Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1882 — Tricycling vs. Smoking. [ARTICLE]

Tricycling vs. Smoking.

A correspondent writes to the London Spectator: “ I was led to give up smoking by reading an article in Knowledge, by Dr. Muir Brown, on the ‘ Effect of Smoking.’ One of the observations particularly struck me. Replying to the argument that smoking is good, because it checks waste of tissue, he observed that this is precisely the reason why smoking is bad, and that the only possession which it is a man’s duty to waste is his body, new tissue being in every respeot better than old. The tricycle made in this direction. It wasted tissue. You can get more exercise by an hour’s tricycling, and with less fatigue, than by three hours’ walking. There is an exhilaration about it, too, that a pedestrian never knows, and which can only be compared to that enjoyed by riding a good horse. As for perspiring, you perspire enough, especially if the day be warm, to satisfy Dr. Jaeger’s most rigid requirements, and make your flesh as hard as the hide of a German soldier after two years’ gymnastics. “ When I gave up my cigars and took to tricycling I had no idea of curing my headaches. But they are cured. I have hardly had a headache since, and I eat almost twice as much as I used to eat. I sleep well, and my general health could not easily be better. In conclusion let me recommend all my literary brethren who are conscious of not taking sufficient exercise, all of whose muscles are flabby, livers torpid, and nights restless, to try tricycling and drop smoking and any other habit which may tend to check waste of tissue and retard that rapid renewal of the body which is the condition of physical soundness. ”