Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/11

vegetarian diet is its economy. Flesh-meat is so much more expensive than cereals and vegetable products, that it must be accounted very extravagant and unbusinesslike to use it as a common article of food, unless, as is generally believed, its superior quality compensates in the long run for its dearness. But if Vegetarians find that they live in perfect health without meat, would they not be somewhat deficient in common-sense if they did not make the most of their pecuniary advantage? The humanitarians, sentimentalists, crotchet-mongers, and fanatics have therefore, at least, one point in their favour—the cost of their food is far less than that of the shrewd flesh-eater. I mention this point first as being the most plain and indisputable, not necessarily the most important; yet that it is also of great importance will scarcely be denied, in a country whose food supply is yearly becoming a matter of greater difficulty, and where thousands of people are in a state of abject poverty and want. Even in well-to-do households the price of meat is a source of constant complaint and vexation to the prudent housewife; yet she would laugh to scorn the bare idea of living without flesh, and, if she has ever