6 HIPPOPHAGY. 



for London and other great cities. Ireland is notori- 

 ously the land of pigs and potatoes, but unfortunately 

 the Irish peasant does not eat but sells his pig " the 

 gentleman that pays the rint." 



If the cold of these northern regions did not sharpen 

 the appetite, and demand the use of fatty substances 

 for the comfortable nutrition of human beings, the 

 people of the British Isles would have little reason to 

 complain because of being generally restricted to vege- 

 table fare, small acquaintance with flesh-pots being the 

 lot of the people almost everywhere ; a mere fraction of 

 the human race being carnivorous, though furnished 

 with means of masticating and assimilating animal food. 

 But with our climate, and with the active labours re- 

 quired from most of us, the liberal use of animal food is 

 indispensable for the development and maintenance of 

 our bodily vigour. We lately read with amazement of 

 the vegetable fare solely employed by a singularly lusty 

 English blacksmith a teetotaller, moreover. But how 

 long will his strength endure? We beseech him to 

 meditate on the fate of M. le Docteur Stard, who, trying 

 a philosophical experiment, died while flattering him- 

 self that he was only weakened by a vegetable diet. 

 Let him also meditate on this novel illustration of the 

 saying that " hunger will tame a lion." A lion, fed for 

 many years on milk-soup ! was presented in 1855 to 

 the Menagerie of the Museum of Natural History, Paris. 

 The poor brute was as quiet as a sheep, and so debili- 

 tated as to be in extremis. An instant change of diet 

 was resolved upon. In a month horse-flesh restored 

 his natural ferocity, and now he is magnificent ! In 

 constitution, a brose-fed Scottish ploughman is on the 

 verge of old age in his fiftieth year. We invite atten- 

 tion to this fact, and we trust those interested in the 

 public hygiene will ponder well the distressing statement 

 that in some parts of England scanty nutrition is un- 

 fitting the labourer for toil, and, by weakening his thews 

 and sinews, incapacitating him for serving his country, 



