How to Get Strong and How to Stay So

Probably more men walk past the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, in New York city, in the course of one year, than any other point in America—men of all nations and ages, heights and weights. Look at them carefully as they pass, and you will see that scarcely one in ten is either erect or thoroughly well-built. Some slouch their shoulders and double in at the waist; some overstep; others cant to one side; this one has one shoulder higher than the other, and that one both too high; some have heavy bodies and light legs, others the reverse; and so on, each with his own peculiarities. A thoroughly erect, well-proportioned man, easy and graceful in his movements, is far from a frequent sight. Any one accustomed to athletic work, and knowing what it can do for the body, must at times have wondered why most men allowed themselves to go along for years, perhaps through life, so carrying themselves as not only to lack the outward grace and ease they might possess, and which they occasionally see in others, but so as to directly cramp and impede one or more of the vital organs.

Nor is it always the man's fault that he is ill-proportioned. In most cases it comes down from his progenitors. The father's walk and physical peculiarities appear in the son, often so plainly that the former's calling might almost be told from a look at the latter.

An acquaintance of ours, an active and skilled journalist, says that he once set out to saw twenty cords of wood, he was a slight, weak youth. He found he had not enough strength or wind to get through one cut of a log—that he had to constantly sit down and rest. People laughed at him, and at his thinking he could go through that mighty pile. But they did not know what was in him; for, sticking gamely to his self-imposed task, he says that in a very few days he found his stay improving rapidly, that he did not tire half so easily, and, more than that, that there began to come a feeling over him—a most welcome one—of new strength in his arms and across his chest; and that what had at first looked almost an impossibility had now become very possible, and was before long accomplished. Now, what he, by his manliness, found was fast doing so much for his arms and chest, was but a sample of what equally steady, systematic work might have done for his whole body. Indeed, a later experience of this same gentleman will be in place here; for at Dr. Sargent's gymnasium in New York, in the winter of 1878-'79, he, though a middle-aged man, increased the girth of his chest two inches and five-eighths in six weeks! and this working but one hour a day; and he found that he could not only do more work daily afterward at his profession, but better work as well.

Let us see if this can be done.

In the summer of 1877 the writer met a gentleman of middle age, whom he had known for years, and who has been long connected with one of the United States departments in New York city. A very steady, hard-working officer, his occupation was a sedentary one. Remembering him as a man, till recently, of immense bulk, and being struck with his evident and great shrinkage, we inquired if he had been ill. He replied that he had not been ill, that for years he had not enjoyed better health. Questioning him as to his altered appearance, he said that, on the eighteenth day of January, 1877, he weighed three hundred and five pounds; that, having become so unwieldy, his flesh was a source of great hinderance and annoyance to him. Then he had determined, if possible, to get rid of some of it. Having to be at work all day, he could only effect his purpose in the evenings, or not at all. So, making no especial change in his diet, he took to walking, and soon began to average from three to five miles an evening, and at the best pace he could make. In the cold months he says that he often perspired so that small icicles would form on the ends of his hair. Asking if it did not come a little stiff sometimes, on stormy nights or when he was very tired, and whether he did not omit

One more illustration may suffice. The New York Herald of December 20th, 1878, referring to a burglary which had been committed in the 28th Precinct, said that suspicion fastened on a young man known as "Sleepy Dick." Detective Wilson got on the supposed offender's trail, and the nearer he got to him the worse grew his character for strength, daring, and ferocity. At last he came up with "Sleepy Dick" on Second Avenue yesterday.

"'The jig's up, Sleepy,' said the detective; 'you're wanted.'

"'What for?' calmly inquired the other, straightening upon the coal-box.

"'Cracking a crib.'

"'How long a stretch?'

"'A fiver, sure.'

"'I'm not your meat then, cully,' and Dick bolted for the corner with no sleepiness about him. Wilson grabbed him firmly by the collar, though, and there was a scene of plunging and tearing witnessed by the crowd around them that eclipsed Cornwall or Græco-Roman wrestling.

"Suddenly a revolver came flashing out of Wilson's pocket.

"'I'm taking this pot,' said he, coolly.

"'Show your hand,' growled 'Sleepy.'

"'A straight flush;' and Wilson levelled the pistol at his head.

"'That takes this pile,' Dick sullenly assented, and he moved on quietly as far as Sixty-first Street. Once at the corner, he plunged backward and broke loose. The detective's revolver came down on his head with a thud, but he rallied under the blow, sprung aside, and made for the river.

"AN EMBRYO O'LEARY

"Between the Grand Central Depot and Madison Avenue and Forty-second and Forty-fourth streets is a vacant square, which the boys of the neighborhood have been utilizing as a race-track. Every day dozens of them may be seen scurrying round the track, intent on making the best time ever known. Yesterday afternoon a five-mile walk was in progress, which was headed by a very small boy, who at once attracted the attention of the by-standers by his peculiarly rapid and easy gait. He kept ahead of the other contestants, and finally distanced them by two laps, and won in the time of 48m. 2s.

"After this race, at the request of the lookers-on, he travelled around the track once (which is one-seventh of a mile) in 1m. and 15s. He walks very erect, steps like O'Leary, and does not seem to be easily fatigued. This time is still more surprising, considering that he is only eleven years old and but three feet nine inches high, so that he cannot take a very long step.

"In a conversation with him it was learned that his name was Joe Havey, residing at No. 144 East Forty-third Street. He has never seen a professional walk, so that his walking ideas are his own. With a little practice he bids fair to become a No. 1 pedestrian."

But there are other ways of bringing up these useful abdominal muscles, equally easy to learn.