VEGETABLE DIET. 99 



sheep, 15,180 pigs ; but of this number 3,140 oxen, 5,915 sheep, and 

 2,943 pigs were cast into the sea during the transit ; 221 oxen, 380 

 sheep, and 392 pigs arrived dead at the place of landing ; and 93 

 oxen, 167 sheep, and 130 pigs were so mutilated that they had to 

 be sacrificed on the spot. In resume, 14,024 animals were thrown 

 into the sea, 1,240 were landed dead, and 455 were slaughtered on 

 the quay to save them dying of their wounds and sufferings. One 

 asks one's self what state the remaining animals were in, which 

 were sold for human food ? 



It is not an unnatural or far-fetched idea to connect this state 

 of things with the excessive and inexplicable extension of can- 

 cer within the last decade. The more and the further cattle are 

 transported under these conditions, the more tainted (though per- 

 haps not perceptibly so) meat must be eaten, the more poison is 

 infused into the blood. It is not possible that the flesh of an ani- 

 mal which has been knocked about, frightened, starved, exposed 

 to the heat of the sun or icy cold for days and weeks, should be 

 as healthy as that of those taken from our own fields and slaugh- 

 tered at once, as was the case in the days of our ancestors. 



These considerations, however, were riot the only ones that 

 moved me. I do not think that anybody has the right to indulge 

 in tastes which oblige others to follow a brutalizing occupation, 

 which morally degrades the man who earns his bread by it. To 

 call a man a butcher means that he is fond of bloodshed. Butch- 

 ers often become murderers. I remember two cases in the papers 

 last summer where butchers had been hired to murder individuals 

 whom they did not even know. After this comes the irrepressi- 

 ble thought, Is it right to take life in order to feed one's self, 

 when there is plenty of other available food which will do just 

 as well ? 



Having answered these questions to my own satisfaction, I 

 plunged at once into full-blown vegetarianism. I got very little 

 to eat, and that not very good, for neither I nor my cook was a 

 la hauteur of the situation. I had, however, one, and that a very 

 great compensation I felt superior to my fellow-beings, treading 

 on air, my head delightfully clear, and altogether lifted up above 

 material things. The poet laureate's lines to Fitzgerald will give 

 in a few words the story of my first and unsuccessful attempt : 



"... . live on milk and meat and grass; 

 And once for ten long weeks I tried 

 Your table of Pythagoras, 

 And seemed at first a thing enskied 

 (As Shakespeare has it), airy- light, 

 To float above the ways of men, 

 Then fell from that half- spiritual height 

 Chilled, till I tasted flesh again. 1 ' 



