But here in town he warns each man his constitution's undone
By flour and fat, and so adieu to pleasant cakes in London.
We're getting smaller, too, in size: our Mentor bids us go
And pit ourselves 'gainst effigies we see when chez Tussaud;
And then he ventures on what seems a terrible assertion—
He says we've ta'en a lower form, and calls it "retroversion."
Our nervous system's too much forced, like early hot-house peas—
Our children are inferior to bumpkins, if you please;
In fact this pamphlet quite enough to give a man a fright is,
With all its nasty prophecies of childish meningitis.