Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/157

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INDOOR EXERCISE.
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handicraft. Some of the uniformed youngsters accordingly learn printing, others bookbinding, but about four out of five prefer a curriculum in a carpenter's shop. A hundred years ago the Berlin wits used to hint that the by-law in question might prove useful under circumstances that obliged a good many refugees from neighboring France to try their hands at the unaccustomed occupation of useful work, but the rule is still in force, and none of the royal blue-coats have been the worse for the investiture of a carpenter's apron. Joiner's work: sawing, jack-planing, and hammering exercises nearly every muscle of the human body, and has the incidental advantage of a pastime that grows on the habit and can become a passion, like gardening and watchmaking.

And not all "exercise with a useful by-purpose" can be recommended from that point of view. There are some extremely utilitarian occupations that lack the spice of variety and a personal interest. In some cities of British India, where labor is cheap and coal very dear, hundreds of vagabonds are often roped in to operate the machinery of a large workshop on the treadmill plan; but in spite of sanitary precau-