their lives are spent in almost perpetual play; that they are all day breathing fresh air; and that their systems are not disturbed by over-taxed brains.  For aught that appears to the contrary, their good health may be maintained, not in consequence of, but in spite of, their deficient clothing.  This alternative conclusion we believe to be the true one; and that an inevitable detriment results from the loss of animal heat to which they are subject.

For when, the constitution being sound enough to bear it, exposure does produce hardness, it does so at the expense of growth.  This truth is displayed alike in animals and in man.  Shetland ponies bear greater inclemencies than the horses of the south, but are dwarfed.  Highland sheep and cattle, living in a colder climate, are stunted in comparison with English breeds.  In both the arctic and antarctic regions the human race falls much below its ordinary height:  the Laplander and Esquimaux are very short; and the Terra del Fuegians, who go naked in a wintry land, are described by Darwin as so stunted and hideous, that “one can hardly make one’s-self believe they are fellow-creatures.”

Science explains this dwarfishness produced by great abstraction of heat; showing that, food and other things being equal, it unavoidably results.  For, as before pointed out, to make up for that cooling by radiation which the body is ever undergoing, there must be a constant oxidation of certain matters forming part of the food.  And in proportion as the thermal loss is great, must the quantity of these matters required for oxidation be great.  But the power of the digestive organs is limited.  Consequently, when they have to prepare a large quantity of this material needful for maintaining the temperature, they can prepare but a small quantity of the material which goes to build up the frame.  Excessive expenditure for fuel entails diminished means for other purposes.  Wherefore there necessarily results a body small in size, or inferior in texture, or both.

Hence the great importance of clothing.  As Liebig says:—­“Our clothing is, in reference to the temperature of the body, merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food.”  By diminishing the loss of heat, it diminishes the amount of fuel needful for maintaining the heat; and when the stomach has less to do in preparing fuel, it can do more in preparing other materials.  This deduction is confirmed by the experience of those who manage animals.  Cold can be borne by animals only at an expense of fat, or muscle, or growth, as the case may be.  “If fattening cattle are exposed to a low temperature, either their progress must be retarded, or a great additional expenditure of food incurred."[5] Mr. Apperley insists strongly that, to bring hunters into good condition, it is necessary that the stable should be kept warm.  And among those who rear racers, it is an established doctrine that exposure is to be avoided.