But—one fair look at these men’s faces ought to tell common sense that the cause is rather physical than moral. Confined to sedentary occupations, stooping over desks and counters in close rooms, unable to obtain that fair share of bodily exercise which nature demands, and in continual mental effort, their nerves and brain have been excited at the expense of their lungs, their digestion, and their whole nutritive system. Their complexions show a general ill-health. Their mouths, too often, hint at latent disease. What wonder if there be an irritability of brain and nerve? I blame them no more for it than I blame a man for being somewhat touchy while he is writhing in the gout. Indeed less; for gout is very often a man’s own fault; but these men’s ill-health is not. And, therefore, everything which can restore to them health of body, will preserve in them health of mind. Everything which ministers to the _corpus sanum_, will minister also to the _mentem sanam_; and a walk on Durham Downs, a game of cricket, a steamer excursion to Chepstow, shall send them home again happier and wiser men than poring over many wise volumes or hearing many wise lectures. How often is a worthy fellow spending his leisure honourably in hard reading, when he had much better have been scrambling over hedge and ditch, without a thought in his head save what was put there by the grass and the butterflies, and the green trees and the blue sky? And therefore I do press earnestly, both on employers and employed, the incalculable value of athletic sports and country walks for those whose business compels them to pass the day in the heart of the city; I press on you, with my whole soul, the excellency of the early-closing movement; not so much because it enables young men to attend mechanics’ institutes, as because it enables them, if they choose, to get a good game of leap-frog. You may smile; but try the experiment, and see how, as the chest expands, the muscles harden, and the cheek grows ruddy and the lips firm, and sound sleep refreshes the lad for his next day’s work, the temper will become more patient, the spirits more genial; there will be less tendency to brood angrily over the inequalities of fortune, and to accuse society for evils which as yet she knows not how to cure. There is a class, again, above all these, which is doubtless the most important of all; and yet of which I can say little here—the capitalist, small and great, from the shopkeeper to the merchant prince.