 
When I was a school-boy of eight or nine, I was persuaded to buy some cigars and put one to my mouth for a moment. I threw it away, and have never touched tobacco since. I compute that I must have saved some 1500 pounds by abstaining from this narcotic. My two brothers—one 3rd wrangler, the other 2nd classic—have also abstained for life. I know no indulgence which leads people to disregard the feelings of others so utterly as smoking does; nor can I believe a deadly poison can be habitually taken without great injury to the nerves. Alcohol I have not touched for more than two years, nor flesh meat, nor tea, nor coffee. All my life long I have had no difficulty in adopting any diet whatever; but I am sure that since I confined myself to fruits and farinacea, life has gone easier with me. No one ever heard me complain of the want of a dinner, or of the quality of what was set before me; but I now know that a day or two's fasting will do me no sort of harm, [Footnote: Twice in my life I have tried the experiment of a strictly vegetarian diet (without milk, batter, eggs, fish or flesh)-once when I was about twelve years old, and again, for forty-eight days, beginning On the 25th June, 1878. I had been for some months taking regular exercise (a rare thing with me), walking on four miles every morning from six to seven, so that I was in rude health. I was just beginning a stiff piece of literary work on Juvenal, which involved the daily examination of several hundred passages of authors, chiefly Greek and Latin; and I wished to try how far vegetarian diet would enable me to resist the depressing influence of fasting. I mapped out my forty-eight days into four divisions of twelve each, intending (if all went well) to fast every other day for the first twelve; every third for the second; every fourth for the third; and every sixth for the last twelve. I thought it prudent to consult a doctor (a thing which I have scarcely ever had occasion to do), who bid me go to the prison to be weighed every two or three days and to show myself to him twice a week. I did not quite carry out my scheme, but I did complete more than half—and the severer half—with no ill effects, fasting June 25, 27, 29, July 2, 5, 7. 10, 13, completing that is, two-thirds of my design for the first twelve days, and the whole of that for the second. I drank water freely on the fasting days, but ate nothing for a period varying from twenty-eight to about thirty-five hours. On the eating days, and for the remainder of the forty-eight, I lived on fruits, vegetables, or wholemeal biscuits or wheatmeal or oatmeal porridge. I never was more fiercely eager for work in my life, nor did my pulse give way, but I lost flesh rapidly, and had never much to spare. On the whole I lost 13 lbs., and was advised by the doctor to stay there, as it is much easier to let yourself down than to pick up again. For years I have been striking off one luxury after another in my diet when alone, till at last I have come to dry bread (or biscuit or porridge) and water.— Herald of Health, September, 1881.] and that whether I dine in hall with my brother fellows, or take two or three biscuits in my own room, makes no odds. I am more independent, and certainly more able to influence the habits of the poor than I was. JOHN E. B. MAYOR. |
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