"Taking the life of codfish that never did you any harm."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed the captain; "how you goin' to eat 'em before you catch 'em?"
"Don't eat them, and then there will be no need of catching them," responded Benjamin. "They are in their native element now; let them stay there, and you keep in yours. They are in as great misery on this deck as you would be down there in the water."
"What put such a queer notion as that into your head?" said the captain, who was surprised that a sane man should hold such an opinion. "Don't you eat fish?"
"No, nor any other kind of meat; I have not touched a particle for more than two years."
"Because you think it is wicked to kill harmless animals of any kind?" remarked another sailor, who had been listening in utter astonishment.
"Yes, that is the principal reason, though I do not think that man needs flesh for a diet."
"You think that God made beasts, birds, and fish to look at, and not to eat," suggested the captain. "In my opinion, the world would be overrun with dumb animals in time if none were killed for food."
"And I think the human family would perish for want of food, if flesh were denied them," added one of the crew.
While this conversation was going on, the cook was frying fresh cod, and the sailors were enjoying the odor therefrom.