The creatures in the Kentucky caves are all aborted in some
way or other; the birds in far-off islands lose the power of flight, and
the shrivelled wings gradually sink under the skin, and show us only a
tiny network of delicate bones when the creature is stripped to the
skeleton. The condor soars magnificently in the thin air over the
Andes--it can rise like a kite or drop like a thunderbolt: the weeka of
New Zealand can hardly get out of the way of a stick aimed by an active
man. The proud forest giant sucks up the pouring moisture from the great
Brazilian river; the shoots that rise under the shadow of the monster
tree are weakened and blighted by lack of light and free air. The same
astounding work goes on among the beings who are so haughty in their
assumption of the post of creation's lords. The healthy child born of
healthy parents grows up amid pure air and pure surroundings; his
tissues are nourished by strength-giving food, he lives according to
sane rules, and he becomes round-limbed, full-chested, and vigorous. The
poor little victim who first sees the light in the Borough or Shadwell,
or in the noxious alleys of our reeking industrial towns, receives foul
air, mere atmospheric garbage, into his lungs; he becomes thin-blooded,
his unwholesome pallor witnesses to his weakness of vitality, his
muscles are atrophied, and even his hair is ragged, lustreless,
ill-nurtured.
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