VEGETARIANISM.

Otago Witness, Issue 1024, 15 July 1871, Page 18

VEGETARIANISM.

(The Graphic.) Professor F. W. Newman has been a vegetarian since 1847. Some weeks ago he delivered at Gloucester a lecture explanatory of that system of diet, and we here propose to summarise some of his more noteworthy observations, interspersed with a few remarks of our own. It is unfortunate that we have not in our language a more convenient word for expressing a system of diet which excludes animal food. The word Vegetarianism suggests to the ordinary mind cabbages, carrots, and parsnips, and it is popularly believed that Vegetarians sustain life chiefly by the aid of those wholesome but somewhat watery pro ducts of the soil. The fact is that vegetables, strictly so called, Btand at the lowest point of the vegetarian's dietary scale. The farinacea, wheat and barley, potatoes, yaaiß, riae, and sago come first in importance ; then follows pulse, in other words, peas, beans, and lentils, and then fruit. There can be little doubt that ; the merits of fruit are very imperfectly appreciated among the flesh eaters of temperate climaten, We eat fruit aB a topI dressing to other food, and then complain of its unwholesomeness. Nuts are especially maligned in this respect. Yet nuts, even the oily Brazil nut, beloved of schoolboys, but shunned by dyspeptic manhood, are, in Professor Newman's opinion, a moot valuable article of food. ""No man," observes a non -vegetarian physician, " need starve on a journey who can fill his waistcoat pocket with aimondß. | If almonds are thoroughly crushed and' mixed with water, no chemist can distinguish that substance from milk." It must be confessed that Vegetarians, at any rate in England, do not carry out their system with logical severity. They i refuse all food which involves animal

slaughter, but as cooking needs grease, and as English stomachs recoil from oil, they do not place butter and cheese, eggs and milk into their Index JExpurguiorius. Thus they are Brahmins rather than Vegetarians. Now comes the important question — What does Nature intend mankind to eat ? " Animal, as well as vegetable food," answers the flesh eater, " because he ib provided -with canine teeth." Not so," replies Professor Newman, " because the monkey, who eats nothing but fruit, is also furnished with these so-called canine teeth." Consequently, he argues, man is, by nature, not carnivorous, like the lion, nor graminivorous, like Cuvier's horned fiend, but frugivorous, like the monkey. He admits, however, that !in primitive times, before agriculture was practised, man must have necessarily been a flesh- eater, especially !in the cold latitudes, but he maintains that flesh- eating diminishes as cultivation advances. ihiß statement appears j to us to be correct, with an important exception. The discoveries of the last century, which have conduced to the aggregation of men in large towns, have also greatly developed their flesh-eating propensities. But this increased consumption of animal food, which economists usually regard with complacency aa a token of prosperity, Professor Newman maintains to be an evil. In primitive times the flesh of the animals eaten was !in a wholesome and natural condition, whereas now their frames are weakened by artificial cramming, by confinement, by breeding from prematurely young parents, and by devices for securing an unnatural quantity of milk. Non-vegetarian physiI ologists freely admit that great physical strength is compatible with a vegetable diet, and Dr E. Smith, reporting to the Privy Council on the food of the three kingI doms, states that the strength of different ( sections of the nation varies in inverse | ratio to the consumption of animal food. The Irißh are the strongest, then the i Scotch, then the northern English, then the southern peasants, and lowest of all the townsmen. Without here pronouncI ing any dogmatic opinion on the effect of diet, we cannot help remarking that the south country English, are getting very I sedentary and mercantile, and if they j don't take care they will succumb to the [ less intellectual but more hardy races of ! the Bister island. Certainly, for a downI trodden race, the Irish possess a wonder* ful vigour* They have, it is true, slightlydiminished in their native island ; but they have established a Magna Ribernid in America, they abound in Australia, and possess thriving settlements in nearly every town in Great Britain. We dwell on this notorious fact because it seems to show that there is more inherent vigour in potatoes than in roast beef. Lastly, Professor Newman dwells on the evils produced by flesh- eating. To the inordinate demand for flesh he attributes the depopulation of the country districts, and the crowding of vast masses of people into great towns. The poor, moreover, if they eat flesh meat at all, get much of it in a» unwholesome Btate. Hence they are ready to become the prey of virulent epidemic diseases. His last paragraphs are devoted to the cruelties inseparable from the driving to market and butchery of the animals used for food, and to the gormandising habits of a large ! part of our population. A Vegetarian, j he says, may eat too much, yet it is more ( difficult to him, owing to the bulk of his food. This may be true ; yet the protuberant stomach of a [Calcutta Baboo, | stuffed to thejthroat with rice and curry, doe 3 not afford a very pleasant spectacle. Professor Newman's lecture, and the Vegetarian Magazine, called the Dietetic I Reformer, in which this lecture first apl peared, are both well worthy of perusal. We do not think that animal food will ever be wholly discarded by the civilised nations of the colder countries ; but we are willing to believe that a time may come when animal food may be used sparingly, as oDions are in good cooking, I rather for the purpose of imparting flavour than for furnishing the principal nutriment to the human body,

A sale of Government sections, situate within the Kuriwao district, took place on the 12th June. Seotions 1 and 2, block 111, in that district, tiie former containing 25a. lr. 24p., the latter, 42a. $r. lip, were sold in one lot. The upaet prioe of the lot was Ll2O. It realised Ll5O, the purchaser being Mr George Edward Thomas, Bettier, Popofcunca. A sale of Government lands, situate in the Kaitangata difl. trlct, took place on the 19th June. Seotions 3, 4. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15. and 16, block VI. ; and sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, block VII., Kaitangata dißtriot, were sold. The total acreage of the sections amounted to 3414 aOr ?sp, which, at 10s per acre— the upset price— brought LlfQi 2s. The purchaser was Mr Adam Landels, settler, Tuakitoto. Section 27, block If., Dunedin and East Taieri district, apd containing 86a 3r lip, wm sold by auction on the 3rd July, realising L 56 7s 9d, the par. cJuwer befog Mr Peter Brown.