from one cross-bar to the other, and when watching such flights

I have asked myself: "If a person can do that, why cannot he fly?"
Perhaps human beings will some day be seen flying about in the air like birds.

It only requires an extension of the trapeze "stunt". Travelling in the air
by means of airships or aeroplanes is tame sport in comparison

with bird-like flights, whether with or without artificial wings.
There are many advantages in being able to travel in the air.

One is a clear and pure atmosphere such as cannot be obtained
in a railway car, or in a cabin on board a ship; another is

the opportunity afforded of looking down on this earth, seeing it
as in a panorama, with the people looking like ants. Such an experience

must broaden the mentaloutlook of the privileged spectator,
and enable him to guess how fragmentary and perverted must be

our restricted view of things in general. There is, however,
danger of using such opportunities for selfish and mischievous purposes.

A wicked man might throw a bomb or do some other wicked nonsense
just as some one else, who really sees things as they are

and not as they seem to be, might employ his superior knowledge
to benefit himself and injure his fellows; but the mention of the trapeze

and its bird-like performers has diverted me from my theme.
I suppose that a reference to the circus would be incomplete which overlooked

the clowns, those poor survivals of a professional class of jesters
who played what appears to have been a necessary part in society

in ruder days, when amusements were less refined and less numerous.
The Chinese have never felt the need of professional foolers,

and I cannot say that I admire the circus clown, but the intelligence
which careful training develops in the horse, the dog, etc.,

interests me a good deal. An instance of this came under my own observation
during a recent visit to Shanghai of "Fillis' Circus". Mr. Fillis had a mare

which for many years had acted the part of the horse of a highwayrobber.
The robber, flying from his enemies, urges the animal beyond its strength,

and the scene culminated with the dying horse being carried from the arena
to the great grief of its master. When this entertainment

was given in Shanghai this horse -- "Black Bess" -- fell sick.
A tonic was administered in the shape of the lively tune

which the band always played as she was about to enter the arena
and play her part as the highwayman's mare. The animal made

pitiable attempts to rise, and her inability to do so apparently suggested
to the intelligent creature the dying scene she had so often played.

She lay down and relaxed, prepared to die in reality. The attendants,
ignorant of the manner in which the horse had let herself go,

tried to lift her, but in her relaxed condition her bowels split --
Black Bess had acted her part for the last time.

Chapter 17. Sports
Perhaps in nothing do the Chinese differ from their Western friends

in the matter of amusements more than in regard to sports.
The Chinese would never think of assembling in thousands

just to see a game played. We are not modernized enough
to care to spend half a day watching others play. When we are tired of work

we like to do our own playing. Our national game is the shuttlecock,
which we toss from one to another over our shoulders,

hitting the shuttlecock with the flat soles of the shoes we are wearing.
Sometimes we hit with one part of the foot, sometimes with another,

according to the rules of the game. This, like kite-flying,
is a great amusement among men and boys.

We have nothing corresponding to tennis and other Western ball games,
nor, indeed, any game in which the opposite sexes join.

Archery was a health-giving exercise of which modern ideas of war robbed us.
The same baneful influence has caused the old-fashioned

healthful gymnastic exercises with heavy weights to be discarded.
I have seen young men on board ocean-going steamers

throwing heavy bags of sand to one another as a pastime.
This, though excellent practice, hardly equals our ancient athletic feats

with the bow or the heavy weight. Western sports have been introduced
into some mission and other schools in China, but I much doubt

if they will ever be really popular among my people. They are too violent,
and, from the orientalstandpoint, lacking in dignity.

Yet, when Chinese residing abroad do take up Western athletic sports
they prove themselves the equals of all competitors, as witness

their success in the Manila Olympiad, and the name the baseball players
from the Hawaiian Islands Chinese University made for themselves

when they visited America. Nevertheless, were the average Chinese
told that many people buy the daily paper in the West

simply to see the result of some game, and that a sporting journalism
flourishes there, i.e., papers devoted entirely to sport,

they would regard the statement as itself a pleasant sport.
Personally, I think we might learn much from the West in regard to sports.

They certainly increase the physical and mental faculties,
and for this reason, if for no other, deserve to be warmly supported.

China suffers because her youths have never been trained to team-work.
We should be a more united people if as boys and young men

we learned to take part in games which took the form of a contest,
in which, while each contestant does his best for his own side,

the winning or losing of the game is not considered so important
as the pleasure of the exercise. I think a great deal

of the manliness which I have admired in the West must be attributed
to the natural love of healthy sport for sport's sake.

Games honestly and fairly played inculcate the virtues of honor, candidness,
and chivalry, of which America has produced many worthy specimens.

When one side is defeated the winner does not exult over
his defeated opponents but attributes his victory to an accident;

I have seen the defeated crew in a boat race applauding
their winning opponents. It is a noble example for the defeated contestants

to give credit to and to applaud the winner, an example which
I hope will be followed by my countrymen.

As an ardentbeliever in the natural, healthy and compassionate life
I was interested to find in the Encyclopaedia Britannica

how frequently vegetarians have been winners in athletic sports.*
They won the Berlin to Dresden walking match, a distance of 125 miles,

the Carwardine Cup (100 miles) and Dibble Shield (6 hours)
cycling races (1901-02), the amateurchampionship of England

in tennis (four successive years up to 1902) and racquets (1902),
the cycling championship of India (three years), half-mile running

championship of Scotland (1896), world's amateur cycle records
for all times from four hours to thirteen hours (1902),

100 miles championship Yorkshire Road Club (1899, 1901),
tennis gold medal (five times). I have not access to later statistics

on this subject but I know that it is the reverse of truth to say,
as Professor Gautier, of the Sarbonne, a Catholic foundation in Paris,

recently said, that vegetarians "suffer from lack of energy
and weakened will power." The above facts disprove it,

and as against Prof. Gautier, I quote Dr. J. H. Kellogg,
the eminentphysician and Superintendent of Battle Creek Sanitarium

in Michigan, U.S.A., who has been a strict vegetarian for many years and who,
though over sixty years of age, is as strong and vigorous as a man of forty;

he told me that he worked sixteen hours daily without the least fatigue.
Mrs. Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society,

is another example. I am credibly informed that she has been
a vegetarian for at least thirty-five years and that it is doubtful

if any flesh-eater who is sixty-five can equal her in energy.
Whatever else vegetarians may lack they are not lacking

in powers of endurance.
--

* E. B., 9th ed., vol. 33, p. 649.
--

It is needless for me to say that hunting, or, as it is called, "sport",
is entirely opposed to my idea of the fitness of things.

I do not see why it should not be as interesting to shoot at "clay pigeons"
as to kill living birds; and why moving targets are not

as suitable a recreation as running animals. "The pleasures of the chase"
are no doubt fascinating, but when one remembers that

these so-called pleasures are memories we have brought with us
from the time when we were savages and hunted for the sake of food,

no one can be proud of still possessing such tastes.
To say that hunters to-day only kill to eat would be denied indignantly

by every true sportsman. That the quarry is sometimes eaten afterward
is but an incident in the game; the splendid outdoor exercise

which the hunt provides can easily be found in other ways without inflicting
the fear, distress, and pain which the hunted animals endure.

It is a sad commentary on the stage at which humanity still is
that even royalty, to whom we look for virtuous examples,

seldom misses an opportunity to hunt. When a man has a strong hobby