1876.] 
The Great Dietetic Reform . 
29 
appears that vegetarianism, so far from putting an end to 
the havoc which we now make among the lower animals, 
would leave the greater portion of it untouched, and would 
rather lessen than increase the amount of animal enjoyment 
on the earth. 
Summing up the total result of our enquiries, we find that 
the abolition of our fisheries and the disuse of our pasture- 
lands must render the promised economical advantages of 
vegetarianism highly problematical. We see no good reason 
to expedt either moral or physical benefit, to any marked 
degree, from the dietetic reform. We see that the strictest 
vegetarianism would not exempt us from the wholesale 
destruction of animal life. Nor can we find any soundness 
in the lines of argument hitherto employed to show that 
the flesh of animals is not a fit food for man. 
Until some totally different evidence shall have been ad- 
duced we cannot consider our present mixed diet one of the 
causes of the woes that afflidt humanity. 
Though unable to accept the theories of vegetarians, it 
must not be supposed that we entertain any hostility to 
their pradtice. If any man finds that a purely vegetable 
diet is better suited to his health, his sentiments, or even 
to his pocket than a mixed regimen, we do not for a moment 
contest his right to adf upon the results of his experience. 
Nor can we demur to any temperate and rational attempts at 
bringing over others to the same way of thinking; but un- 
fortunately every social “movement” takes the earliest 
opportunity to constitute itself an intolerance, and to be- 
come offensive in every sense of the word. To this rule 
vegetarianism forms no exception ; its advocates are prone 
to question the sincerity of all who rejedt their arguments, 
and to accuse them of wilfully and deliberately shutting 
their eyes to the truth. Certain ugly names, such as 
“ blood-eater,”* are also hurled at the heads of persons who 
still feel themselves justified in adhering to the roast beef 
of Old England. Should the party gain sufficient strength, 
* A flesh-eater is not necessarily a blood-eater. The unvvholesomeness of 
blood does not detract from the wholesomeness of meat any more than the 
dangerous nature of the sap of the cassava root proves its insoluble portion 
to be improper for food. It is too often forgotten that the blood, though con- 
veying nutrition to all parts of the body, is also charged with the effete matter 
thrown off by the tissues on its way to the organs of excretion. It is, there- 
fore, impossible to take blood from an animal without obtaining a mixture of 
sound matter with that which is utterly unfit for food. It is a humiliating faCt 
that in a certain English seaport the blood of the cattle there slaughtered, 
instead of being utilised by mordant-makers and manufacturers of chemical 
manures, is actually consumed as food by the unfortunate inmates of the 
workhouse ! 
