Another point of moment is habit. Those who would be healthy should form a habit of free and full respiration. This is one of the great reasons why exercise—and particularly exercise in the open air is necessary for children. It "expands their lungs." The young should be encouraged to breathe deeply and fully; and the only way to form this habit of health is to let them play boisterous games. There is no greater mistake than to bring up children by the fireside or in the nursery "quietly."

No child of either sex, and particularly the female, unless it is habituated to rapid breathing by active exercise, can be healthy. The newlyborn infant cries, and thereby expands its lungs. and takes air into every cell. The growing child must laugh and shout and cry too-lustily sometimes or it will not be healthy. The "quiet" children are puny and weak. They mope and fret and fall ill. Robust health requires joyous activity; and one of the ways in which this activity produces health is by forming a habit of full and deep breathing.

These are only, as I said at the outset, a few remarks and reflections thrown together to serve as practical hints; but, if the reader will give them the consideration the subject commands and deserves, they may not be valueless, especially to the valetudinarian and those who have the care of youth.

DRINKING.

IT is the fashion to say, and doubtless it is generally believed, that drunkenness is the greatest, or, at least, the most grievously oppressive, of our national vices. I am not altogether sure of the ground on which this proposition is based. Indeed, speaking personally, I may say that I believe there are many worse evils than the abuse of intoxicating drinks, and which produce much more disastrous and lasting effects.

Nor are these worse evils the consequences of drink, although they undoubtedly induce a frequent recourse to stimulants and indirectly lead to drunkenness. The crusade against "drink" is a war waged on a petty tyrant who is simply the myrmidon of a secret oppressor we do not dare to recognise, much less to encounter at close quarters and destroy.

There can be no question that the habit of intoxication is a hideous and unmanly offence against propriety; but there are vices more deeply imbedded and prolific of evil and evil consequences than a too free use of the cup which, if it cheers, certainly also inebriates.

I have not a word to say in apology for the practice vehemently denounced by all rightminded persons; but there is something to be urged on the subject of the vice itself, and, so far as I am aware, it is something which has not yet been said, in any case so as to command the attention of those who, while heaping every possible abuse and reproach on the crime of drunkenness, may have still one grain of compassion left for the drunkard.

There are several forms and causes of the propensity to excess in the use of intoxicating drinks; and, unless the essential difference between these is recognised, it is impossible, with any reasonable confidence of success in the enterprise, to undertake the reclamation of the "drunkard."

Speaking broadly, drunkards may be classed in three groups. First, those who drink because they thirst and are led to consume intoxicating beverages not so much by a preference for alcoholic beverages, as because it is the fashion of their class and associates to use these liquors as a means of slaking their thirst and as a symbol of friendliness and hospitality. Second, those who drink intoxicating liquors because they find them stimulating, and can thus relieve sensations of exhaustion. Third, those who have recourse to "drink" as a means of quieting the pangs of conscience, or to render themselves oblivious of

care, or from love of the dreamy and relaxed state of mind and body which is produced by these beverages.

First, as regards those who drink because they thirst, and who are led to use stimulants because friends with whom they associate employ them. The number of these persons is very great, and they are among the least pitiable of the so-called victims of "drink," because their fault is essentially a humiliating and discreditable lack of moral courage the courage to do what they know to be right and to avoid doing what they are well assured is harmful and therefore wrong.

Drinking, as considered apart from the nature of the liquid consumed, is almost wholly a matter of habit. The quantity of fluid actually required by the body is to be measured by the loss in various ways of liquid constituents from the organism, insensible perspiration not being forgotten; but the manner of making up the loss, or compensating for it, is a matter of habit.

There is no more dangerous and senseless practice than that of drinking small drams, whether of spirits, beer, tea, milk, or water, at odd moments throughout the day.

This is a habit formed in childhood, and which ought to be prevented by proper discipline. The mother who feeds her infant capriciously to keep it quiet, and later on allows it to drink at short intervals, is laying the foundation for a habit

of longing for fluid which is exceedingly likely to take the form in adult life of a craving for "drink."

The infant is ever imbibing milk, the child ceaselessly drinking something-it may be only water, the growing boy "likes" lemonade and ginger-beer, the young man beer or sherry, the middle-aged man develops the taste farther, or perhaps we ought to say grafts a "taste" on the appetite, and then we have the mature drunkard.

Parents and those who have influence with the very young should know these things and act upon them. The young of both sexes, when they come to years of self-knowledge, should cure themselves of the habit which bad training may have formed; and the drunkard and his friends will be all the better prepared to struggle against the "demon of drink," as it is the fashion to call this habit in its worst development, when they understand that the evil against which they have principally to contend is not a craving for intoxicants so much as the craving or thirst for "something to drink."

Persons who, being addicted to intemperance, can look back and recall the fact that they have long cherished the bad habit of drinking frequently, will find a better reward for their effort, in wrestling directly with the craving or the thirst, than against the inclination to drinkintoxicants particularly.