Mr. Henry Salt has written, “Of all recognised occupations, the work which is looked upon with the greatest loathing (next to the hangman’s) is that of the butcher—the trade of doing to death countless numbers of inoffensive and highly organised creatures, amid scenes of indescribable filth and ferocity—is delegated to a pariah class of slaughter-men, who are thus themselves made the victims of a grievous social wrong.”
So large a percentage of the murderers of to-day have been butchers, they or their fathers before them, that these statistics alone constitute a sufficient argument for Vegetarianism.
Man’s inhumanity to himself in this matter of flesh eating is rapidly being uncovered by meat inspectors, food experts, and hundreds of physicians the world over. The statistics comparing meat-eating and non-meat-eating races with regard to tuberculosis, cancer, appendicitis, etc., are of the greatest interest to those who care not only for the health but for the mere cleanness of their bodies.
Dr. B. W. Richardson, in a book called “The Field of Disease,” says: “In Jewish communities there are a number of men set apart to act as inspectors of animal food. They attend at the slaughter-houses, and after an animal is slain and dressed they submit it to inspection; then, unless they put upon it their sign, that it is free from disease, it is not permitted to enter a Jewish family. It enters into the families outside the Jewish community, so that we who are not Jews actually accept into our bodies food which the Jews have rejected as diseased.”
The statistics taken from two small abattoirs alone, for one year, as given by a secretary of one Jewish ecclesiastical board are as follows:
| Total oxen killed | 22,308 |
| Diseased | 7,885 |
| Total calves killed | 3,330 |
| Diseased | 705 |
| Total sheep killed | 41,556 |
| Diseased | 13,019 |
According to this very nearly one-third of all the meat sold to Christian families is tainted by parasitical disease. If an animal dies of cancer, tuberculosis, etc., our laws protect us from the carcass, but, if slaughtered, the diseased portion is cut away and the remainder is sold as fit for food. Such blood is squeezed from beef and poured by the gallon by loving hands into the willing lips of consumptives and anæmics!
The true Vegetarian will not be seen adorned (?) by any of the reapings from a dead body, whether they be feathers or furs, for these have no beauty in the sight of those who see them in thought, dripping with the blood from which they can never be truly cleansed.
Those who would “strain at gnats” while swallowing camels, criticise the Vegetarian for his kid gloves and his leather shoes; but perfect conditions do not yet prevail for the absolutely consistent carrying out of his principles; his effort is to help to bring these to pass, and he does not refrain from beginning for the reason that he cannot yet do all. An adequate substitute for leather has been made which experiments have proven of value, but, as yet, there is no demand which justifies its manufacture.
Many express the fear that, were wholesale slaughter abolished, the earth would be overrun by the lower animals; but were artificial and unnatural breeding discontinued we can safely trust that the animal creation would find its proper place in the world, as everything does, under the guidance of the controlling Mind which is Creator.