LIFE ON TWOPENCE DAILY

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5312, 25 June 1904, Page 13

LIFE ON TWOPENCE DAILY

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, May 6. Mr Eustace Milos, one of the finest exponents of tennis and racquets livm<?. and a very capable all round athlete, is endeavouring to persuade the world that it is possible for man, woman or child to live at a cost of Horn tid to 2d a day. Ho has himself nearly reached the twopenny stage, and certainly shows no signs of being in peril of tho fato of tho horse which spoiled a most interesting experiment by dying when ho had been reduced to a single corn per meal and one “feed” per day. On tho con'trary he looks At as the proverbial fiddle, and I for ono should not cavo to tackle him at any sport requiring muscle and endurance. Mr Miles’s advocacy of cheap food is no new fad with him. He has boon experimenting on * himself for some years, and is confident that nine people out ot ten can live and bo well without resort to tho fleshpots. Seme people, ho admits, would not find his diet agree with them, but those are, ho believes. only those exceptions which go to prove the general rule. The fare that Air Allies advocates consists ol Piasmon, cheese, lentils, boans, prunes, raisins, milk and fresh vegetables, fo get the fullest benefit from the solids in this array of foodstuffs Air Miles insists upon the most thorough mastication. Ho has been experimenting with slow chewing and has attained to over 100 chews to the mouthful, thus completely out-distancing Mr Gladstone. who is reputed to have habitually reached thirty, but beinrr still miles-behind tlio record of Air Horace Fletcher, of Now York, who has achieved tho wonderful record of 315 chews on a mouthful of onion.

Mr Miles does not advocate his svstera without having first tried it on his friends as well as himself. Two of his most enthusiastic converts, a vicar and his daughter, have boen feeding a la Miles for over a year and have now ranched a point at which less than 2d a day per head satisfies their stomachic requirements without suffering any physical deterioration. He has also- experimented on the Bishop of Rochester, George Barnard Shaw, Canon Lyttelton, brother of tho Coloiral Secretary, and ho hopes at any early date to open a restaurant at which sceptics may bo converted. At Kensington Town Hall, a few days ago, Mr Miles lectured on the science of plain living and demonstrated by moans of prepared dishes the fact that one can feed on his systenv without the palate revolting. His savoury sandwiches, costing a farthing ajpicoe, were certainly good to eat. They were made from a combination of butter-beans, lentils, onion, a dash of sauce, a little chutney, a trifle if curry-powder and pepper and salt. They were decidedly appetising but wore a poor substitute for a nice "point’’ steak or a cut from the joint. Mr Miles has. of course, a very long row to hoe before be can hope to make his system of feeding popular. His dishes —he has some 400 recipes to work upon —are certainly "tasty” enough and may find favour as variants in the ordinary domestic menu, bub the day when beef and mutton, pork and poultry will no longer find a place in tho Briton’s larder is afar off. There js no need for any anxiety on tho part of Antipodean pastoralists. They may go on growing meat in the comfortable assurance that people in general will continue to oat the things they like and not the things they should, in spite oi food reformers.