nence is traceable to the vegetarian dietetic system, it may reasonably be asked how it happens that there have been men equally as eminent, if not more eminent, who have partaken freely of a mixed diet, in which animal food has largely entered. But how does Pythagoras aid the movement? Why was he a vegetarian? simply because he believed in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Pythagoras was not likely, therefore, voluntarily to take the life of any animal, when he might thus endanger the residence of his most endeared relation. We are told John the Baptist eat locusts and wild honey; but it should be added—when he did so he was in the wilderness. Who knows what he eat previously or subsequently? Of one thing we are certain that He of whom John declared himself unworthy to unloose his shoe latchets, created by a miracle animal substance and distributed it as food. Howard, the Prison Philanthropist, was the subject of a great calamity-his only son died in a lunatic asylum. No one would desire to trace any connection between the diet of the father and the lunacy of the son; and yet this is what the vegetarians do when they cite the philanthropic efforts of Howard in illustration of their system. Benjamin Franklin was a vegetarian only for a period. His doubts, if he had any on the morality of the subject, were dissipated on the occasion of his crossing the Atlantic, when a fish which had just been caught was opened, presenting several small fish which had been swallowed as food. “Ah," said the shrewd philosopher, "if you eat one another, it must be right that we eat you," and from that time the author of "Poor Richard" eat animal food. When we are told that Lamartine is or was a vegetarian it ought to be the subject of regret. Lamartine had the destiny of France in his hands! By the exhibition of energy and prompt decision, France this day would have been a Republic; the horrible coup d'etait would never have been enacted. Where, it may be asked is Lam

artine now? Writing songs or sentimental musings will help the world very little in this her busy hour. Where is Kossuth and Mazzini-they are exiles it is true, but their voices are heard, nevertheless, in every court-autocratical or republican-in Europe? If we are pointed to Newton who took to vegetarianism during a period of close application; to Lavoisier who lived on milk and bread, while engaged in certain arduous enquiries; to Shelley; to Dr. Cheyne; to Charles Lamb, and a score of others-we answer, these instances are not to the point-the authorities cited were not the sons of vegetarians; they were not always vegetarians; they were not vegetarians during their growing years, and without an exception they were all morbid subjects. Third. Physiology we are told supports the vegetarian system. If, however, we were asked to furnish one argument more powerful than another in disproof of the system, it would be drawn from physiology. If you will show the physiologist the ailmentary canal of any animal, he will tell you the kind of food upon which it was intended to subsist. He will tell you that the flesh-eating animals -as the lion, or the eagle, have alimentary canals very simple and short; that the animals living on vegetable substances as the cow, have alimentary canals very long and very complex. The reason is obvious. Take the cow as an illustration: its stomach is properly called a compound stomach-being more like three stomachs than one. After the food has been taken into the first stomach, it is passed again into the mouth, to be chewed afresh, it is then sent into another section of the stomach to undergo another digestive process: in short, the cow is constantly employed either in eating or chewing its food. Well might Professor Just say he regarded cows as collectors, storing up in their bodies the nutrition in vegetables for man's use. The length of the alimentary canal of the herbivora, (as the cow), is from eleven to twenty-eight times the length of its body; the

length of the alimentary canal in man is only six times the length of his body. If physiology, therefore, is to give evidence, it proves that man was intended to live upon an exclusively animal rather than an exclusively vegetable diet. Fourth. We are now arrived at the strong-hold of the system. The vegetarian says we appeal confidently to chemistry in support of our practice. If chemistry supported the views of the vegetarian, an appeal to it would prove that vegetable diet is more nutritive and strengthening than animal food. Is this so? What says Liebig-the first chemist of this or any other age? In his "Letters on Chemistry," page 365, he thus writes :- "Innumerable observations, made during centuries, have demonstrated beyond a doubt that different forms of food are extremely unequal in regard to the production and restoration of these powers or forces; that wheat surpasses rye, that rye surpasses potatoes and rice, and that flesh surpasses all other food in reference to these effects." On page 368 he testifies to the wisdom of experience: "This indeed, is saying no more than is well known, since the world and its inhabitants have existed, that the man who has to do that amount of work which, according to the conditions of his organism he can perform, must add to his bread a certain amount of flesh; that according to the structure of his body the proportion of the plastic to the other constituents of the food must be increased, if he has to do more than average work; and that, in the state of rest he requires a smaller proportion of plastic nourishment." On page 351, the Baron endorses the opinion of professor Just that animals are collectors: "Animal food contains the nutritive constituents of plants, stored up in a concentrated form." On page 346, we are led to infer that vegetarians are not impartial observers, for, says this distinguished chemist: "The commonest observations teach us, that flesh possesses a greater nutritive power than all other kinds of

food." Vegetarians are accustomed to reiterate with considerable pertinacity that the flesh-eater obtains his nutrition second-hand-that any nourishment in the animal food is derived from the vegetable food eaten by the animal; that therefore the vegetarian acts with much wisdom in taking the nutrition at first-hand, or from the vegetables direct. On page 414, this pretty theory is exploded-the Baron testifying to the existence of substances in flesh entirely wanting in vegetable food: "Bread and flesh, or vegetable and animal food, act in the same way with reference to those functions which are common to man and animals; they form in the living body the same products. Bread contains, in its composition, in the form of vegetable albumen and vegetable fibrine, two of the chief constituents of flesh, and, in its incombustible constituents, the salts which are indispensable for sanguification, of the same quality and in the same proportion as flesh. But flesh contains besides these, a number of substances which are entirely wanting in vegetable food; and on these peculiar constituents of flesh depend certain effects, by which flesh is essentially distinguished from other articles of food." Vegetarians maintain that vegetable substances are more easily digested than animal food. This position is also disproved. On page 422, the truth on the subject is thus stated:-"It is evident that the constituents of the blood, which are so different from those of the juice of flesh, must undergo a whole series of changes before they acquire the form and quality adapted to the production of the living muscle, before they become constituents of the juice of flesh. In flesh we eat these products, prepared, not in our own organism, but in another, and it is extremely probable that they, or a part of them, retain, when introduced into a second organism, the power of causing the same changes, and producing the same effects as in that organism in which they were formed. Herein, consists, obviously, the

high value of flesh, taken as a whole, as an article of food. Hay and oats, potatoes, turnips, bread, &c., produce in the living body blood and flesh; but none of all these substances reproduces flesh with the same rapidity, or restores the muscular substance, wasted by work, with so small an expenditure of organic force as animal food." Fifth. We are next invited to consider the question of domestic economy-a favourite ground of appeal by the vegetarian; and from whence a very plausible argument is obtained. Notwithstanding the arguments of Liebig, the vege tarian insists that animal food is not the best food; and, further, that three times more than its value is paid for it. This, it must be admitted, is a serious objection. Wages are not so abundant as to make it of no importance what the price of provisions is. It is imperative that the working man should have a shilling's-worth of food for his shilling. When, therefore, the vegetarian tells him that he only obtains threepence worth of nutriment when he expends a shilling upon beef, the question is no longer one of mere amusement, but it assumes a serious aspect, demanding earnest and careful enquiry. The vegetarians, in urging their views on this subject, state that 100 lbs. of flesh-forming substance can be obtained from wheat for £2 4s. 74d.; whilst 100 lbs. of fleshforming substance from beef would cost £11 13s. 4d. This is positively astounding! The beef-eater's faith is much shaken when he learns the explanation of the difficulty. "75 per cent. of beef is water, and therefore," adds the vegetarian, "only one part in four solid or nutritive matter. When you buy 100lbs. of beef at 7d. per lb., you buy 75 lbs. of water, for which you also pay 7d. per lb.-the beef holding water as a sponge holds water." It must be at once admitted that this difficulty makes materially in favour of the principles of the vegetarian. But can this position be sustained? Are the facts as the vegetarian represents? Let us enquire. Liebig on