There are races and tribes in Africa and in the South Sea Islands that go entirely destitute of all clothing. I have seen them, male and female, old and young, unclad, toiling in their miserably-tilled fields; and near sundown I have also seen them all bathing together, sportive and seemingly as innocent, too, as children. It is difficult to make them comprehend the delicacy or beauty of clothing. There is really no necessity for it under those equatorial skies, where summers are eternal. Many of these people, though the climate is malarial, live, because of frequent sand-baths and perpetual sun-baths, to be very aged. Fruits and rice constitute their food.

The primary object of clothing is protection against the injurious variations of heat and cold. Protection and utility, then, being the purpose, the material, the texture and the color of the garments worn should be carefully studied.

So far as protection against cold, against chilling dampness and the absorption of perspiration are concerned, wool stands first. For warding off cold winds and pelting storms, however, india-rubber takes the preference. For summer time linen and cotton, being good conductors of heat, are cooler; but owing to the frequent changes of climate they are not so healthful. Accordingly, flannel, soft and thin for summer time, thick and heavy for winter, should be worn all the year round.

Clothing upon the human body is often very badly distributed. There is too little about the lower extremities.

"If one-quarter of the heavy woolen overcoat or shawl were taken from the trunk, and wrapped about the legs, it would prove a great gain. When we men ride in the cars, or in a sleigh, where do we suffer? About the legs and feet! When women suffer from the cold, where is it?

"The legs and feet are down near the floor, where the cold currents of air move. The air is so cold near the floor that all prudent mothers say: 'Don't lie upon the floor, my child; you'll take cold.' And they are quite right; for the air near the floor is very much colder than it is up about our heads. And it is in that cold stratum of air that our feet and legs are constantly. A few Yankees put them on the mantel-shelf, but the majority keep their feet on the floor."

Color, like sound and odor, electricity and gravitation, is a substance. Everything that is, is substance; that is to say, it is something or nothing, and if nothing, it is not worth talking about.

Only substance, or substances, can produce effects. Colors produce marked effects. Purely white or light-colored garments are healthiest for summer because they transmit, or rather permit, the sunbeams to reach the body. They are healthiest, in fact, at all times. Pythagoras and his disciples dressed in white robes. In many of the Asiatic cities the people dress almost exclusively in white.

Black is unhealthy, uncomely, and unfit even for funerals. Being dressed in black, so far as the actinic power of sunlight is concerned, is about equivalent to being in a cave. It is not so much the heat as it is the light of the sun that the body requires.

The English scientist, William Crookes, invented the radiometer, an instrument that rotates under the influence of the sun's rays, and the more intense the light the more rapid the motion. This shows the force there is connected with light; and this force coming in contact with the body, directly or through light clothes, is literally a tonic.

One can walk nearly as far again, and with much less fatigue, upon a sunshiny day, dressed in white than in black. Take two pieces of cloth of the same size and texture, one white and the other black, spread them over the grass and fasten them down; lift them at the end of a month and mark the contrast! Under the white cloth the grass will look green, fresh and growing; under the black cloth it will be yellow and sickly, if not dead. If black kills the grass will it promote health in human beings?

Black or dark clothes should not be worn in sick rooms. It is not generally known "that a man wearing dark clothes is more liable to infection from contagious disease than he who wears light-colored garments, because particles which emanate from diseased or decaying bodies are much more readily absorbed by dark than by light fabrics. This is easy of proof. Expose a light and dark coat to the fumes of tobacco for five minutes, and it will be found that the dark one smells stronger than the other of tobacco smoke, and it will retain the odor longer."

Tight dressing upon the body, limbs or feet is deleterious to health. While Chinese women bind and pinch their feet; while Malay women pierce both nose and ears for rings, and while many American women foolishly compress their waists, young men, shame be to them, are guilty of wearing tight trousers - trousers that possibly "press 275 pounds to the square inch upon the' veins and arteries in the calves of the legs." This pressure prevents the circulation of the blood, produces disease and premature decline of manhood.