or cattle-trucks, of Chicago or Deptford. Flesh-eaters may wash their hands of these scandals, and blame drovers and butchers, but it is a cowardly shift. No "care and skill," "ordinary" or extraordinary, can make the trade other than cruel; the diet other than unwholesome.
I have now looked at Sir Henry Thompsons's article in the Nineteenth Century, June, 1898, pp. 966-976, "Why Vegetarian? a Reply to Critics." He serves up his old errors (except as to the date of our name), without any hint that they were confuted thirteen years ago. Thus he says (p. 974):—
Lastly, I venture to advise my old friends, the "Vegetarians," as I sincerely believe for their advantage, to change their distinctive name. They emphatically state that they no longer rely for their diet on the produce of the vegetable kingdom, differing from those who originally adopted the name at a date by no means remote. I give this merely to fix the period in relation to the name, and to what was assuredly then the practice of Vegetarians.
Assuredly the rule of Vegetarians, as declared from the birth of the Society, was abstinence from fish, flesh, and fowl, neutrality as to the use of honey, eggs, milk, and its products.
Again (p. 975)—
All the world knew what the meaning of the word had been, and that for years it had designated the eating of vegetable food and nothing else.
In proof of this Sir Henry cites Latham's Dictionary, 1870. To one who spends his life in lexicographical studies, this trust in lexicons as final, absolute authorities, and not rather as rough essays, needing the file throughout, is nothing short of pathetic. Dr. Latham himself, as I knew him, would have been the first to disclaim such papal pretensions.
