Sir Richard Phillips once rang a peal in my ears against shooting and hunting. He does indeed eat neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. His abstinence surpasses that of a Carmelite, while his bulk would not disgrace a Benedictine monk or a Protestant dean. But he forgets that his shoes and breeches and gloves are made of the skins of animals, and he writes (and very eloquently, too) with what has been cruelly taken from a fowl; and that, in order to cover the books which he has made and sold, hundreds of flocks and scores of droves must have perished. Nay, that for his beaver hat a beaver must have been hunted and killed, in doing which many beavers may have been wounded and left to pine away the rest of their lives, and perhaps many little orphan beavers left to lament the murder of their parents. Ben Ley was the only real and sincere Pythagorean of modern times that I have ever heard of. He protested not only against eating the flesh of animals, but against robbing their backs, and therefore his dress consisted wholly of flax. But he, like Sir Richard Phillips, ate milk, butter, cheese, and eggs, though this was cruelly robbing the hens, cows, and calves, and indeed causing the murder of the calves!—A Year's Residence in the United States. By William Cobbett, 1818. (D.R. 1880, p. 280.)
Do Vegetarians take eggs, milk, cheese, butter, honey? Yes and no; some do, some do not. Officially, the Society proscribes fish, flesh, fowl. Outside the three F's, our members are free to range as other men; the Society is neutral. So the use of tobacco, tea, coffee, fermented drinks, is an open question with us. Yet very few Vegetarians use strong drinks or smoke. Many drink water only; some do not drink at all; the tendency is towards simplicity. Our action is providing substitutes for all animal substances.[1] A German firm advertises in our German organs vegetable milk and cheese. The demand of our kitchens has created a supply of many vegetable oils, e.g., Nucoline and Albene. Dr. Oldfield wears Vegetarian boots of pannuscorium and vegetable belting. Major Richardson has appeared clothed in vegetable fibres from top to toe.
I will now shew that Sir Henry's criticisms are as old as our movement, and cite answers given on authority. It is to be regretted that he has not found leisure to study our classics for himself. At the third annual meeting of the Vegetarian Society,18th July, 1850, Mr. John Smith, of Malton, author of "Fruits
- ↑ See Why am I a Vegetarian? pp. 80, 81, in Plain Living and High Thinking,vol. iii. of the Vegetarian Jubilee Library, 1897. To the (mineral or vegetable) substitutes for animal power or substances (animal or mineral) there named, add for power, the waters of Niagara and the lower St. Lawrence; for the cocoon of the worm, artificial silk of wood pulp; paper supplies horse-shoes, wheels and rails for railroads; olive oil, palm oil, cocoanut, maize, etc., instead of fat and blubber, are used by soap-boilers; glass and agate pens; straw paper; wood for horn; pegamoid for leather and bladder; all bear witness to Carey's law: "The course of civilisation is the triumph of vegetable (and mineral) over animal (and mineral) in all the arts."
