It is reported in every direction that the Harvard crew
trained on milk, vegetables, and fruit, and great surprise is expressed that they should have been so nearly successful. Their victory certainly would have been a triumph for the teetotalers and the vegetarians ; but, after all, we see little ground for amazement. Half mankind swallows neither alcohol nor meat. A Turkish hamal would take an English porter and his load on his shoulders and walk away comfortably, and he never drinks anything stronger than coffee, while a Highland keeper, bred up on milk and oatmeal, will walk most other men down. Meat is good and alcohol is good, but there is little in meat that does not exist in milk, and alcohol is only good as a whip, enabling the taker to crowd twenty minutes' work into ten. We leave the Lancet to decide the point, but we see no real reason why a bread-eater should not do all the work of a flesh-eater and suffer leas. The real point is, with the vegetarian, as with the teetotaler, whether he gains enough to repay him for giving up a justifiable pleasure, in a world which has so few justifiable pleasures to offer.
