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alcoholic drinks is unnecessary. I contend that there is occasion for it, and that a substitute is, with our growing taste for luxuries, absolutely necessary. As I have lived nearly twenty years in a warm climate, I know the craving for something more than water, especially when it is too often the case in warm latitudes that the water is so indifferent as to compel one to adopt some means of altering its flavour. Hence it is that in our colonies so much tea is consumed, the cups being introduced at every meal. But one is not always prepared for hot drinks, and the convenience for procuring them is not always at hand. Hence, as on the continent, the cheaper wines are so largely used; while, in Britain, it is the beer, or the spirit put in to kill the water.

If, then, there is this natural craving, or, it may be, an educational want, is it wise for us Temperance reformers sternly to rebuke the people for their lustful propensities, or move philosophically and benevolently to seek to satisfy this feeling in such a way as to promote social enjoyment without any risk to virtue?

The next thing is, how is it to be done? The drink must be cheap as well as agreeable. It must be easy of access to the consumer. To accomplish this, capital is requisite. The organisation must be strong and effective. Relations must be judiciously entertained and maintained. The produce field will be, as I have said, the shores of the Mediterranean. Spain, Italy, Greece, and Syria are all easy of reach by our steamers. Their present wines, from their very sweetness, are unpalatable to our English lovers of well-toned port; but they prove that the grape has pre-eminently the quality to produce the luscious, tonic, and wholesome beverage whose interests I plead.

I bring forward these views from the vine-clad borders of Lake Geneva, in the hope that some united and vigorous effort will be made to satisfy what I believe to be a want of the present day.

THE FAST YOUNG LADY.

SHE is pretty; generally she is goodnatured; almost always she is generous; sometimes, but very rarely, she is intrinsically pure-minded: but for the most part she thinks unselfishness and innocence the last resolves of "muffishness," and draws jack-boots over her purity to go the better through the mud. She is ashamed of her sex, and does her best to rid herself of its burdens. Womanly work she despises ; a needle is the badge of her degradation, an infant the cross to which her sex is bound; she is always wishing for the power of transformation, and loudly proclaims her envy and admiration of men. However, she manages to do without their faculties, and makes herself tolerably comfortable under the compromise. Indeed, she sees no difference between herself and her brothers, save that they, poor worms, have to toil at offices and attend at morning drill, while she, the brisker butterfly, dispenses with work as well as duty, and takes her nectar of life, like her chasse café-neat. Work is her sole stumbling-block to the perfect imitation of man's estate; the only sour drop which she can find in his rich portion. His amusements, his slang, his habits, his vulgarity, she finds altogether to her taste; but his work she counts a bore, and would incontinently "cut" if she were in his place. She knows of no religiousness in duty; her creed is the divine institution of "larking" -"lots of fun" ready made to her hand, and immunity from "coming to grief" under any form whatsoever, constitute her idea of Divine protection; an endless supply of "jolly young he-cousins," with an infinite succession of excitement, her idea of the Millenium: but the Millenium is a slow subject, and as slowness is the one unpardonable crime on the fast young lady's statute-book, she does not trouble herself much about the matter. For the rest, she goes to church because every one goes, and it is sometimes good fun, according to the bonnets and the congregation; and she gives a kind of lazy assent to certain historical facts, chiefly because she does not care to inquire for herself, and the subject is too dry for her handling; but she has no more real religion, properly so called, than her favourite Skye, and holds every one to be a "precious spoon" whose thoughts strike deeper or soar higher than her own.

Dressy as a race, with varieties of style sufficiently discursive in the individuals, nowhere are there such friends to trade as these young gentlewomen. For them are manufactured all the "loud" patterns, all the flashy ornaments, the excessive fashions, the trashy imitations, the brass, and bugles, and large glass beads, with which they and the African savages delight to adorn themselves. The fast young lady has no perception of fitness in dress, or of truth in material. She would wear a ball-dress at church, or a riding-habit at a dinner-party, if the fancy took her, and she believed she would make a sensation; and, failing the real, she takes quite kindly to the mock, in all articles of attire whatsoever. False lace, broad, of bold patterns, and in great profusion; false jewellery, with a decided leaning to the more brilliant kinds of stone; false hair in impossible coronets and deformed rolls, lackered brass to imitate gold, or silvered tin to make believe for silver; black glass cut to imitate jet; and every fabric made to look like something else, as if ashamed of what it is, these are the points of toilet which she parades with as much pride as the duchess parades her family diamonds, or the countess her family plate. Give the fast young lady a flaring colour and an extravagant pattern, and she is in the seventh heaven of satisfaction. I have known some of them wear blue and violet, and yellow and rose, all in a mingled heap together, and think themselves "stunning fine," as they said with an air, dashing out the raindrops from their tinted feathers. No one can see the fast young lady without being distinctly aware of her presence, and nothing delights her so much as to see people turn round and stare at her as they pass, or to hear them comment on her appearance in the streets. This is generally her daily triumph; for she counts even the dirty little boys as victories, and revels in the compliments of the omnibus-men. Her petticoats are always preternatural in summer; they are of needlework with the "peepholes," as Punch calls them, of extra size and extra transparency-what women call " very handsome;" in winter they are of scarlet, the fiercest shade to be bought, with flaming stockings to correspond, and boots with heels a couple of inches high.

If it is the fashion to wear the gown full down to the ancle, the fast young lady supplements a train, which she trails after her in the mud with the air of a draggledtail peacock; if it is the fashion to wear the gown clear off the ancle, the fast young lady hoists hers to the middle of the leg, and makes Miss Fuzbuz regret the costume of the Fatimas and the Bloomers. She must be in extremes, whichever way the needle points; and if it is only in the adoption of a colour, she is sure to exaggerate and to be guilty of bad taste. For her those monstrous frameworks of net and steel, over which she stretches her garments until they stand round her like a bell; for her those wonderful head-dresses where flowers and lace trail down to the waist with an elaborate carelessness beyond measure exasperating, or those, like minor market-garden baskets, where incongruous fruits are heaped together with a reckless disregard to possibility and a total subversion of the seasons; for her the aggravating bonnets which would be small if they were called caps; for her the reactionary monstrosities which overshadow the shoulders; for her the parasols which look like flounced and furbelowed dolls, and those of vanishing proportions which when they shade her forehead leave her chin exposed, and when they shade her chin let her forehead burn; in fact for her and her alone are created the vagaries of fashion, which she on her part exaggerates, and so caricatures a caricature. No fast young lady has good taste: the two things are incompatible; can suow keep pure and frozen in the midst of fire?

Indifferent to love, and depreciative of even healthy sentiment, the fast young lady is by no means indifferent to the charms of a good marriage, or ignorant of the blessings to be found among the flourishes of an advantageous settlement. Money represents to her the one supreme good of her life; the sinews of her war against delicacy and womanhood; and no Stock Exchange broker is more alive to the value of scrip and share than is the rollicking girl who seems too wild and wide for the simplest calculation.

Luckily for the more sober part of mankind, the tribe, as a tribe, is husbandless, which at least avoids the disaster of perpetuation by descent. A few, indeed, every now and then, storm through the vestry door and sign their names noisily on the parish parchment; but these are exceptions to the rule-scattered links which hold the two diverging sections together, and prevent the total expulsion of the tribe from the ranks of true womanhood. As a rule, the fast young lady blooms and fades

a flower ungathered: it is thought that the cultivation of so rank a grower would be hardly worth the trouble. When men choose a mother for their children, they think of something else besides scarlet petticoats, and well-fitting Balmoral boots; and the qualities which make it so pleasant for cousin Jack to go blackberry-hunting are not always those which ensure the comfort and respectability of a home, or tend to the refinement and noble nurture of a family.

The summing up of the fast young lady may be made in one word-vulgarity. She is not necessarily bad-hearted, nor necessarily less than pure and chaste; but she is essentially and in inmost grain vulgar-vulgar in speech, vulgar in habits, vulgar in mind: peer or commoner, rich or needy, insolent with the insolence of worldly success, or bold and defiant in the midst of worldly degradation, she is always the same-low-toned and vulgar, no matter what the difference in the outside wrappings. Her language is a jargon of slang, which, indeed, is the Shibboleth of her order, the pass-word that reveals her to her brotherhood; her dress is the tawdry finery of a savage, violent in colour and ungraceful in form; her manners are the manners of a horse-jockey, lackered over with the artificial polish of conventional society; and all that is held most dear and beautiful in womanhood, she wants in exact proportion to her acquirements in the art of "fastness." It is needful that these harsh truths be told her, and that she should learn to look into a mirror that does not flatter, for she has young sisters growing up about her, and it is even of national importance that the disease should be checked before it has spread farther. One of these young sisters is already "fast" on her own account; but she has adopted literature and social life in place of fun and bell-shaped petticoats; she has taken her stand as a strongminded woman, and reads her sister lectures on the degradation of their natural condition. Of her I will speak at some future time, for her profile is a marked one— indeed as marked as her sister's-and will make a good photograph. The fast young lady and the strong-minded woman are twins, born on the same day, and nourished with the same food, but one chose scarlet and the other hodden grey; one took to woman's right to be dissipated and vulgar, the other to her right to be unwomanly and emancipated. I know them both, and deprecate both as fair examples of our English womanhood.-London Review.

THE PIONEERS OF PROGRESS.

O YE, who pin'd in dungeons for the sake

Of truth, which tyrants shadow'd with their hate,
Whose only crime was that ye were awake

Too soon-or that your brethren slept too late;
Mountainous winds, upon whose top the great
Sunrise of knowledge came, long ere its glance
Fell on the foggy swamps of fear and ignorance!
The time shall come, when from your heights serene,
Beyond the grave, ye will look back and smile
To see the plains of earth all growing green;

Where science, art, and love repeat Heaven's style,
And with God's beauty fill the desert isle,

Till Eden blooms where martyr-fires have burn'd,
And to the Lord of Life all hearts and minds are turned.

The seeds are planted and the spring is near,
Ages of blight are but a fleeting frost:
Truth circles into truth. Each note is dear
To God. No drop of ocean is e'er lost,
No leaf for ever dry and tempest-tost.

Life centres deathless underneath decay;
And no true word, nor deed, can ever pass away.

Correspondence.

DIETETIC REFORM.-PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

DUBLIN, November, 1860.

DEAR SIR,-Although more than usual attention has been given of late years to dietetic reform, yet Vegetarianism can scarcely be denominated a movement of modern times or of the present day; for we find that, in remote periods of man's history, as large-perhaps even a larger-amount of intelligent interest was given to this subject of morals and healthfulness than we find directed to it by educated men in our own time. And yet it may, perhaps, be fairly ranked among those numerous questions of great public interest which so deeply engage the attention of earnest living social reformers; who, in our day, and not in our country alone, but in all civilised lands, are composed of a numerous and daily increasing band of men and women, who are earnest in their desire, and practical in their devotedness, to replace the many bad habits which prevail, and which sadly and sensibly subtract from the sum of human happiness, by such good habits as would tend to promote a happier and more desirable condition of affairs.

Among these important instrumentalities of general and social reforms to which I have alluded, may be named, the peace societies, anti-slavery societies, anti-capitalpunishment societies, social reform societies (under various denominations), among which Teetotalism, or the entire disuse of alcoholic liquors, stands prominent, and is indeed, in my opinion, the solid foundation which must be securely laid before any of the other means named can have a successful issue;-never for a moment forgetting that deep religious feeling must be the basis of all our hopes of human improvement. Among all these great works of human duty and human labour for the development of the highest civilisation of our race, I would give Vegetarianism & prominent and an honoured place. It is not only a question of great importance to the health of man, but also of the highest interest in relation to our moral nature. Health demands a calm and wise inquiry into its claims as the natural and only suitable regimen for man. Benevolence requires a strict investigation of its principles; because, if the supporters of this philosophy be right, her claims need be no longer outraged by the cruel slaughter, daily, of unnumbered living creatures. What, then, is Vegetarianism? For it is right to define its meaning, so that our arguments may be understood.

As I understand the term, it is not the disuse of every kind of animal substance, such as eggs, milk, and butter, but simply the rejection of flesh and fish and fowl as articles of diet or regimen; and the substitution, for these, of vegetable substances, including the varied products of our gardens and our fields, our grains and our fruits, which Nature yields to the hand of careful cultivation in endless variety and in rich abundance.

Such is my idea of Vegetarianism; and from these sources alone have I derived my nourishment for a period of perhaps fifteen years, for I have no record of the exact period when I commenced this mode of life, but I was about fifty years of age when I adopted it. And I can bear testimony to its excellence, from the generally good health I have since enjoyed. About twenty years ago, I adopted the practice

of Teetotalism, having been for some years previously a temperance man, that is, an abstainer from ardent spirits. And to the adoption of these two principles, I attribute the fact that, from being nearly all my previous life a delicate man, subject to frequent attacks of dyspepsia, and having had two severe fevers in early life,-I have been, since the adoption of my improved regimen, blessed with almost continual healthfulness. Instead of having a stomach frequently out of order, I seldom feel that I have such an organ, so peaceful are all its operations. And when I add to these facts another fact—which many may be disposed to doubt, yet it is true nevertheless-I have lost none of my gastronomic enjoyments by the change. I have an excellent appetite, and as delightful a relish for the simple food upon which I now subsist, as ever I had for what is usually esteemed the best cookery, and the ruddiest wines, which still load the tables of my friends; and to counteract the disastrous results of which, many of them annually resort to places where nasty waters are dispensed, or to more rational health-restoring hydropathic establishments, where they remain several weeks, and return home to luxurious living, and the dreary prospect of various painful and life-shortening ailments, which will send them back, year by year, to those hygienic resorts, where a more natural course of life places them, for a short time, in a normal condition of health.

This personal experience of the blessings flowing from a life of great temperance would be of little value if it were not sustained by natural laws; for numerous individuals are to be found in every community who lead very opposite lives, and are yet healthy and long lived. But Vegetarianism has been advocated as the best and only natural food for man, by the deepest thinkers, the wisest men, and the most admired philosophers in every age. On the other hand, it has been, and still is, alleged by men of much learning that man is an omnivorous animal, formed so as to derive health and strength in their highest degree-in a word, to be in his normal condition-from a mixture of flesh and vegetables as his daily food. My reading and my own experience satisfy my mind that this opinion is neither ably nor philosophically sustained. For many centuries after man's creation, it is believed, flesh formed no portion of his nutriment. And even down to our own day, the far larger proportion of the human race-perhaps it would be hardly extravagant to say ten to one-live and labour throughout their life on a vegetable diet such as I have set forth. In one country of large extent (India), and among a large proportion of its myriads of people, flesh is utterly repudiated; and in every land the labouring population, as a general rule, subsist on vegetables, animal food being a luxury too dear for them to have, except very occasionally indeed. So that facts bear me out in the statement that mankind, practically, subsist on a vegetable regimen, and that such is their natural food. Unquestionably, men seek for the flesh of animals as food wherever their income enables them to obtain it. Nor is this to be wondered at, for we are from infancy taught to believe that it is the true pabulum of human existence; and it is well known that artificial appetites often over-ride our natural desires, and gain so complete an ascendency, that the multitude everywhere -the learned as well as the unlearned-place them first on the list of man's necessities. Or, if not given the first place, when we reason about them, are permitted to take that place, in spite of our convictions to the contrary. In this respect, the flesh of animals has gained a similar tyrannic power over man that alcohol has done ; that tobacco has done; that opium has done; and that many other baneful stimulants have done, the world over.

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