4J4 THE FOOD OF ANIMALS. 



He 's a base, unfeeling sinner 

 Who can shy this splendid treat. " 



A very slight inspection of our alimentary system will give us too 

 much reason to conjecture that the greater part of our bodily achings 

 and ailments have their origin in an overloaded stomach. 



As I have not an opportunity of examining the interior of a dinner- 

 fitted stomach, I will beg a seat in the hazel-nut chariot of Shak- 

 speare's Queen Mab, and take a drive through the gastric regions of 

 a performer at the annual civic dinner, given by the first magistrate 

 of the metropolis; and where "lords and dukes and noble princes," 

 and doctors in law, in physic and dignity, strive their utmost to do 

 credit to the festive board. What a mass of incongruous aliment is 

 exposed to view! hard and soft, light and heavy, salt and sour, 

 sweet and spicy, green and greasy, all floating in a pool of the 

 choicest wines from France and Spain. The operator seems to have 

 tried his grinders at game and fish, butcher's meat and poultry, and 

 confectionary, until his jaw has refused to act. What must be the 

 state of a stomach so sensible and so delicately formed by nature, 

 urder such an heterogeneous burden? How such a stomach would 

 wish to be the property of a goose or an ass, in lieu of belonging to 

 a rational being ! and how the circumjacent vitals must be incom- 

 moded by its unnatural intrusion upon their own sphere of action ! 

 We now see clearly the immediate cause of headache, and blue 

 devils, and inflammation, with a long train of ruinous disorders, 

 which bring the noble frame of man to dust long before its time. 

 Well may we hail the improvements in surgery and in pharmacy, by 

 which the machine is enabled to keep in motion at a time 'when we 

 do everything in our power to impede its motion. 



In summary, then, we may rely upon it that the inventive powers 

 of man, ever alive to his own gratification, are always at work to 

 prepare an aliment for him, so tasty, so delicious, so nice, and so 

 seductive withal, that his fortitude and better judgment cannot make 

 a stand against it, although he is aware that his frame of body will 

 not do its duty under it. He has a daily lesson read to him by the 

 free irrational animals around him ; notwithstanding which, he and 

 his family will go on to the end of time in its pernicious course, pretty 

 well to-day, indisposed to-morrow, and a little better again the day 



