Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/64

the very important admission that actual flesh-food is unnecessary, they can afford to smile at the trivial retort that animal substance is still used in eggs and milk. It is not the mere name of “animal” food they are afraid of, but they consider the use of butcher’s meat at once unpleasant and degrading. though, as such strong objections cannot be urged against dairy produce, many who abstain from beef and mutton continue to use eggs, milk, cheese, and butter. There is, of course, the additional reason that it is hard all at once to make the complete change to a strictly vegetarian diet, and many Food Reformers are glad to use eggs and milk as being at present cheap and plentiful, and as affording a modus vivendi to those who might otherwise be entirely cut off by dietetic differences from the society of their friends, though, at the same time, they are well aware that even dairy produce is quite unnecessary and superfluous, and will doubtlessly be dispensed with altogether under a more natural system of diet. In the meantime, however, one step is sufficient. Let us first recognise the fact that the institution of the slaughter-house, with all its attendant horrors,