French Hunting.
There is nothing that resembles English hunting in France. French hunting is pretty and picturesque, with some remnant of old-world costume and ceremonial, and it affords some exercise in riding about the roads through the dense forests, but as a training in horsemanship it is not comparable to such hunting as I have witnessed in Yorkshire. French farmers and peasant proprietors would never permit a regiment of gentlemen to spoil their fences; that can only be done in a very aristocratic country.
Contrast between Classes in regard to the Physical Life.
The desirable Ideal.
Apparatus of the English Aristocracy.
Access to Natural Beauty.
As to the physical life, both England and France present the same contrasts, but they are more striking in England. There you have an active and vigorous upper class much enjoying the open air, and a lower class in the big towns living without either pure air or healthy exercise. The physical quality of the race is well maintained, and even improved, at one end of the scale, and deteriorated at the other. Unfortunately the class which deteriorates, the lowest urban class, is not only the more numerous, but also reckless in reproduction, so that its power for degradation is greater than the aristocratic conservative or improving power. The ideal would be a whole nation physically equal to the English aristocracy. That aristocracy has undoubtedly set the example of healthy living, but the objection is that its fine health costs too much. With its immense apparatus of guns, yachts, and horses, its great army of servants, its extensive playgrounds, the aristocracy sets an example that cannot be followed by the poor man, shut up in the atmosphere of a factory all day and sleeping in an ill-drained street at night. The rich have another immense advantage in the free access to natural beauty, which is favourable to cheerfulness and therefore indirectly to health. The ancient Greeks, who led the perfect physical life, were surrounded by noble scenery, glorious in colour. Compare the foul sky and spoilt landscape of Manchester with the purple hills, brilliant sunlight, wondrously clear atmosphere, and waters of intensest azure, that surrounded the City of the Violet Crown!
English and French Middle Classes.
Peasants.
Factory Population.