SUPERIORITY OF A VEGETAL DIET.
[The following from the Chicago Vegetarian, of September 15, written by J. Howard Moore, A. B., is worthy of consideration by those who eat flesh or who are on the doubting line]:— It is a common supposition among the ignorant and the half-informed that animals are, as a whole, overwhelmingly carnivorous. And this supposed fact is often pointed to in justification of the carnivorous practices of men. If the supposition were true, it would have no such significance as is ordinarily imputed to it; for man does not need, in the first place, to sit at the feet of his intellectual inferiors to learn what is proper and what is improper; and, in the second place, if he did need to do so, he would be under no obligations to select the most reprehensible examples as his models rather than the fairest, just because the reprehensible ones are in a majority. But the supposition is not true anyway. A very large number, perhaps a majority, of the something-like one million species of animals living on the earth derive their food directly from the vegetal kingdom—from the fruits, flowers, foliage, grains, stems, bulbs, barks, roots, nuts, juices, seeds, and secretions of plants. These species are scattered throughout the animal kingdom, from protozoa to primates. And these plant-eating species are as a rule, superior, intellectually, morally, and physically, to the predaceous species. The insects, representing more than one-half the known species of the earth, live prevailingly on plants and plant products. The bees and butterflies, the crickets and katydids, whose beautiful and wonderful lives so often furnish lessons of innocence and industry to mankind, belong to this class. Fishes and reptiles, like men, are prevailingly carnivorous. But there are many fishes and a few reptiles that feed wholly on plants. The sargasso and the diatom, which grow so abundantly everywhere in oceanic waters, are the foundation of the life and energy of the sea. The most beautiful of the birds, including nearly all those that sing and all those associated with man, are either wholly or fundamentally granivorous. The canary, oriole, humming-bird, dove, skylark, nightingale, meadow-lark, linnet, tanager, cardinal, wren, brown thrasher, wood thrush (the most serene and heavenly of all voices), bluebird, bobolink, waxwing, chewink, grosbeak, gold-finch, mocking-bird, vesper-sparrow, song-sparrow, quail, cassowary, crane, ostrich, parrot, peacock, grouse, pheasant, fowls of all kinds—all of these and many others live entirely or chiefly on seeds, fruits, and grains. The mammals are the most powerful and influential of the inhabitants of the earth. And excepting the dog, who was originally a wolf or a jackal, and who has become much changed in both character and diet since his association with man, the most beautiful, the fleetest, the most sagacious, and the most useful of the mammals are strict vegetarians. The horse, the most magnificent of known creatures, whose strength rivals that of the engine and whose speed outruns the wind, feeds on grains and grasses. The proverbial might of the ox is derived from the dynamite of the cereal. The elephant, whose strength uproots the forest, and the camel, the most enduring of man’s slaves, live on herbage. The camel will11amble over the yielding sands of the hot desert with a burden of 200 pounds, at the rate of five or six miles an hour, for fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. This marvelous creature will keep this up every day for a week or ten days, without a drop of water to drink and with nothing to eat but cactuses, desert thorns, and a handful of barley-meal once a day. The moss-nourished reindeer attains a speed of ten miles an hour with a pack on his back. No carnivorous animal can boast the enormous might of the rhinoceros, or the endurance and strength of the herb-fed mule. The gibbon is the most remarkable of all animals for its agility. It has long arms, a lithe body, and can swing forty feet from one limb to another. It swings through the forest in such rapid succession as to rival in its speed the flight of birds, and it is said to be able to keep this up for hours without fatigue. The gorilla is said to be strong enough to crack a gun-barrel in his jaws and to vanquish the African lion by main strength. The orang is also very strong. According to the natives of Borneo, the orang is sometimes attacked by the crocodile when he goes to the river-side to drink. In such cases, the natives say the orang beats the crocodile to death or rips up his throat by pulling his jaws asunder. All of these anthropoids live on a simple diet of nuts, fruits, canes and flowers. The human-like monkey, the nimble squirrel, the fleet antelope and deer, the sheep, the swine, the llama, the giraffe, the mouse, the alpaca, the hare, the beaver, the manatee, the tapir, the kangaroo, the buffalo, the zebra, the musk-ox, the reindeer, etc., are all vegetarians. And they are, as a class, far superior in character, strength, and intelligence to the carnivora. The carnivora are, as a rule, treacherous, unsocial and cruel. The strength of the lion is largely imaginary. It has probably been imputed to him on account of his great voice and fearful facial area. His strength is but momentary, and in endurance he can not be compared with the ox, the elephant, the camel, the mule, the reindeer, the rhinoceros, and the horse. Since a majority of the most powerful and splendid races of the earth derive their aliment from the plant, it is hard to see how there can be any question as to the fact that alimentary substances of the highest excellence are found abundantly in the vegetal kingdom.