Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-04

tartan diet to all troubled with chronic gas
tritis-a consideration which brings rs down
TO the vegetarian argument from the point
Of sanitation and health.
That q large number of diseases are gen.
Grated or aggravated by the fesh-eating
habit Is a generally conceded fact. Among
these are more especially alcoholism, scrof-
ula, tuberculous phthisis. gout, rheumatism,
nervous troubles. kidney and liver afec-
lions, scurvy, etc. For all these dis
orders DO the most advanced physicians now
recommend vegetarian diet.
THE MENTAL EFFECTS.
Abstinence from meat, also in time, brings
about certain physical improvements, re-
sulting in finer sense of taste, a clearer
brain and more vigorous will. Flesh
eating has, moreover, been known to ruin
naturally fine voices, and a recent writer in
London Truth goes SO far as to say that
"meat-eating country is a voiceless country,
and that even habitual fish diet alters the
vocal organs for the worst"
On economic principles, also, the vegeta-
rian produces arguments OF weight. Briefly
stated, everything else being equal, the saw
ing in living expenses is almost quadrupled
by the exclusion of meat as an article of
Hood. A given acreage of wheat will feed
ten times as many men as the same acreage
devoted to raising mutton. A single acre
given over to scientific gardening will quad
ruple its yield of food Supposing uni
versal adoption of vegetarian diet, the saw
ing in land would be quite as great as that
OF expense-a saving contributing directly
to the advantage of labor, as more men
could find employment in an agricultural
country than in pastoral. The great aim
of the London Vegetarian Society is largely
in this direction of land, labor and expense,
and, as matter of fact, the vast majority OF
Occidental vegetarians are such from prin-
ciples of economy, rather than as matter of
choice. That they are none the worse for
this involuntary abstinence from meat is
another fact quite as patent to the careful
observer of the hardy peasantry of Europe.
THE TAKING OF LIFE.
Vegetarianism, from the humane stand
point, recognizes the sacredness OF life in
general and in particular. They point also
to the suffering indirectly inflicted on ami
mails for this one cause, and the moral effects
produced on abettors and exeeutioners in
shambles and slaughter houses. The argu-
ment that did we abandon flesh eating, the
world would speedily become overstocked
with animal life, is met with the other that
did we stop their forced breeding, nature
would soon right herself in this direction.
Eggs, milk, butter and cheese are recog-
nized as part of a reasonably vegetarian
diet, though the more rigorous exclude
them. The intelligent vegetarian, more
over, urges no sudden transition from one
kind OF diet to the other, the.shUck of such
change being physically injurious. He
recognizes, too, the fact that Tor many such
change is, for reasons hereditary or con-
stltutional, or from circumstance and en-
vIronment, practically impossible. All
he asks is a candid consideration of the SUBJ
ject In all its bearings. and an honest effort,
when possible, to follow the higher and
more purely human way of diet.
NJ. +. GRIswoLD.