become quickly decimated. They melt away like snow. “I must have grown men,” said Napoleon after the Battle of Leipsic; “boys only serve to fill the hospitals and cumber the road sides.”
Now to Englishmen this is a subject of no slight interest. We pay millions every year for the maintenance of our armies. Each soldier costs this country 100l. a year. Therefore, financially considered, this is a matter which ought to be looked into and seriously discussed. Let us adduce a few facts with a view to show how far the physical training of the young soldier now in vogue conduces towards the evils of which we have spoken. According to the statistical report of the Army Medical Department for 1859, it appears that there were 16,553 soldiers under twenty years of age, and 30,389 men under twenty-five years of age. Now if we look into the returns of the military hospitals for any one year, it will be seen that sixteen per cent. of the patients are recruits under two years’ service. The diseases under which they labour are those peculiar to physical weakness intensified by excess of labour.
In order to appreciate some of the causes which may be producing and extending this loss of strength in our army, it should be recollected that physical growth and development are in the greatest perfection when age, weight, and stature correspond according to a regular natural scale. The due relation between these three conditions is the best test of the normal and healthy physical development and growth of a young man which we possess, and it is unnecessary to observe that physical maturity is of unquestionable importance when considered with reference to the military strength of a nation. So essential, indeed, is it, that the subject is commanding the attention of physiologists, of medical men, and of the military authorities in various parts of Europe. Those who attended the International Exhibition last year might have seen in one of the departments of the Austrian court, the curious collection of Dr. Leharzik. This collection consisted of models of the human figure, male and female, from babyhood up to mature age, moulded with a view to illustrate this concurrence of age weight, and height. A little examination would have revealed some interesting facts. As, however, it is probable many of our readers may not have had the leisure to investigate closely in the crush and hurry of that great tide which was ever surging through the labyrinthine avenues of that forbidding structure, we will supply them with a few figures relative to this subject. A lad of eighteen whose height is 5 feet 4.34 inches, ought to weigh about 8 stone 10 lbs.; if he be a healthy, and what the recruiting officer likes so much, a “growing lad,” on his next birthday he ought to measure 5 feet 4.94 inches, and weigh about 9 stone 5 lbs. At twenty-five he will have attained in stature 5 feet 6.3 inches, and weigh 10 stone 5 lbs. These statistics, of course, are only an average struck from the maximum and minimum of height, weight, and age of a large body of men. However, they are trustworthy, and will serve to indicate the importance of paying due attention to these particulars in the selection of our future heroes. It may also be observed, that a young man who has reached the average height at eighteen years of age, may still be expected to grow more than two inches before he is fully developed. Our farmers, and the trainers of racing horses, have begun to understand and appreciate the importance of this truth; for experience has long since pointed out to them the injudiciousness of putting a young colt too early to the plough or into harness. But Science is gradually opening the eyes of the present generation, and Wisdom enforces the truths of her handmaiden with irresistible eloquence.
Still, though the voice of Wisdom speaketh so loud, her precepts are not always devoutly attended to. How does the case stand with regard to our own military authorities? Are they on the alert to avail themselves of new knowledge? According to the existing army regulations, soldiers are not entitled to reckon service under eighteen years of age, and to claim for a pension. What is the consequence of this? Why, that recruits are frequently induced to represent themselves of the standard age, when in fact they are many years younger. Provided a young fellow has attained the minimum height, seems to be a “growing lad,”—provided, in fact, he promises well, the recruiting sergeant lays hold of him as a valuable prize: he is for the future a veritable soldier. When there is a dearth of recruits this evil is still greater; the ordinary standard height is either lowered, or if dwarfed Bœotians are enlisted under the regulation stature, the fact is winked at by the authorities. At one time, I think in the year 1804, a premium of two guineas was even offered to parents who brought a boy under sixteen years of age, provided only he was five feet two inches in height. These were “raw lads” indeed; and, according to the advanced notions of the present day, hardly worth their premium. The hospital was more likely to see the first and last of them, than the field of battle.
There are, then, three essential requisites—age, height, and stature; and it cannot be too frequently repeated that age is only one of the three most important elements. Age, weight, development, and strength are closely co-related, and their due proportions are absolutely necessary to qualify a soldier, or any other living being, to endure the hardships incident to a military life. The anatomist well knows that the skeleton framework of the body is still growing up to thirty years of age, and that the whole man is only then arriving at maturity. What is true in this instance, with regard to a civil life, is also true with regard to the soldier. Excessive labour up to this epoch of man’s existence is sure to impair the strength and lay the seeds of future disease.
Young lads from sixteen to two or three and twenty, who are so fond of exhibiting their feats of strength, should be warned in time. From the over-straining of their muscles at this immature age, general debility is too frequently generated; they pine off before they have crossed even the very threshold of manhood, and consumption lays them low in a green grave. The early bloom of the fruit was not a sign of ripeness, but a symptom of decay.
