"
A cry from the camp of the adversaries: "He's got to it at last! A man
who leads an out-of-door life, and uses the strength that God has given
to him, is a dangerous man. Did any body ever hear the like of that?"
Cry reverberated, with variations, by the two human echoes: "No! Nobody
ever heard the like of that!"
"Clear your minds of cant, gentlemen," answered Sir Patrick. "The
agricultural laborer leads an out-of-door life, and uses the strength
that God has given to him. The sailor in the merchant service does the
name. Both are an uncultivated, a shamefully uncultivated, class--and
see the result! Look at the Map of Crime, and you will find the most
hideous offenses in the calendar, committed--not in the towns, where the
average man doesn't lead an out-of-door life, doesn't as a rule, use his
strength, but is, as a rule, comparatively cultivated--not in the towns,
but in the agricultural districts. As for the English sailor--except
when the Royal Navy catches and cultivates him--ask Mr. Brinkworth,
who has served in the merchant navy, what sort of specimen of the moral
influence of out-of-door life and muscular cultivation _he_ is."
"In nine cases out of ten," said Arnold, "he is as idle and vicious as
ruffian as walks the earth.
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