OBERLIN AND SWARTZ.
These two distinguished men were essentially vegetable eaters. Of the habits of Oberlin, the venerable pastor and father of Waldbach, I am not able to speak, however, with so much certainty as of those of Swartz. His income, during the early part of his residence in India, was only forty-eight pounds a year, which, being estimated by its ability to procure supplies for his necessities, was only equal to about one hundred dollars. He not only accepted of very narrow quarters, but ate, drank, and dressed, in the plainest manner. "A dish of rice and vegetables," says his biographer, "satisfied his appetite for food."
THE IRISH.
Much has been said of the dietetic habits of the Irish, of late years, especially of their potato. Now, we have abundant facts which go to prove that good potatoes form a wholesome aliment, equal, if not superior, to many forms of European and American diet. Yet it cannot be that a diet consisting wholly of potatoes is as well for the race as one partaking of greater variety.
Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, whom he visited:
"He was upward of eighty years when I had last seen him, and he was now in his ninety-fourth year. He found the old gentleman seated on a kind of rustic seat, in the garden, by the side of some bee-hives. He was asleep. On his waking I was astonished to see the little change time had wrought on him; a little more stoop in his shoulders, a wrinkle more, perhaps, in his forehead, a more perfect whiteness of his hair, was all the difference since I had seen him last. Flesh meat in my venerable friend's house was an article never to be met with. For sixty years past he had not tasted it, nor did he by any means like to see it taken by others. His food was vegetables, bread, milk, butter, and honey. His whole life was a series of benevolent actions, and Providence rewarded him, even here, by a peace of mind which passeth all understanding, by a judgment vigorous and unclouded, and by a length of days beyond the common course of men."
James Haughton, I believe of Dublin—a correspondent of Henry C. Wright, of Philadelphia, who is himself in theory a vegetable eater—has, for some time past, rejected flesh, and pursued a simple course of living, as he says, with great advantage. I have been both amused and instructed by his letters.
I have met with several Irish people of intelligence who were vegetable eaters, but their names are not now recollected. They have not, however, in any instance, confined themselves to potatoes. One of the most distinguished of these was a female laborer in the family of a merchant at Barnstable. She was, from choice, a very rigid vegetable eater; and yet no person in the whole neighborhood was more efficient as a laborer. Those who know her, and are in the habit of thinking no person can work hard without flesh and fish, often express their astonishment that she should be able to live so simply and yet perform so much labor.
JOHN BAILIES.
John Bailies, of England, who reached the great age of one hundred and twenty-eight, is said to have been a strict vegetarian. His food, for the most part, consisted of brown bread and cheese; and his drink of water and milk. He had survived the whole town of Northampton (as he was wont to say), where he resided, three or four times over; and it was his custom to say that they were all killed by tea and coffee. Flesh meat at that time had not come into suspicion, otherwise he would doubtless have attributed part of the evil to this agency.