Page:FigsorPigs.pdf/32

30 of Chinese, who subsist mainly upon rice and use neither butter, cheese nor milk; the negroes of Brazil, who subsist almost wholly upon farinha or mandioca flour, and yet endure the hardest labor; the Mexican Indians, according to Humboldt; the Society of Bible Christians, whose creed embraced vegetarianism, and one of whose American members was reputed to be the strongest man in Philadelphia; the bulk of the hardiest and hardest laboring class in Scotland and Ireland, whose chief reliance is upon oatmeal and potatoes; the peasantry of France, who live mostly upon bread, and the common people of Spain, who live principally upon  and onions; the Caffres of the coast of Africa, who subsist mostly upon "mellis" or corn, and who according to Prof. Welch of Yale University, are a hardy race, who live to be over a century old, and who "are singly able to lift a bag of salt from the ground, raise it to the head, carry it down an embankment and on board the vessel—the whole weight of which is not less than six hundred pounds;" the Brazilian women, seen by the same, who can carry bags of sugar in the same manner, weighing three or four hundred pounds, and who ; Himalayans, seen at Calcutta, whose strength was said to be equal to that of three Europeans—who were able to "grasp a man with one hand on his chest and the other on his back and hold him out at arm's length so tightly that he could not escape—yet these men never ate animal food, nor drank any stronger drink than water."

Witness also the experiments, experience and testimony of many of the most eminent philanthropic progressive and pure thinkers, writers and doers, in all ages of the world; such as the Grecian poet Homer, three thousand years ago, who observed that "the Homolgians (Pythagorians) were the longest-lived and honestest of men;" Plautus, a distinguished Roman writer of two thousand years ago; Seneca; Plutarch, the "father of history;"