The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness

"It is often the custom of young women to declare that they cannot walk, sometimes from indolence, no doubt, and want of habit, occasionally from real inability. But if we investigate the causes of this real inability, we shall often find it to proceed from an improper choice of time in taking exercise, or from a defective judgment in the manner of taking it. Many women exhaust and fatigue themselves with the duties of their house, and by a thousand trying occupations, including that which forms a serious item in the day's work, namely, running up and down stairs, and then discover that they cannot walk. Others go to extremes, and walk for a certain distance, whether they feel fatigued or not by such exertions. 'It is only,' observes Dr. Combe, 'by a diffusion of the laws of exercise as a part of useful education, that individuals can be enabled to avoid such mistakes,' To be beneficial, exercise should always be proportioned to the strength and to the constitution of an individual. When it causes extreme fatigue or exhaustion, it is hurtful; it ought to be resumed always after a period of rest, and adopted regularly, not, as too many persons are in the habit of doing, once in four or five days. The average walk which a young woman in good health and in ordinary circumstances, may take, without undue and injurious fatigue, is from four to five miles a-day. From this rule I except the very young. It has been found by experience that until twenty-two or three the strength is not completely matured. The rate of mortality, as it has been proved by statistical tables, increases in all classes of society from fourteen until the age of twenty-three, when it begins to decrease.