"The plainest man alive may tell ye
The seat of empire is the Belly:
From hence are sent out those supplies,
Which make us either stout or wise;
The strength of every other member
Is founded on your Belly-timber;
The qualms or raptures of your blood
Rise in proportion to your food,
Your stomach makes your fabric roll,
Just as the bias rules the bowl:
That great Achilles might employ
The strength designed to ruin Troy,
He dined on lions' marrow, spread
On toasts of ammunition bread;
But by his mother sent away,
Amongst the Thracian girls to play,
Effeminate he sat and quiet;
Strange product of a cheese-cake diet.
Observe the various operations,
Of food and drink in several nations.
Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel,
Upon the strength of water-gruel?
But who shall stand his rage and force,
If first he rides, then eats his horse!
Salads and eggs, and lighter fare,
Turn the Italian spark's guitar;
And if I take Dan Congreve right,
Pudding and beef make Britons fight."
Good cooking is the beauty of a dinner. It really does a man as much good again if he eats his food with a relish, and with a little attention, it is as easy to cook well as ill. And let me tell the wives, that your husbands would like you all the better, and be less likely to go off to the public-house, if their bit of meat or their drop of broth were well cooked. Laboring men should eat well. They should, if possible, have meat—butcher-meat—ever day. Good broth is a capital dish. But, above all, keep whiskey out of your stomachs; it really plays the very devil when it gets in. It makes the brain mad, it burns the coats of the stomach; it turns the liver into a lump of rottenness; it softens and kills the heart; it makes a man an idiot and a brute. If you really need anything stronger than good meat, take a pot of wholesome porter or ale; but I believe you are better without even that. You will be all the better able to afford good meat, and plenty of it.
With regard to your bowels,—a very important part of your interior,—I am not going to say much, except that neglect of them brings on many diseases; and laboring men are very apt to neglect them. Many years ago, an odd old man, at Green-cock, left at his death a number of sealed packets to his friends, and on opening them they found a Bible, £50, and a box of pills, and the words, "Fear God, and keep your bowels open." It was good advice, though it might have been rather more decorously worded. If you were a doctor, you would be astonished how many violent diseases of the mind, as well as of the body, are produced by irregularity of the bowels. Many years ago, an old minister, near Linlithgow, was wakened out of his sleep to go to see a great lady in the neighborhood who was thought dying, and whose mind was in dreadful despair, and who wished to see him immediately. The old man, rubbing his eyes, and pushing up his Kilmarnock nightcap, said, "And when were her leddyship's booels opened?" And finding, after some inquiry, that they were greatly in arrears, "I thocht sae. Rax me ower that pill-box on the chimney-piece, and gie my compliments to Leddy Margret, and tell her to tak thae twa pills, and I'll be ower by and by mysel'." They did as he bade them. They did their duty, and the pills did theirs, and her leddyship was relieved, and she was able at breakfast-time to profit by the Christian advice of the good old man, which she could not have done when her nerves were all wrong. The old Greeks, who were always seeking after wisdom, and didn't always find it, showed their knowledge and sense in calling depression of mind Melancholy, which means black bile. Leddy Margret's liver, I have no doubt, had been distilling this perilous stuff.
My dear friends, there is one thing I have forgot to mention, and that is about keeping common-stairs clean; you know they are often abominably filthy, and they aggravate fever, and many of your worst and most deadly diseases; for you may keep your own houses never so clean and tidy, but if the common-stair is not kept clean too, all its foul air comes into your rooms, and into your lungs, and poisons you. So let all in the stair resolve to keep it clean, and well aired.
But I must stop now. I fear I have wearied you. You see I had nothing new to tell you. The great thing in regulating and benefiting human life, is not to find out new things, but to make the best of the old things,—to live according to Nature, and the will of Nature's God,—that great Being who bids us call him our Father, and who is at this very moment regarding each one of us with far more than any earthly father's compassion and kindness, and who would make us all happy if we would but do his bidding, and take his road. He has given us minds by which we may observe the laws he has ordained in our bodies, and which are as regular and as certain in their effects, and as discoverable by us as the motions of the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens; and we shall not only benefit ourselves and live longer and work better and be happier, by knowing and obeying these laws, from love to ourselves, but we shall please him, we shall glorify him, and make him our Friend,—only think of that! and get his blessing, by taking care of our health, from love to him, and a regard to his will, in giving us these bodies of ours to serve him with, and which he has, with his own almighty hands, so fearfully and wonderfully made.
I hope you will pardon my plainness in speaking to you. I am quite in earnest, and I have a deep regard, I may say a real affection, for you; for I know you well. I spent many of my early years as a doctor in going about among you. I have attended you long ago when ill; I have delivered your wives, and been in your houses when death was busy with you and yours, and I have seen your fortitude, energy, and honest, hearty, generous kindness to each other; your readiness to help your neighbors with anything you have, and to share your last sixpence and your last loaf with them. I wish I saw half as much real neighborliness and sympathy among what are called your betters. If a poor man falls down in a fit on the street, who is it that takes him up and carries him home, and gives him what he needs? it is not the man with a fine coat and gloves on,—it is the poor, dirty-coated, hard-handed, warm-hearted laboring man.
Keep a good hold of all these homely and sturdy virtues, and add to them temperance and diligence, cleanliness and thrift, good knowledge, and, above all, the love and the fear of God, and you will not only be happy yourselves, but you will make this great and wonderful country of ours which rests upon you still more wonderful and great.
