Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/393

Rh which latter that skin-stuffed compound of unknown origin, an uncertified sausage, may be accepted as the type.

After this period arise the temptations to drink, among the youth of all classes, whether at beerhouse, tavern, or club. For it has been taught in the bosom of the family, by the father's example and by the mother's precept, that wine, beer, and spirits are useful, nay, necessary to health, and that they augment the strength. And the lessons thus inculcated and too well learned were but steps which led to wider experience in the pursuit of health and strength by larger use of the same means. Under such circumstances it often happens, as the youth grows up, that a flagging appetite or a failing digestion habitually demands a dram before or between meals, and that these are regarded rather as occasions to indulge in variety of liquor than as repasts for nourishing the body. It is not surprising, with such training, that the true object of both eating and drinking is entirely lost sight of. The gratification of acquired tastes usurps the function of that zest which healthy appetite produces; and the intention that food should be adapted to the physical needs of the body and the healthy action of the mind is forgotten altogether. So it often comes to pass that at middle age, when man finds himself in the full current of life's occupations, struggling for preeminence with his fellows, indigestion has become persistent in some of its numerous forms, shortens his "staying power," or spoils his judgment or temper. And, besides all this, few causes are more potent than an incompetent stomach to engender habits of selfishness and egotism. A constant care to provide little personal wants of various kinds, thus rendered necessary, cultivates these sentiments, and they influence the man's whole character in consequence. The poor man, advancing in years, suffers from continuous toil with inadequate food, the supply of which is often diminished by his expenditure for beer, which, although often noxious, he regards as the elixir of life, never to be missed when fair occasion for obtaining it is offered. Many of this class are prematurely crippled by articular disease, etc., and become permanent inmates of the parish workhouse or infirmary.

It must be obvious to everybody how much more of detail might be added to fill in the outlines of this little sketch. It is meager in the extreme: nevertheless it suffices for my purpose; other illustrations may occur hereafter.

But it is necessary to say at this point, and I desire to say it emphatically, that the subject of food need not, even with the views just enunciated, be treated in an ascetic spirit. It is to be considered in relation to a principle, in which we may certainly believe, that aliments most adapted to develop the individual, sound in body and mind, shall not only be most acceptable, but that they may be selected and prepared so as to afford scope for the exercise of a refined taste, and produce a fair degree of that pleasure naturally associated with the