The Pedestrian's Record

84 the pedestrian's record. hard condition, and yet he would be too heavy to mount for the Derby, and, consequently, purgatives, semi-starvation, and sweatings, are resorted to as a means of reducing not only fat, but other tissues of the body. The famous jockey, Archer, no doubt injured his constitution by adopting the devitalizing system of sweating, &c.,which not only removed every particle of fat, but reduced his muscles and tissues to fatality. It will be of little avail to enter upon a description of unnatural sweating, so commonly practised among jockeys, as their system tends rather to weaken than strengthen the body. The man about to train for athletic business wants to take off no more weight excepting that which seems to im­ pede his progress. Fat is antagonistic to rapid pro­ gression, and must be got rid of, and beyond such weight the athlete requires no further diminution. Fat can be removed by more ways than one, although the pedestrian should only adopt the legitimate one of sweating; this can be effected by running in heavy flannel clothing, and thus procuring copious perspira­ tion from all the pores of the skin. If a man be very stout, the constant violent exercise endured under heavy clothing may take too much out of him, and have the tendency to bring on the slows. If such should occur, it indicates that this process of natural sweating must be discontinued, and that other means must be adopted, and, fortunately, we have in the Turkish bath a useful artificial mode of sweating, and it possesses certain advantages which do not