MUSCLE MAKING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16267, 6 November 1920, Page 16

MUSCLE MAKING.

GERMANS’ NEW FAD. The Berlin correspondent of the London “Times” describes what he calls “a new German industry” in a dispatch fo his paper. Ho says: 11 On Sunday I walked fb'r (some twenty kilometres through the country districts between Haiiau and Frankfort and saw for myself the muscle making industry to which young Germany is devoting all its fcparo time. “I passed thousands of young Germans of both sexes marching along tho roads in military order, mostly in bands of forty to eighty 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 foi the night. .Some carry small canvas tents, something like an American army ' pftp tent,’ but most sleep in the open ail. “Both men and women are loosely dressed, the men without coats as a rule, and tho w omen with open bodices and no corsets. They present a fine, healthy appearance, and although the heavy marching will not make! the women beautiful it wil] improve rather than intrfero with their breeding capacities—which is what the Germans seem really to bo after. Germany seems to bo determined to replace tho men she has lost as quickly as possible’, and every German village is literally swarming with little machine-gun-ners. '! These great marching and muscle making movements, in which young people of both sexes march together i pnss the night together in tho fields, will greatly, increase tho baby crop. German, vifgl statistics before tho wjr were notoriously incomplete, and it would not bo surprising if a notablo percentage of illegitimate births were passed over in silence in tho Futuie, _ The youth of Germany is now being taught that physical strength is the tiling most to be admired in man, an ..rrf- k ear ” l £ in woman. • ‘The explanation generally given for those outings, that they are tho result ot purely economic causes, does not satisfy mo. When a German says that the young people cannot afford tho pleasures of tho cities, that tho only reason they march, is because they can- ?. ofc P. a .y fourth-class train fares and i lliat there is no other way in which they can obtain an outing, I am sceptical. Germans ivero always fond of vcrcins of all kinds, and before the war I have seen marching clubs and tourist organisations on the road; but ..Irw - 6 T saw on Sunday. ‘Tins) is now almost a iiati>'onal movement. It is the youth of a nation training hard to make ■muscle, to breed a now strong and numerous generation —whether for rebuilding or for revenue I do not know.”