Page:FigsorPigs.pdf/20

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tion like that of a butcher. Having weighed well these matters I became a fullblown vegetarian." Lady Paget.


The useful, docile, gentle, innocent, teachable, beautiful, nimble, long-lived, patient, enduringly strong animals, subsist upon plant food; while the idle and useless, vicious and cruel, unteachable, treacherous, uncomely and repulsive, impatient, excitable and only spasmodically strong, relatively short-lived, predatory creatures, eagerly devour flesh.


The slaughter and consumption of animals for food may be entirely consistent with the present form of "civilization;" may be appropiate to the era of war general violence and confusion, sensualism and corruption; but it is not consistent with a social system which looks to the removal from the earth of these and all other evils, and the establishment of universal purity and spirituality, order, love, harmony and peace.

THE LESSON THE COCKROACH TAUGHT.

A Cockroach crawled o'er a baker's shelf,
Waving his horns and looking for pelf;
The baker, upon his bread board below,
Was kneading and rolling about the dough.

The board received such terrible thumps,
As the baker's rolling-pin struck the lumps,
The shelf was shaken—the cockroach fell—
Ah, where?—The baker could not tell!

Into the oven, deep in dough,
Stern fate would have the cockroach go;
Dead and buried—his fate unknown—
Perished the cockroach all alone.

A napkin lay where a feast was spread,
In its midst a bit of dainty bread;
A lovely lady, with hands most fair,
Unraveled the napkin lying there.

Soups, fish and birds of many a kind,
A pig, with skewers its joints to bind;
A hare, with parsley stuck in his nose;
And snipes and pheasants, all laid in rows.

Huge limbs of pork, beef, mutton and veal,
Were carved by the flourish of sharp-edged steel;
The well-charged waiters were borne around
By valets, in coats with gold-lace bound.