tradition among us, that this manner of eating is not onely wholesome to the body, but contributes to attain everlasting hapyness: and, on the contrary, they that make no difference between clean and unclean food fhal be feverely punish'd in the other world... One of our poets writes, that whoever abstains from the flesh of liveing creatures, all men and all forts of liveing creatures regard fuch a man with the profoundest respect, and falute him with a thousand schalam ; and it is a receive'd opinion among us, that fuch as kil and eat the flesh of any creature endue'd with the five fenfees cannot obtain the hapyness. of the other world; but his lot wil be to keep company with Olina dudakkol (the god of the dead and king of hel)."*

India, in short, of all the regions of the earth, is the onely publick theatre of justice and tendernefs to brutes, and all liveing creatures; for, not confineing murder to the kiling of a man, they religiously abstain from takeing away the life of the meaneft animal, mite, or flea.t

* Ibi, p. 76.

Ovingtons Voyage to Surat, p. 296. voyages of John Struys, p. 275. "Thofe,"

See allfo The

say the bramins,

"who have forfakeën the kiling of all, are in the way to heaven." Again: "Behold the difference between the one

5

One of the greatest charitys of the Siamese is to give liberty to animals, which they buy of thofe that have takeën them in the fields.*

The South-Americans are a humane and amiable, but very indolent people. "Though the Indian women breed fowl and other domestick animals in their cottageës, they never eat them: and even conceive fuch a fondnefs for them, that they wil not even fel them, much lefs kil them with their own hands: fo that if a Spaniard,

who eateth flesh, and him to whom it belonged. The first hath a momentary enjoyment, while the latter is deprive'd of existence." Again: "A fellow-creature fhould be spare'd, even by this analogy: the pain which a man fuffereth when he is at the point of death." They even define religion, "Compasfion for all things which have life."

The Gentoos wil A butcher with them is little lefs than a murderer, and of all vocations the moft odious. (Ovington, p. 242.)

fcarcely look upon a mangle'd carcafe.

Louberes History of Siam, p. 116. Their talapoins or priests cannot without fin kil any liveing creature, nay it is a crime with them to go a-hunting, to ftrike a beast, and to do it hurt any manner of way. The reafon they give is, that beasts, haveing life as wel as we, are fenfible of pain as wel as we, and fince we are not wiling that any body should hurt us, it is not reasonable that we should hurt them. Nay, they accufe us of ingratitude, because we put to death innocent creatures, which have render'd us fo many fervices. Voyage to Siam by fix Jefuits, p. 302.

who is oblige'd to pass the night in one of their cottageës, offer ever fo much money for a fowl, they refuse to part with it; but this affectionate humanity is loft upon the infolent and unfeeling barbarian, who difpatches it himself, at which his landlady fhrieks, disfolves in tears, and wrings her hands, as if it had been an onely fon."*

"I have often thought," fays Mandeville, "if it was not for the tyranny which custom ufurps over us, that men of any. tolerable good-nature could never be reconcile'd to the kiling of fo many animals for their dayly food, as long as the bountyful earth fo plentyfully provides them with varietys of vegetable daintys. I know that reafon excites our compasfion but faintly, and, therefor, i would not wonder how men should fo little commiferate fuch imperfect creatures as cray-fifh, oysters, cockles, and, indeed, all fish in general as they are mute, and their inward formation, as wel as outward figure, vastly different from ours, they express themselves unintelligiblely to us, and therefor 'tis not ftrange that their grief fhould not affect our understanding, which it cannot reach, for nothing ftirs us to pity fo effectually as when the fymptoms of misery strike immediately upon our fenfees, and i have feen people move'd at the noife a live lobster makes

*Juan & Ulloas Voyage to S. America, I, 425.

upon the fpit, and could have kil'd half a dozen fowls with pleasure.* But in fuch perfect animals as sheep and oxen, in whom the heart, the brain, and nerves, differ fo little from ours, and in whom the separation of the spirits from the blood, the organs of fenfe, and, confequently, feeling itself, are the fame as they are in human creatures, i cannot imagine how a man, not harden'd in blood and masfacre, is able to fee a violent death, and the pangs of it, without concern.

"In answer to this," he continues, "moft people will think it fufficient to fay, that things being allow'd to be made for the service of man, there can be no cruelty in puting creatures to the use they were defign'd for ;+ but i have heard men make this reply, while their nature within them has reproach'd them with the falfehood of the assertion. There is of all the multitude not one man in ten but what wil own (if he was not

*For this reafon, peradventure, these very humane perfons would rather boil their live lobsters: Even the tender mercys of the wicked are cruel." The cry or fhriek of this animal, in its laft fufferings, is fay'd to refemble strongly that of a human creature, whofe agonys would not be greater, nor, perhaps, different, in the fame fituation.

The beep is not so much “ defign'd" for the man, as the man is for the tyger; this animal being naturally carnivorous, which man is not: but nature and justice, or bumanity, are not, allways, one and the fame thing.

brought up in a flaughter-house) that of all trades he could never have been a butcher; and i question whether ever any body fo much as kil'd a chicken without reluctancy the first time. Some people are not to be perfuadeëd to taste of any creatures they have dayly feen and been ac quainted with, while they were alive;* others extend their scruple no further than to their own poultry, and refufe to eat what they fed and took care of themselves; yet all of them wil feed heartyly and without remorse on beef, mutton, and fowls, when they are bought in the market. In this behaviour, methinks, there appears fome. thing like a consciousness of guilt, it looks as if they endeavour'd to fave themselves from the imputation of a crime (which they know sticks fomewhere) by removeing the cause of it as far as they can from themselves; and i can discover in it some strong marks of primitive pity and innocence, which all the arbitrary power of custom, and the violence of luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.

"What i build upon," he fays, " fhal be told is a folly that wife men are not guilty of: i own it; but while it proceeds from a real pasfion inhereënt in our nature, it is fufficient to de

* See a beautyful little anecdote to this effect in Berquins Childrens friend,