skeleton. The condor soars magnificently in the thin air over the
Andes--it can rise like a kite or drop like a thunderbolt: the weeka of
New Zealand can hardly get out of the way of a stick aimed by an active
man. The proud forest giant sucks up the pouring moisture from the great
Brazilian river; the shoots that rise under the shadow of the monster
tree are weakened and blighted by lack of light and free air. The same
astounding work goes on among the beings who are so haughty in their
assumption of the post of creation's lords. The healthy child born of
healthy parents grows up amid pure air and pure surroundings; his
tissues are nourished by strength-giving food, he lives according to
sane rules, and he becomes round-limbed, full-chested, and vigorous. The
poor little victim who first sees the light in the Borough or Shadwell,
or in the noxious alleys of our reeking industrial towns, receives foul
air, mere atmospheric garbage, into his lungs; he becomes thin-blooded,
his unwholesome pallor witnesses to his weakness of vitality, his
muscles are atrophied, and even his hair is ragged, lustreless,
ill-nurtured. In time he transmits his feebleness to his successors; and
we have the creatures who stock our workhouses, hospitals, and our
gaols--for moral degradation always accompanies radical degradation of
the physique.

So, if we study the larger aspects of society, we find that in all
grades we have large numbers of individuals who fall out of the line
that is steadfastly progressing, and become stragglers,
camp-followers--anything you will. Let a cool and an unsentimental
observer bend himself to the study of degraded human types, and he will
learn things that will sicken his heart if he is weak, and strengthen
him in his resolve to work gallantly during his span of life if he is
strong. Has any one ever fairly tried to face the problem of
degradation? Has any one ever learned how it is that a distinct form of
mental disease seems to lurk in all sorts of unexpected fastnesses,
ready to breathe a numbing and poisonous vapour on those who are not
fortified against the moral malaria? I am not without experience of the
fell chances and changes of life; I venture therefore to use some
portion of the knowledge that I have gathered in order to help to
fortify the weak and make the strong wary.

If you wander on the roads in our country, you are almost sure to meet
men whom you instinctively recognize as fallen beings. What