bodies are doomed to go down to oblivion. The great men of the past were the men who did not move their bodies beyond the minimum required tor Ihe normal purposes ol existence: Diogenes in his tub. Socrates on his conch. Napoleon in his conch, and Air Jo-epn Chamberlain in his brougham.. Consider the animals and it is Hie animal side of man which is the question at issue. The horse runs about like a mad thing and the horse dies at thirty, the dog tears through life like one possessed, and with diffieutly reach es a round dozen ; the peevish c.n night after night careers through out gardens and over our chimney -pets and dies nine times within the space of fifteen years. In all the amnia kingdom no beast- that is cursed >.' the desire for swift motion makes ok bones. Look at the other side ol the picture- the placid and lumbering * pliant that- lives to a hundred ; tlm parrot that glues itself for ever to it" perch and sees two centuries roll away, the giant turtle that scarcely moves at nil. and watches the passing otter generations of men; and the oak tree That is rooted for ever where it grows, and sees empires rise and fall m lts thousand years. , . This mad cult of exercise is striking at the very life of man upon the earth. The life force in humanity is vigorous enough to endow mankind with a thou-santA-ears of life, hut until man puts away 'from him the childishness of exercise," he will never come into that kingdom which Air Bernard Shaw displays for him in “Back to Alethnselah.