The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1894-02-28
Andersatt gateIligeHf fer.
What SDail''we Eat Z


many reappearances of special recon-
mendations as to diet that are SO ex-
treme, not to say cranky" as sug-
gest that the persons making them
must have spoken out of the
sufferings Of stomachs so far from
normal as rightly to be called
cranky"
The traveller from a distant planet,
returning to his home and describing
our habits, would say: 'They prey
upon other animals. It has repul-
sive sound; but, of course, it is just
what meat-eaters do, in spite Of all
the refnements, and transformations
that, as Emerson says, intervene
between the slaughter house and our
plates" where the slice Of steak or
roast reposes so TRANQUILITY as to give
no hint that it was once alive and as
full Of sensitive nerves as is the mouse
on which the cat so ruthlessly poun-
ces.
But let even the representative
founders of the Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Animals reflect
a moment, and ask themselves if the
deliberate killing an animal, by intel
ligent or humane methods, is not a
more merciful fate than the slow per-
ishing by disease or old age, which
certainly would occur in state of un-
assisted nature.
At the two large abattoirs of Lyons,
France, the guards protect the ami
mails to be slaughtered from seeing
anything connected with the slaugh-
tering Of other animals, as terror is
found to have an injurious effect upon
the secretions and flesh Of dumb crea-
lures. Zurich, in Switzerland, twenty
years ago, invented a merciful way of
killing cattle leathern strap m
pletely covering the, eyes is slipped
over the animals horns before he is
taken to the slaughter house. In the
center Of this strap is a perforated
iron block, the hole being directly
over the center Of the forehead.
Standing in this hole is short,
sharp, hollow steel spike, which is
driven into the brain by the single
blow of heavy hammer, producing
instant unconsciousness. Immedi-
ately, sharp iron rod is made to
penetrate that point in the base of the
brain which corresponds to the "yital
knot" Of the human system, and alb
solute death is the result. The large
blood vessels are then severed. AS
civilization advances, we see every
where more humane laws being enact
ed for what must be considered the
indispensable killing of animals, if
man is to continue on his upward ca
reer, in knowledge wisdom and hap
piness for the brain worker, far more
certainly than the muscle worker must
have flesh food to work upon.
The vegetarian can point to con-
siderable array Of facts to sustain his
theory. Many tribes of North Amer
lean Indians have attained avery high
physical development upon vegeta-
table diet; many Scotch farmers live
principally upon oatmeal: meat is a
comparative rarity among European
laborersr Many EnglisLmen formerly
lived on bread, cheese and beer,
(though cheese can hardly be called a
vegetable); the Roman legionary car
ried weight of sixty pounds and
performed astounding feats Of strength
and endurance without eating flesh,
and some people have substituted
eggs and milk for meat, under the de-
lusion that they are less atrocious
than Aesh-eaters but the opinion of
the COW whose calf they robbed
of its natural food should be asked be-
fore final Judgment:
DR.. G. N. Folsom, then Secretary
of the Massachusetts Board Of Health,
wrote twenty years ago:
s'The Brahmins of India eat moth
ing which contains the germ Of animal
life, although they can hardly be said
to have attained vigorous physical or
mental culture.
Mr.. Edison puts the truth here
limited at more tersely in "Those that
eat rice think rice,' while DR.. Folsom
still further says:
"Although Psychologists are not
agreed that animal food is absolutely
essential to high degree of civiliza-
tion, there are certainly many facts
which seem to indicate that it is re-
solvable into greater amount of force
than the other heterogeneous foods. -
That the kind and quality Of food
gets into a mans thought and dispo-
sition is not to be denied. The physi-
clans at Sebastopool, after the Cri-
mean war, testified that when Rus
sian soldier was intoxicated he became
disgustingly maudlin, afectionate and
silly, while the Briton in that State
became at once "full of Aght;' and
they accounted for it by the fact that
the first lived on black bread and the
second had meat. Dogs that are quiet
and subdued on vegetable food grow
fierce on meat, and there are persons Of
fine nervous organization who find
in meat a stimulus similar to that OF
wine.
The great advances in analytical