Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

monftrate that we are born with a

repugnancy to the kiling, and, confequently, to the eating of animals; for it is imposfible that a natural appetite fhould ever prompt us to act, or defire others to do, what we have an averfion to, be it as foolish as it wil."*

It is wel obferve'd by Cowper,

"The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void

Of fympathy, and therefor dead alike,

To love and friendship both, that is not please'd
With fight of animals enjoying life,

Nor feels their hapyness increase his own."

"Confider," fays Tryon, "how unpleaseing it would be to most people, to behold the dead carcafees of beafts cut into pieceës, and mangle'd, and all over bloody? and how nauseous, and frightful, a thing it would be to think of puting those begore'd gobbets into our mouths, and feeding ourselves thereon, did not continual use and custom make it familiar? and how difficult a task would it be for many people to kil the beasts for their own food, until a little action of that kind and custom hardens them therein. How quickly allfo wil the dead carcafeës putrefy and flink, defileing the elements, both earth and air! How offenfive are the placeës where flesh is kil'd

* Fable of the bees, I, 187, &c.

and fold! How rude, cruel, fierce and violent are most of those who are employ'd therein? In a word, there is nothing that is pleasant, or friendly, in the whole busynefs, nor any one circumstance that is grateful to the innocent principle in man; nay, the taste of moft forts of flesh is strong, fulfome, and fmels of the original cruelty to all those that have, for any time, feparateëd themselves from the eating thereof, or haveing communication with it.... Is there any comparison to be made between a herb-market, and a flesh-market? In one a thousand pieceës of the dead carcafees of various creatures lye stinking, the chanels runing with blood, and all the placeës ful of excrements, ordure, garbage, grease, and filthynefs, fending forth dismal, poisonous fcents, enough to corrupt the very air. In the other, you have delicate fruits of most excellent tastes, wholesome medicinal herbs, favoury grains, and moft beautyful, fragrant flowers, whofe various fcents, colours, &c. make at once a banquet to all the fenfees, and refresh the very fouls of fuchas' pass through them, and perfume all the circumambient air with redolent exhalations. This was the place, and food, ordain'd for mankind in the begining. The lord planted a garden for him, replenish'd with all manner of ravishing fruits and herbs: there "were no flesh-markets nor fhambles talk'd of

in the primitive times; But every green herb, fruit, and feed, fhall be for food to man, fay'th the creator: and' if it had been ftil obferve'd, man had not contracted fo many diseafees in his body, and cruel viceës in his foul, by makeing his throat an open fepulchre, wherein to entomb the dead bodys of beasts; nor should the noble image of the deity have been thus fhamefully defile'd with brutalitys."*

"When M. Bougainville first landed on the Malouine, or Falklands-ilands, the birds fuffer'd themselves to be takeën with the hand, and fome would come and fettle upon people that ftood ftil; fo true it is that man does not bear a characteristick mark of ferocity, by which mere inftinct is capable of pointing out, to these weak animals, the being that lives upon their blood. This confidence was not of long duration with them; for they foon learn'd to mistrust their most cruel enemys."t

The principal quadrupeds which are addicted by nature to vegetable food, are the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the camelopard, the camel and dromedary; the bul, the buffalo; the horse, the a, the zebra; the sheep, the goat, the deer, the antelope, the elk,

Way to bealth, &c. p. 329.

Voyage round the world, (by Forster), p. 39.

[ocr errors]

the hog, and many others. The chief birds of this description, are the ostrich, the emu, the casfowary, the goofe, &c. The fresh-waterfishes are partly giveën to prey upon each other, and partly fubfift on weeds and vegetables: but those which live in the fea are univerfally piscivorous at least with a fingle exception, that of the BARBEL, as we learn from the Halieuticks of Oppian, an ancient poet, thus render'd in Engleish:

"Barbels, unlike the reft, are just and mild,

No fish they harm, by them no feas are spoil'd;
Nor on their own, nor different kinds they prey,
But equal laws of common right obey,
Undreaded they with guiltless pleasure feed,
On fat'ning flime, or bite the fea-grown weed.
The good and just are heavens peculiar care:
All ravenous kinds the facred barbel spare;
Nor wil, though hungery, feize the gentle fry,
But give the look, and, pitying, pass them by."

As a proof of the havock commited by man. upon his fellow-creatures, it is fay'd that, at Paris, there are four thousand selers of oysters, and that fifteen hundred large oxen, and above fixteen thousand fheep, calves, or hogs, befide a prodigious quantity of poultry and wild fowls, are eaten there every day. In a dayly paper of

[blocks in formation]

+ Saint-Everemoniana, as quoteëd by Bayle, who bids his

1785, it is alledge'd that the quantity of provifions confume'd annually in London is as follows:

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Poultry and wild-fowl innumerable.
Mackarel fold at Billingsgate
Oysters, bufhels

[ocr errors]

Small boats, with [turbot], cod, haddock, whiteing, [herrings,] befides great quantitys of river and falt-fifh

14,740,000 105,536

11,438"*

"With respect to myself," fays Montaigne, "i have never been able to see, once, without affliction, an innocent beaft, which is without defence, and from which we receive no offence, pursue'd and kil'd: and, as it commonly hapens," he ads, "that the ftag, feeling himself out of breath and ftrength, haveing, moreover, no other remedy, yields and renders himself to us

readers judge what must be confume'd in those countrys where they eat more, and feed more upon flesh. (Dictionary, Ovid.)

* General advertiser, December 19th. This account, however, is certainly erroneous, and much underrateëd.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »