CHOPS AND NUTS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12970, 25 November 1907, Page 5

CHOPS AND NUTS.

MR LABOrCHERE'S VIEWS. (From London "Truth"). Sir J. Crichton Browne believes in chops and steaks. So do I, P™"*£' of course, they are consumed in moderation, it the same time 1 would no more recommend a convincedi vegetarian to try * chop than I would I* :en toonethot preaches that a <^ tof J" , * and nuts » the only sure road to bodily comfort and longevity. 1w« intereeted in a letter in the ''Tribune! from Dr Forbes Ross, who advocates a judicious meat diet for those, who are no longer young. I happen to know a gentleman answering to this description whose chief daily sustenance is a lump of cooked meat in on.-of the shapes alluded to by Sir J Crichton Browne. He keeps remarkably well on it, end he has passed the average limit of human life, though in point of physique ho would never have aroused the enthusiasm of a lite-assurance doctor. As I hope to see his days prolonged, 1 trust that Dr. Forbes Ross ie right in hi* opinion that a properly regulated meat diet may add from seven to twelve years to 'an apparently ended life." Up to the present th© case rather supports that opinion. Heaven forbid that 1 .should dogmatise on a question ot this kind. \> c all know that one men's meat is another nun's poison, But some of the argument* ot vegetarian** are the most transparent balderdash. A leading apostle of the creed, who runs a restaurant to prove that vegetarianism is not a fad but a "business proposition, wrote a. letter the other day to retute Mr Joseph Lyons, who. runs restaurant* in the opposition interest. Hβ used the old argument that the teeth of man are those of the ape. a. vegetarian beast. So are the brains of man sometimes. It is obviously absurd to found any argument on a comparison of the teeth of men and animals. The carnivorous animals not. only eat flesh, but they have to kill and dismember their prey first, and need teeth as much for that business as for mastication; and, what is more important, they eat their meat raw. The prey ot man is with a pole-axe, dismembered with a hatchet, cooked by a moro or less elaborate process, and alter that cut up with knives before the teeth are brought to bear on it. If, after the butcher, the cook, the carver, and the table-knife, have done their work, the cut off the joint proved too much for the teeth and digestive organs of the average man to dispose of, there might be some sense m arguing that Nature did hot intend him to eat meat under any circumstances; But notoriously countless millions of men through countless generations have not only eaten their meat, but assimilated it without difficulty. To appeal after this to the shape of their teeth as evidence that Nature did not intend them to eat meat in. the way they do is absolutely irrational. You might as well tell mc that Nature did not intend mc to go out in the rain under a mackintosh and umbrella because my skin is not covered with fur; or that I am defying her laws by crossing the Channel in a steamboat because my anatomy differs from that of a whale or a porpoise. Vegetarianism, like all fads based on the appeal to the intentions of Nature, overlooks the fact that civilised man, especially in great cities, lives under conditions of his own making, more often than not in defiance of the intentions of Nature, and that the most wonderful thing-.. about him i* the power which Nature has given him of adapting himself to such conditions and thriving under them. ; No doubt he often creates conditions which' even he cannot stand. He may bolt his steak or eat too much of it, and suffer in consequence. He may catch cold by going out improperly ; or be wfnTM&eeMick.-,m cressingithevCJharinel. Btrb Nature has also, given toim the wit t<> discover his mistake, and either avoid it in , future or devise a remedy. Only a fool will argue in such.* case that the artificial conditions of life should be "given up," and that civilised man should learn how to live from the savage, or from the mon-key-house at the "Zoo."