WITH WHAT PURPOSE?

Patea Mail, Volume XLIV, 11 October 1920, Page 4

WITH WHAT PURPOSE?

GERMANS CULTIVATE FITNESS. On Sunday, June 13 (writes a correspondent of the Times from Germany), I walked for some kilometres through the country districts between Hanau and Frankfort, and saw for myself the muscle-making industry to which the young people of German are devotingall their spare time. I passed thousands of young Germans of both sexes marching along the roads in military order, mostly in bands of 4(1 to SO men and women. All carried knapsacks, and in nearly every case three or four had musical instruments (mostly Tyrolean guitars.) The usual plan is for these bands to leave the cities and towns on Saturday afternoon and evening, and camp out for the night. Some carry small canvas tents, something like an American Army "pup-tent," but most sleep in the open air. Both men and women are loosely dressed, the men without coats, as a rule, and the women with open bodices and no corsets. They present a fine healthy appearance, and, although the heavy marching will not make the women beautiful, it will improve rather than interfere with their breeding capacities—which" is what the Germans want, as they seem to be determined to replace the men she has lost as quickly as possible, and every German village is literally swarming with little machine gunners.

In those groat marching movements young people of both sexes march together and pass the night together in the fields. German vital statistics before the war were notoriously incomplete, and it would not be surprising if a notable percentage of illegitimate births were passed over in silence in the future. The young of Germany »< now being taught that physical strength is the thing most: to be admired in man and child-bearing in women. The explanation generally given for these outings, thai they are the result of purely economic causes, does not satisfy me. When the German says that the young people cannot afford the pleasures of the cities, that the only reason they march is because they cannot pay fourth class train fares. and fliat there is no oilier way in which they can obtain an outing, I am -cvptical. Germans were always fond .f "vercins" of all kinds, a:: 1 before the v. ..r 1 have seen marching clubs and tourist organisations on the road; but nothing like what I saw on Sundav.

This is now almost a national movement. It is the youth of a nation training hard to make muscle, to breed strong and numerous generation —whether lor rebuilding or -revenge, 1 do not know.