Of fish it is unnecessary to enumerate the enormous supply and the various species which exist everywhere, and especially on our own shores, from the sturgeon to whitebait, besides those in freshwater rivers and lakes. All of them furnish nitrogenous matter largely, but, and particularly the white fish, possess fat in very small proportion, and little of saline materials. The salmon, mackerel, and herring tribes have more fat, the last named in considerable quantity, forming a useful food well calculated to supplement cereal aliments, and largely adopted for the purpose both in the south and north of Europe.

The so-called reptiles furnish turtle, tortoise, and edible frog. Among articulated animals are the lobsters, crabs, and shrimps. Among molluscs, the oyster and all the shellfish, which, as well as the preceding animals, in chemical composition closely resemble that of fish properly so called.

I shall not enter on a discussion of the question: Is man designed to be a vegetable feeder, or a flesh-eating or an omnivorous animal? Nor shall his teeth or other organs be examined in reference thereto. Any evidence to be found by anatomical investigation can only be safely regarded as showing what man is and has been. That he has been and is omnivorous to the extent of his means, there can exist no doubt. Whether he has been generally prudent or happy in his choice of food and drink is highly improbable, seeing that until very recently he has possessed no certain knowledge touching the relations which matters used as food hold with respect to the structure and wants of his body, and that such recent knowledge has been confined to a very few individuals. Whatever sound practice he may have attained, and it is not inconsiderable, in his choice and treatment of food, is the result of many centuries of empirical observation, the process of which has been attended with much disastrous failure and some damage to the experimenters. No doubt much unsound constitution and proclivity to certain diseases result from the persistent use through many generations of improper food and drink.

Speaking in general terms, man seems, at the present time, prone to choose foods which are unnecessarily concentrated and too rich in nitrogenous or flesh-forming material, and to consume more in quantity than is necessary for the healthy performance of the animal functions. He is apt to leave out of sight the great difference, in relation to both quantity and quality of food, which different habits of life demand, e.g. between the habits of those who are chiefly sedentary and brain-workers, and of those who are active and exercise muscle more than brain. He makes very small account of the different requirements by the child, the mature adult, and the declining or aged person. And he seems to be still less aware of the frequent existence of notable individual peculiarities in relation to the tolerance of certain aliments and drinks. As a rule, man has little knowledge of,

or interest in, the processes by which food is prepared for the table, or the conditions necessary to the healthy digestion of it by himself. Until a tolerably high standard of civilisation is reached, he cares more for quantity than quality, desires little variety, and regards as impertinent an innovation in the shape of a new aliment, expecting the same food at the same hour daily, his enjoyment of which apparently greatly depends on his ability to swallow the portion with extreme rapidity, that he may apply himself to some other and more important occupation without delay. Eating is treated in fact by multitudes much as they are disposed to treat religious duty-which eating assuredly is-that is, as a duty which is generally irksome, but unfortunately necessary to be performed. As to any exercise of taste in the serving or in the combining of different foods at a meal, the subject is completely out of reach of the great majority of people, and is as little comprehended by them as the structure and harmonies of a symphony are by the first whistling boy one chances to meet in the street. The intelligent reader who has sufficient interest in this subject to have followed me thus far may fancy this a sketch from savage life. On the contrary, I can assure him that ignorance and indifference to the nature and object of food mark the condition of a large majority of the so-called educated people of this country. Men even boast of their ignorance of so trivial a subject, regard it as unworthy the exercise of their powers, and small compliment to their wives and sisters-fit only for the occupation of women.

Admitting man, then, to be physically so constituted as to be able to derive all that is necessary to the healthy performance of all his functions from the animal or from the vegetable kingdom, either singly or combined, he can scarcely be regarded otherwise than as qualified to be an omnivorous animal. Add to this fact his possession of an intelligence which enables him to obtain food of all kinds and climes, to investigate its qualities, and to render it more fit for digestion by heat-powers which no other animal possesses-and there appears no à priori reason for limiting his diet to products of either kingdom exclusively.

It is a matter of great interest to ascertain what have become, under the empirical conditions named, the staple foods of the common people of various climates and races-what, in short, supports the life and labour of the chief part of the world's population.

In the tropics and adjacent portions of the temperate zones, high temperature being incompatible with the physical activity familiar to northern races, a very little nitrogenous material suffices, since the waste of muscle is small. Only a moderate quantity of fat is taken, the demand for heat-production being inconsiderable. The chiefly starchy products supply nearly all the nutriment required, and such are found in rice, millet, &c. Rice by itself is the principal food of

the wide zone thus indicated, including a large part of China, the East Indies, part of Africa and America, and also the West Indies. Small additions, where obtainable, are made of other seeds, of oil, butter, &c.; and as temperature decreases by distance from the equator, some fish, fowl, or other light form of animal food, are added.

In the north of Africa, Arabia, and some neighbouring parts, the date, which contains sugar in abundance, is largely eaten, as well as maize and other cereals.

Crossing to Europe, the southern Italian is found subsisting on macaroni, legumes, rice, fruits, and salads, with oil, cheese, fish, and small birds, but very little meat. More northward, besides fish and

little meat, maize is the chief aliment, rye and other cereals taking a second place. The chestnut also is largely eaten by the poorer population, both it and maize containing more fatty matter than wheat, oats, and legumes.

In Spain, the inhabitants subsist chiefly on maize and rice, with some wheat and legumes, among them the garbanzo or chick pea,' and one of the principal vegetable components of the national olla, which contains also a considerable proportion of animal food in variety, as bacon, sausage, fowl, &c. Fruit is fine and abundant; especially so are grapes, figs, and melons. There is little or no butter, the universal substitute for which is olive oil, produced in great quantity. Fowls and the pig furnish the chief animal food, and garlic is the favourite condiment.

Going northward, flesh of all kinds occupies a more considerable place in the dietary. In France the garden vegetables and legumes form an important staple of diet for all classes; but the very numerous small land proprietors subsist largely on the direct products of the soil, adding little more than milk, poultry, and eggs, the produce of their small farms. The national pot-au-feu is an admirable mixed dish, in which a small portion of meat is made to yield all its nutritive qualities, and to go far in mingling its odour and savour with those of the fragrant vegetables which are so largely added to the stock. The stock-meat eaten hot, or often cold with plenty of green salad and oil, doubtless the most palatable mode of serving it, thus affords a source of fat, if not otherwise provided for by butter, cheese, &c.

Throughout the German Empire, the cereals, legumes, greens, roots, and fruits supply an important proportion of the food consumed by the common population. Wheaten bread chiefly, and some made from rye, also beans and peas, are used abundantly. Potatoes and green vegetables of all kinds are served in numerous ways, but largely in soups, a favourite dish. Meats, chiefly pork, are greatly esteemed in the form of sausage, and appear also as small portions or joints, but freely garnished with vegetables, on the tables of those who can afford animal diet. Going northward, where the climate is no longer

adapted for the production of wheat, as in parts of Russia, rye and oats form the staple food from the vegetable kingdom, associated with an increased quantity of meat and fatty materials.

Lastly, it is well known that the inhabitants of the Arctic zone are compelled to consume large quantities of oily matter, in order to generate heat abundantly; and also that animal food is necessarily the staple of their dietary. Vegetables, which moreover are not producible in so severe a climate, would there be wholly inadequate to support life.

We will now consider the food which the English peasant and artisan provide. The former lives, for the most part, on wheaten bread and cheese, with occasionally a little bacon, some potatoes, and perhaps garden greens: it is rarely indeed that he can obtain flesh. To this dietary the artisan adds meat, mostly beef or mutton, and some butter. A piece of fresh and therefore not tender beef is baked, or cooked in a frying-pan, in the latter case becoming a hard, indigestible, and wasted morsel; by the former process a somewhat better dish is produced, the meat being usually surrounded by potatoes or by a layer of some batter, since both contain starchy products and absorb the fat which leaves the meat. The food of the peasant might, however, be cheaper and better; while the provision of the artisan is simply extravagant and bad. At this period of our national history, when food is scarce, and the supply of meat insufficient to meet the demand which our national habits of feeding perpetuate, it is an object of the first importance to consider whether other aliments can be obtained at a cheaper rate, and at the same time equal in quality to those of the existing dietary. Many believe that this object may be accomplished without difficulty, and that the chief obstacle to improvement in the food-supply, not only of the classes referred to, but in that of the English table generally, is the common prejudice which exists against any aliment not yet widely known or tried. The one idea which the working classes possess in relation to improvement in diet, and which they invariably realise when wages are high, is the inordinate use of butcher's meat. To make this the chief element of at least three meals daily, and to despise bread and vegetables, is for them no less a sign of taste than a declaration of belief in the perfection of such food for the purposes of nutrition.

We have already seen that not only can all that is necessary to the human body be supplied by the vegetable kingdom solely, but that, as a matter of fact, the world's population is to a large extent supported by vegetable products. Such form, at all events, the most wholesome and agreeable diet for the inhabitants of the tropics. Between about forty and nearly sixty degrees of latitude we find large populations of fine races trained to be the best labourers in the world on little more than cereals and legumes, with milk (cheese and butter), as food; that little consisting of irregular and scanty supplies

of fish, flesh, and fatty matter. In colder regions vegetable products are hardly to be obtained, and flesh and fat are indispensable. Thus man is clearly omnivorous; while men may be advantageously vegetarian in one climate, mixed eaters in another, and exclusively flesh-eaters in a third.

I have not hesitated to say that Englishmen generally have adopted a diet adapted for a somewhat more northerly latitude than that which they occupy; that the cost of their food is therefore far greater than it need be, and that much of their peculiar forms of indigestion and resulting chronic disease is another necessary consequence of the same error. They consume too much animal food, particularly the flesh of cattle. For all who are occupied with severe and continuous mechanical labour, a mixed diet, of which cereals and legumes form a large portion, and meat, fish, eggs, and milk form a moderate proportion, is more nutritious and wholesome than chiefly animal food. For those whose labour is chiefly mental, and whose muscular exercise is inconsiderable, still less of concentrated nitrogenous food is desirable. A liberal supply of cereals and legumes, with fish, and flesh in its lighter forms, will better sustain such activity, than large portions of butcher's meat twice or thrice a day. Then again it is absolutely certain, contrary to the popular belief as this is, that while a good supply of food is essential during the period of growth and active middle life, a diminished supply is no less essential to health and prolongation of life during declining years, when physical exertion is small, and the digestive faculty sometimes becomes less powerful also. I shall not regard it as within my province here to dilate on this topic, but shall assert that the supporting' of aged persons, as it is termed, with increased quantities of food and stimulant, is an error of cardinal importance. These things being so, a consideration of no small concern arises in relation to the economical management of the national resources. For it is a fair computation that every acre of land devoted to the production of meat is capable of becoming the source of three or four times the amount of produce of equivalent value as food, if devoted to the production of grain. In other words, a given area of land cropped with cereals and legumes will support a population more than three times as numerous as that which can be sustained on the same land devoted to the growth of cattle. Moreover, the corn-land will produce, almost without extra cost, a considerable quantity of animal food, in the form of pigs and poultry, from the offal or coarser parts of vegetable produce which is unsuitable for human consumption.

Thus this country purchases every year a large and increasing quantity of corn and flour from foreign countries, while more of our own land is yearly devoted to grazing purposes. The value of corn and flour imported by Great Britain in 1877 was no less than 63,536,3221., while in 1875 it was only just over 53,000,000l. The VOL. V.-No. 28. 3 T