The Conversion of

My experience as a vegetarian dates. back to last June. I was in England at the time, and I noticed there that the strongest and most rugged class were vegetarians not from choice, but as a matter of necessity, as meat in England is a luxury which only the wealthy can afford. So I began to give the matter serious thought, and as a result I determined to experiment a little on myself. Previous to this time I had been a great believer in the merits of a flesh diet and always ate meat three times a day and frequently more often. But I decided to eat meat but twice a week and I felt better because of it, so I cut it to once a week. I got such good results from this that I then reduced my meat meals to once in two weeks, and, surprising as it may seem, I felt better in every way. I next got it down to once a month, and with such gratifying results that I decided to leave. off the use of meat altogether. Since that time I have been a strict vegetarian and I have been rewarded in more ways than one. I have gained in mental power and increased my physical endurance. The increased clearness of intellect is unmistakable, and I believe I am a better man in every way-physically, mentally and morally. This diet, with temperance in other things, including healthful habits, will surely work wonders for any one who is open to conviction and who will give vegetarianism a good fair trial, and I will say further that any fair minded man

April 15, 1902 • No. 7

a Noted Pugilist.

who is open to conviction and who will give this idea sober consideration will surely find plenty of good food for thought in this great subject.

KID PARKER.

WHY IS KILLING ESSENTIAL TO THEIR HAPPINESS?

Mr. Grover Cleveland writes a letter demanding kind treatment of Cubans, and simultaneously announces that he is going South "on a hunting trip."

Every day you read of men well-to-do who are going to the country—to kill something.

The hunter goes out in his boat or walks through the woods, in the beautiful climate of the South.

There are a thousand things to please and attract him-the warm sun, the sky with its changing qualities, the smooth water, and all of the wonderful forms of animal life.

The squirrel jumps twenty times its own length from one branch to another. The wild birds alight on the smooth water, swimming and diving and enjoying each other's company.

Harmless, foolish little rabbits hop about looking for something to eat.

The prosperous man who has come out to enjoy nature cannot be happy unless he can KILL some one of these harmless creatures.

He does not need them. He has all

that he wants to eat. He has a dog, or he pays another man, to pick up the car

casses.

It is his delight to bring down the bird on the wing, or to shoot some poor animal as it dashes through the woods seeking safety. He presses the trigger, ends the life of an animal that has never done him any harm, destroys the happiness of some poor animal family, feels very proud and happy as he reloads his gun, and looks for a chance to destroy another life.

His kidneys are out of order or his liver is sluggish. He must be persuaded to walk and get fresh air-and the love of killing persuades him to do that which is good for his kidneys and his liver.

There is really no need for the question which heads this column. The love of killing animals is inborn, and it is natural.

The strongest thing about us is heredity. Emotions which have been bred in us for centuries can only be kept in check by the cultivation and force of the will.

For hundreds of centuries the existence of man has depended entirely on his skill in killing.

For hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of years men have killed other things that they might live. They have stalked all kinds of animals, from the mammoth to the grasshopper, and each day of each man's life meant inevitably the ending of the life of one or more humbler creatures.

The habit of ages is not to be lived down in a moment, or even in a century.

But certainly the killing instinct ought first to disappear among those whose brains have been developed on lines other than killing. It would seem only reasonable to ask that a man intellectual enough to attain the Presidency of the United

States should find sufficient pleasure in contemplation of nature's beauties and the wonderful works of God Almighty, without craving additional sensation from destroying a harmless, helpless creature's life.-Editorial in New York Journal.

ANOTHER HALF-CENTENARIAN.

To the Editor: The claim that Mr. Andrew is "the oldest vegetarian in the world," suggests the inquiry, how long has he lived a vegetarian? His age is not stated and at what period of his life. did he abandon animal food?

These questions do not arise from any desire, on the part of the writer, to compete for vegetarian honors, but the fine humanitarian face of our "elder brother," represented in the magazine does not seem to mark as many years as she has lived, and Time's record holds over half a century since she then a mere child-cried piteously as she saw the body of a pet calf in the arms of the butcher, and exclaimed: "No! no! I never will eat any dead thing again as long as I live." This declaration amounted to a sacred oath. It was more-it was a "new birth." It has been sacredly kept and though many years passed before that child ever heard or read of a vegetarian society its mind developed toward the vegetarian thought of today. MARIETTA H. MALTBY.

AND ANOTHER.

With the exception of about a year in the British navy during the Crimean war and in our army during the War of the Rebellion, I have lived by the vegetarian doctrine for nearly fifty years, and from this long and varied experience can testify, and never tire testifying, in season

and out of season, to its unquestionable truthfulness and inestimable virtue.

Futile indeed must be all our reforms in establishing health, "peace on earth, and good will to men," with our chops dripping gore of merciless murder. What mockery to talk of "doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy,"* while we are the boss fiends of the world! God help the "music of the spheres" if they rend the welkin as this one does with howling misery-the greater and more intense as we become more civilized-God save the ruark!

"I like it," is the only argument for flesh-eating. From head to heel, both inclusive, man's structure proclaims him to be purely frugivorous. Whether we obtain our food from the slaughter-pen or orchard, like all other animals, we must subsist upon the vegetal cell.

"All flesh "All flesh thereof is

is grass and all the goodness in the flower of the field." True gospel; that is, if thoroughly realized there would be a good spell upon us, a spell of glorious good health-the source of all real happiness.

The animal economy lives by the destruction of "the flower of the field." It is a consumer of it, a filthifier of it. It destroys, tears down, and transmutes. It is a veritable poison factory. The best of flesh meat has 75 per cent water; the rest is dried blood, ravelled shoe-strings, and waste matter, arrested by the deathstroke, during its transit towards the various emunctories-skin, kidneys, bowels, lungs. In addition there are innumerable occult causes of disease. Fruit is honest, all defects are evident.

Science and philosophy teach that every

*Thomas Paine.

thing is a think-the vibrations of the cells in superior cerebral hemispheres. As we are affected by the so-called external environments, causing the brain-cells to vibrate in unison with them-"which nobody can deny"-of a surety, the braincell must be infinitely more affected by the vibrations of its substance, its own somatic being the matter of which it is built. Hence our cosmic universe, of which the brain is the veritable creator, the center radii and circumference, at once microcosm and macrocosm, is attuned with our diet-with those notes struck in the garden of life and sanity or shamble of death, decay and insanity.

Toxics always give rise to abnormal impressions, "false views" in proportion to the resistive power-the vis medicatrix naturae of the partaker. As alcoholism. produces delirium with its snakes, blue devils, and white mules, so cadavorism, in the pristine purity of the human family, must have caused those abnormal "exoteric" concepts resulting in that phrenzy called religion.

In some words of Shelley: Man devours the mangled flesh, Which still avenging Nature's broken law, Kindles all putrid humors in the frame, All evil passions, and all vain belief, Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,

The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime.

-D. MACKAY, M. D., in Truthseeker.

ALL LIFE IS SACRED.

There is one kind of flesh of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes, and another of mankind. In each there are several kinds of flesh, as fat, lean, etc.

One creature is covered with feathers, another with bristles, another with hair, another with wool, while one has on its head a comb, another horns, and another something else. Each creature possesses wisdom, according to its kind. You can call that of one class intelligence, of another intuition, and of another instinct; still the wisdom manifested by each kind. is understood by those of its class. All living, sentient creatures were made by the same Creator, therefore one is as sacred in God's sight as any other, and hence it is as much a case of murder to take the life of one as to take that of the other. Each class or kind possesses all the intelligence or wisdom that the Creator saw fit to bestow upon it, and if it is transgressing the law of God, "Thou shalt not kill!"-which command is positive

makes no distinction-it includes all living; therefore if it is murder, cannibalism, or a sin to take the life of one being or sentient creature, then it is equally so in regard to every or any other of God's creatures that He created and in whom He placed His Life; and to take life is destroying or killing that much of God's Life. We are bidden to preach the gospel to every creature. Is killing animals and eating their dead flesh preaching the gospel to every creature? Jesus said dead flesh was a thief and bid you not defile your body, the temple of the spirit, with thieves. They do not eat dead flesh or use tobacco, tea, coffee or liquor in heaven. Therefore it is a sacriligious farce to use these things and pray the Lord's prayer.

Well might the sun in darkness hide

And shut her glories in,

When man in the image of his God Should so degrade himself in sin. -J. H. NEFF, M. D.

Where peaches so plentiful hang on the

trees.

CHORUS:

nearest neighbor (man). While you may not kill the beef that you eat, you coun

ing peaches,

The large, luscious peaches that hang on the

trees.

Roseville, Cal.

WHY YOU WON'T BECOME A VEGETARIAN.

It is not necessary for you to eat meat in order to sustain life. There are millions of people dwelling upon this planet, who live upon fruits, vegetables and cereals alone, and nations who have done so for hundreds and thousands of years. Taking a personal experience: For a number of years I have followed a meatless diet, and I am not only well nourished but am in vigorous health, and am capable of greater endurance, than when living upon a meat diet.

Meat eating is stimulating, rather than nourishing. This is why so many feel that they cannot give it up. With some it would be as difficult to give it up as it would a drunkard to give up his whisky. Meat eaters are controlled by the senses, by outside conditions, and unless a refinement of soul makes the meat eating repugnant, they are under its stimulating influence as truly as the dissipator is under the influence of liquor, or morphine, or any other drug, or stimulant. We cannot rule nature, until we gain absolute mastery over ourselves. For "Man is nature concentrated, and nature is man diffused." This is the philosophy of all religions, be it Buddhism, or the Christ doctrine. "Seek first the kingdom within." Then and then only, shall we rule the kingdoms without.

The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" applies to everything down the entire scale of evolution, not only to our

dered flesh. The blood of animals killed at the butchers' is full of poison; for the animals become beside themselves with fear, and this is the stuff we put into our stomachs. Not until we banish murder from the hearts of men, shall we banish the killing of animals or our fellow men.-Ludwig Staden in The Clairvoyant.

BELIEVES ANIMALS IMMORTAL. To the Editor: I have been a vegetarian for six years, and am in my 22d year. I dispensed with the use of animal food at first on account of my health, but now I see the humanitarian reasons. No one who believes that all animals are immortal can conscientiously eat the flesh of his fellow creatures.

In reading the letter from J. Howard Moore, in your February number, in response to an article in the Breeders' Gazette, I was reminded of the beef scandal of 1898, on account of which Gen. Eagan and Secretary Alger were discharged from government service. I should think that this would be a point against the use of second class food.

And as far as pork is concerned, the material that is used to fatten swine might better be put in an edible condition. for man than to be given him second hand.

Flesh food is considered cheaper by many than vegetable, because when a free range for cattle can be obtained they consider there is little expense for fattening; but when so many diseases are contracted from the use of meat, it must be considered dear at any price.

EDWIN S. BROWER, Tenn.