The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1910-01-31
THE WAR ON MEAT.

10 pegln with, man Is not by nature
a carniverous, or meat-eating animal.
The appetite for flesh is evidently ac-
quired. He is not equipped as a flesh
eater ought to be, and as Il is by ma
ture equipped. He has not the teeth
of the flesh-eater, nor the viscera, or
internal organs usually found in ami
mails, subsisting upon meat diet.
1t is true that man still has q cou-
pie of canine teeth, but they amount
to little more than rudlmentary or
gans, and serve no purpose in tear
ing flesh. SO that, upon examination,
the naturalist is safe i'm CHASING man
as a vegetarian.
Man probably adopted the meat
eating habit because of economy. He
will probably have TO give it up for
the same reason. That Is to say, he
began eating meat because It was
more easily obtained than was other
food, but the time will come, as It
has already come in such countries as
India and China, when flesh will be so
hard to obtain, or the obtaining of 1t
will be so expensive, that man will
have to take his food direct from the
soil, without sending it to the table
in roundabout way.
To give some idea of the economy
of flesh as a diet when the world was
young, it can be STAGED that the saw
age could, often within an hour, take
an animal that would furnish as much
food value as he could secure in
gathering fruits or nuts in a week.
And even after there came to be so
many hunters that II was an effort to
obtain wild flesh. 1t was still profit
able to eat meat, because by that time
herds had been domesticated, and
were being fattened on the plains.
Finally, however, pasturage be-
came an object, and the people had
to even cultivate the soil to obtain
grain for the purpose of feeding an<
imals intended for the table. 1t was
still profitable process, because
there was so much land and so few
people. But when the population
increases beyond a certain point, the
people can not afford TO raise grain
for food. They are compelled to eat
the grain themselves.
Pound for pound flesh is probably
the most concentrated of natural
foods. That is to say, n pound OF
flesh will sustain life longer than
will the same amount of grain. But
the flesh that can be produced from
the product of an acre of land Will
not sustain q man as long as Will the
grain and vegetables that can be
produced on the same land. So that
when il comes to a point where
every acre of land must be made
to sustain life as long as possible, or
to sustain the greatest number of
people for a given length of time,
the human race Is compelled to eat
the grains and vegetables produced,
and not feed them to animals and
then eat the animals.
II is not claimed that the time Is
at hand when we In this country
shall have to give up meat because
we can no longer afford such diet.
The present war against meat VIII
have some influence in bringing
about the date when such change
will take place, but 1t Is not yet and
will not be for many hundreds Of
years. However, there is no question
lnt AiSN III NihN PAfNN
meat is in some sense due to natural
causes, such as a diminishing lana
supply and an increasing population.
This is not the first time in the
history of the world that the cost
of living has created excitement, nor
is II the first time that the people
have taken steps to regulate the cost
of foodstuffs. Indeed, since the
earliest times there have been oc-
casions when prices had to be fixed,
or when it was attempted to fix them
by law Joseph, who went down in
to Egypt and got a corner on corn
upon a memorable occasion, related
in the Bible, had the prices which
would be charged fixed by public
Not only did he fix
the prices which the state" would
charge, but the proclamation cited
the fact that no one else would De
permitted to charge more.
In Rome upon half a dozen
occasions, the government fixed the
prices of foodstuffs after much agita-
ton among the people. In France,
also prices have been arbitrarily fixed,
and early English history records nu-
merous instances of where parliament
fixed the prices which landlords might
charge for candles, tea, coffee, bread,
fowls and so on. And 1t was always
made an infraction of the law to over
charge.
The first attempt to regulate prices
by statute in this country, was In
1643. when the grand assembly In
fixed the following scale OF
prices:
"Indian corn, (two barrels OF ear
and one of corn), 10 shillings per
barrel; wheat, four s.illlngs per bush-
ell; beef three and a half pence per
Pork, four pence per pound;
good hens, 12 pence, calves, six weeks
old, 25 shillings; butter, eight pence
per pound; good goats, 20 shillings;
pigs to roast, three weeks Old three
shillings per pig; cheese, six pence per
pound; geese, turkeys and KIDS hVe
shillings apiece"
Other colonies also, from time to