BENEFITS OF VEGETABLE DIET.
By Editor
Not long ago we received a pamphlet advocating a vegetable diet as a cure for alcoholism. We beg the pardon of the author for having mislaid his tract; but we have a strong belief that the only cure for alcoholism is to refrain from the use of alcohol. We would not, however, disparage vegetarianism; it is one of the coming reforms. Should civilization succeed—and it has not succeeded—we shall make an end of wars, famines and pestilences; and then we shall want room on the earth for the people who now perish in these barbaric calamities. With a vegetable diet, twice as many people can subsist from the same soil as from a mixed diet; and there is very little doubt that people can live happily on vegetable food. We have met with some sensible suggestions on this subject in the London Spectator. It points out that great progress has been made by the vegetarians. “Not so very long ago, vegetarians were regarded as a kind of gentle monomaniacs, whose one objectionable characteristic was the illogical advocacy of an inoffensive crochet. Now, under the mask of enlightened dietetics, their tenets are preached far and wide by the high priests of science, and the cultured classes, without knowing it, are gradually being imbued with doctrines of the vegetable-feeders. How long the fashion will last, or how far the process of conversion will go, cannot as yet be very well estimated.” Physicians are increasing who say that flesh is not necessary to nutrition, and is often unwholesome.—Methodist.