It will have been noted that the anti-vegetarian arguments which have so far come under review have been mainly such as are based on purely materialistic grounds, as if the question were wholly one for doctors and scientists to decide; and it has been shown that, even thus, there is no sort of warrant for the supercilious dismissal of vegetarianism as a theory condemned in advance by some superior tribunal. But the question is not one for the ipse dixit of the specialist. It is also a moral question of very great moment, and this fact gives a new significance to such unwilling admissions as that made by the British Medical Journal, that "man can obtain from vegetables the nutriment necessary for his maintenance in health"—i.e., from vegetables only, much more, therefore, from a vegetable diet with the addition of eggs and milk. The practicability of vegetarianism being thus fully granted, it is impossible to pretend that moral considerations are not relevant to the controversy, and that in forming an opinion on the vexed problem of diet we should not give due weight to the promptings of humaneness.

People often talk as if the humanitarian plea were some fanciful external sentiment that has been illogically thrust into the discussion; whereas in truth it is one of the innermost facts of the situation which no sophistry can escape. Our humane instincts are unalterably implanted in us, and we cannot deny them if we would; to be human is to be humane. "There is something in human nature," says an old writer,^[11] "resulting from our very make and constitution, which renders us obnoxious to the pains of others, causes us to sympathise with them, and almost comprehends us in their case. It is grievous to see or hear (and almost to hear of) any man, or even any animal whatever, in torture." And now that modern science has demonstrated the close kinship that exists between human and non-human, the greater is the repulsion that we feel at any wanton ill-usage of animals.

This is now so generally admitted that the point in dispute is not so much the duty of humaneness, as some particular application of that duty, as in the present case to the slaughter of animals for food. What have humane people to say to the tremendous mass of animal suffering inflicted, in the interests of the table, on highly-organised and sensitive animals closely allied to mankind? By the unthinking, of course, these sufferings, being invisible, are almost wholly overlooked, while the deadening power of habit prevents many kindly persons from exercising, where their daily "beef" and "mutton" are concerned, the very sympathies which they so keenly manifest elsewhere; yet it can hardly be doubted that, if the veil of custom could be lifted, and if a clear knowledge of what is involved in "butchery" could be brought home, with a sense of personal responsibility, to everyone who eats flesh, the attitude of society towards the vegetarian movement would be very different from what it is now. If it be true that "hunger is the best sauce," it may also be said that the bon vivant's most indispensable sauce is ignorance—ignorance of the horrible and revolting circumstances under which his juicy steak or dainty cutlet has been prepared.

Bon Vivant: What is this? "Vegetarian" you call yourself?

Vegetarian: And you? You are a bon vivant. You "live well," I understand.

Bon Vivant: Not ashamed of enjoying a good dinner, but not greedy, I hope.

Vegetarian: Nor cruel, I suppose?

Bon Vivant: Cruel! I subscribe regularly to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Vegetarian: And eat them.

Bon Vivant: Why not? A speedy painless death is no cruelty, is it?

Vegetarian: While you are finishing that choice beef steak, I will tell you something of the speedy painless death of steak-producing animals. It may serve as an aid to digestion, like a musical accompaniment.

Bon Vivant: Oh, you won't spoil my digestion. Fire away!

Vegetarian: Let us suppose, then, that our friend (on your plate there) hails from Ireland, and at one of the fair grounds, of which there are several thousand in that island paradise, he meets the first agent in his euthanasia—the drover. "On such occasions," says the Report of the late Departmental Committee on the Inland Transit of Cattle, "animals already, perhaps, exhausted and foot-sore from a walk of many miles, stand for hours on the hard road, bewildered by the beating they receive and their unaccustomed surroundings.... It was repeatedly asserted by responsible witnesses that many of the drovers are brutally harsh." So ferocious is the treatment that in many cases, when the animals are slaughtered, the hide, as butchers testify, simply falls off the back, and is worthless even for use as leather. I hope your steak is nice and tender?

Bon Vivant: But why are not the brutal drovers punished for it?

Vegetarian: Perhaps because it is not for themselves that they are driving. Then there is the journey in the railway-trucks, and we learn on good authority (Report of the Liverpool S.P.C.A.) that "the animals have frequently gone twenty to twenty-four hours without food at the time they are driven on the boats." As for the delights of the sea-transit, you have read, I suppose, of what happens in cattle-ships?

Bon Vivant: Well, of course, in stormy weather there may be accidents——

Vegetarian: No, I am speaking of the ordinary scenes of the cattle traffic, and say nothing of the occasions (not so rare, either) when the boats come into port with blood pouring from their scuppers——

Bon Vivant: Thank you, thank you! that is enough!

Vegetarian: We find it stated, in the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Irish Cattle Transit, that "the damage sustained by cattle is very serious, and that the principal portion of that damage is due to their treatment during shipment, while on shipboard, and on debarkation." On landing there is more thrashing and tail-twisting, another railway journey, and then—the slaughterman. You have visited a slaughter-house, of course?

Bon Vivant: No, really, I must protest——

Vegetarian: Ah, then it should interest you! The drover's task accomplished, the butcher's begins. Yard by yard and foot by foot, with chains fastened to his horns and sharp goads applied to his flanks, the struggling animal is dragged into the dark, blood-stained shed, where he is lucky indeed if he be killed by the first blow of the pole-axe——

Bon Vivant: Shameful! I do not believe you. It cannot be.

Vegetarian: Then many well-known eye-witnesses must have strangely perjured themselves. Dr. Dembo, for example, says: "Cases in which several blows are required are very frequent. On my first visit to the Deptford slaughtering yards I found that the number of blows struck was five and more," and he goes on to describe a case which he saw in London, when twelve minutes elapsed before the animal——

Bon Vivant: Stop! I will hear no more.

Vegetarian: You will hear no more—but will you eat more? It is on you, not on the brutal drover or slaughterman, that the responsibility falls. For this is the "speedy and painless" way in which animals must be slaughtered that you may live well.

"I will hear no more." That, said or implied, is the most common and the most insuperable argument by which the vegetarian is confronted. It is the one great stronghold of flesh-eating which remains from age to age impregnable. For how can even truth convince the deaf and the blind? The horrors of the journey by sea and journey by rail, of the savage drover's goad and the clumsy butcher's pole-axe—if the ordinary man and woman, unimaginative and unfeeling though they are, could see or even hear of these things, the end of the controversy would be nearer. By the few flesh-eaters who have made inquiry, accidental or conscientious, into the facts of the cattle traffic and butchering trade, it is not denied that fearful cruelties are committed. Thus the Meat Trades Journal, which is not a sentimental paper, remarks of the sea and land transit, that "our cattle, sheep, and pigs are carried by sea and rail with the minimum care and maximum cost; they are bundled and shunted about as if they were iron."^[12] Again, Dr. T. P. Smith, writing in opposition to vegetarianism, allows that the indictment of the slaughter-house "hits a grievous blot on our much-vaunted civilization."^[13] There is a mass of printed testimony to the same effect, which can be confirmed, as often as confirmation is needed, by a visit to the shambles. But that is a visit which the ordinary man will neither undertake himself nor hear of from the mouths of others.

Much also might be said of certain special cruelties, such as those involved in the supply of white veal or pÂtÉ de foie gras, and other so-called delicacies; but it is unnecessary to dwell on such refinements of torture, because it is the ordinary every-day aspects of flesh-eating that are here under debate. It is a terrible fact that the very prevalence of the habit serves, more than anything else, to conceal its full import; and thus a large number of people, who, in any other department of life, would indignantly refuse to profit by the cruel usage of animals, are (without knowing, or at least without recognising it) dependent for their daily food on the continued and systematic infliction of sufferings which, in their magnitude and frequency, surpass all other cruelties whatsoever of which animals are the victims.

These horrors, as I have said, are not realised by those who are personally responsible for them. Or, rather, they are not directly realised; for indirectly it is evident enough that the more sensitive conscience of mankind is far from easy about the morality of butchering, and would show still greater uneasiness but for the quieting assurance that flesh food is a strict necessity of existence. This sense of compunction has found at least partial expression in many non-vegetarian works, as, for example, in Michelet's "Bible of Humanity." "Life—death! The daily murder which feeding upon animals implies—those hard and bitter problems sternly placed themselves before my mind. Miserable contradiction! Let us hope that there may be another globe in which the base, the cruel fatalities of this one may be spared to us!"

Now, in view of these facts and these feelings, we have a right to press the advocates of flesh-eating for some more explicit and coherent statement than they have hitherto accorded us of their attitude towards the ethics of the diet question. If, as the scientists themselves admit, there is no such "cruel fatality" as that which Michelet pictured, and if flesh-eating is not to be regarded as necessary, but only as expedient, then it is in the highest degree unreasonable to rule out humane considerations from their due share in the settlement of this many-sided problem. The British Medical Journal has said that "there is not a shadow of doubt that the use of animals for food involves a vast amount of pain." The same paper has said that "man can obtain from vegetables the nutriment necessary for his maintenance in health." Can it be doubted, that if the average Englishman were made aware of these two facts, he would at least think vegetarianism worthy of a serious trial? To ask, as a superior person of science has asked (not merely in these dialogues, but in actual debate), "How or where does the moral phase of food-taking enter the science of dietetics?" or to take refuge in the common saying that "one man's food is another man's poison," is simply irrelevant. For diet, like other social questions, has its moral aspect, which claims no less and no more than its due importance; and it is because the "scientific" antagonists of vegetarianism have overlooked this fact that their judgments have hitherto been so warped, illogical, and unscientific.