Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/111

Rh real meaning of the slaughter of animals for food. Let them track the beef-steak or the mutton-chop, which they so greatly relish at lunch, ﬁrst to the butcher’s shop and then to the slaughter-house, and, ﬁnally, let them seriously consider Whether the upholders of such a system are justified in expressing any virtuous horror at the diet of which cannibals partake. They may call their butcher a “purveyor” and his slaughter-house an “abattoir,” but they cannot evade the fact that their own daily food is in its substance disgusting, and procured by a process which is loathsome to all the finer instincts of their mind.

It is said that the Papuan inhabitants of New Britain are accustomed to expose human flesh for sale in their shops and markets. This, if true, is certainly very sad and terrible, but it is even more sad and undeniably true, that the people of old Britain look with perfect composure and satisfaction on the horrible array of dangling limbs and quartered carcases which is everywhere to be seen along the main thoroughfares of the most civilised towns. If we wish to see cannibalism (in its literal sense) rampant and