by the testimonies of experience, observation, and investigation, and all concur in the conclusion that the bloodless simple dietary we use is, on all accounts, the best that can be chosen.

The position to which the question of Dietetics has been raised augurs well for future progress. In the first assembly in the world for scientific attainments, seeking the most important objects that relate to man's physical culture and wellbeing, the subject has been brought into a prominence which gives assurance of progress and continued interest. From this circumstance we may draw the happiest auguries for the future. With God's blessing on our work, having faith in each other, and love to our fellow man, let us each endeavour to do our utmost in this matter, leaving the results in the hands of an all-wise Providence.

The adoption of the Report having been moved and seconded by Messrs. M'GOWAN and JOHN BISHOP, was adopted unanimously. The Treasurer then read his statement as follows:

After reading the statement, the Treasurer observed that though the statement seemed so favourable, he believed there was one debt still owing which it was their duty to see to. Their Secretary had during the year given them very valuable services in lecturing, and conjointly with Mr. Barker in editing the "Dietetic Reformer." He understood that besides giving service he had made himself responsible for certain moneys which, unless they reimbursed, would make him a loser by the office. Not only during the one year, but in former years they had enjoyed such services without recompense, and he would feel uncomfortable if something were not done to at least prevent their Secretary sustaining a loss. He might mention that the Society now had their periodical edited without charge, thus saving the Society twenty pounds a year. He therefore moved "That the sum of twenty-five pounds be paid to Mr. Clark as a recognition of his services to the Society." Mr. Gaskill expressed his concurrence. Messrs. James, Collier, Gaskill, Wibberley, and the Secretary took part in the conversation on the resolution, and at the instance of the last-named, the meeting reluctantly consented to reduce the amount voted to twenty pounds. All the speakers were favourable to the original

motion.

Mr. RICHARDSON moved the appointment of the officers of the Society for the enguing year. (For the list see the cover of our present number.)-Mr. J. H. JAMES Seconded the motion. Mr. WALLIS Suggested that the local secretaries should be omitted from the list, on the ground that there were no societies in some of the places. The SECRETARY thought there was considerable advantage in keeping the list, if only for the benefit of enquirers, who, seeing the periodical, would in some cases be enabled to seek counsel in a personal interview of some gentleman living in his neighbourhood.-Other speakers supported this view, and the motion was passed without alteration.

The question of future operations being raised, Messrs. Whitworth, Bishop, Shield, Stevenson, and Barnesley expressed a hope that lectures would be held in the towns which they represented during the year. Mr. Gaskill promised to give help when called upon. The meeting then adjourned for a short time, and reassembled in the lower room, at six o'clock, for

THE SOIREE.

The scene in this room was very attractive; the several tables being tastefully adorned with the most beautiful flowers. The company comprised, besides those

present at the business meeting, Mrs. and Miss Smith, Glasgow; Mr. F. J. Thompson, Bridgewater; Mr. and Mrs. Calderwood, Liverpool; Mrs. Rostron, Miss Brotherton, Mr. and Mrs. Foxeroft, Mrs. and Miss Milner, Mr. and Miss Sutcliffe, Mr. and Mrs. Holcroft, Mrs. and Miss Clark, Mrs. G. Foxcroft, Mrs. Richardson, Mr. and Mrs. Estcourt, Miss Gordon, Mrs. Wibberley, Mrs. Brierley, Mrs. Collier, Mrs. Wrigley, Mrs. Bennett, Mr. Wilkinson, Mr H. Parrott, Mr. Hargrave, Mrs. Lomas, Miss Croft, Miss Rawlinson, Mrs. Houghton, Mrs. Holt, Mr. E. Smith, Mr. Alker, Miss Whitworth, Mrs. Singleton, Mrs. Thorneycroft, Mr. and Mrs. Hurdus, Mr. and Mrs. Mayall, Mrs. Holland, Mr. and Mrs. Monks, Miss Gilroy, Mrs. Pike, &c,

After the company had partaken of an excellent tea and returned thanks,— The PRESIDENT, in opening the proceedings, said: This was the seventeenth annual gathering of the Vegetarian Society; and from the first down to the present period, they had had ups and downs in their midst; but still the principles remained the same as when first promulgated, and they believed that they were founded in truth, justice, and merey. Although they had not made the progress that some societies had done, who had commenced their operations and promulgated their principles at a later period, still they must take into consideration that they had had to contend with many difficulties which appeared to some almost insurmountable. They had had appetites, and customs, and various other things against them; and they knew very well that persons who had been indulging their appetites in food not suitable to the sustentation of the body, were very reluctant to give up their principles for better. They had been teaching the people how to live, and how life might be prolonged, were they to live according to those laws that God in the first instance gave to man. For ages they might say society has been living a life of irregularity, and contrary to Divine precept. He was sure by what he should read to them from a book which had been placed in his hands, that he should be able to convince some that many people, though living according to order, had not lived so as to prolong their lives to the greatest period of human existence. They sometimes eat sadly too much, and that did as much injury as drinking too much. He would read as extract from Sidney Smith, who addressed a letter to his friend, Lord Murray, with regard to eating, and they would perceive that the amount of food partaken of in excess, when based upon proper calculations, was doing a vast load of mischief, and was also a consumption of food that was perfectly unnecessary, and, consequently, depriving somebody of that which they had eaten in excess. Sidney Smith thus wrote to his friend, Lord Murray, "You are, I hear, attending more to diet than heretofore. If you wish for anything like happiness in the fifth act of life, eat and drink about one-half of what you could eat and drink. Did I ever tell you my calculations as to eating and drinking? Having ascertained the weight of food I could live on, so as to preserve health and strength, and what I did live on, I find that between ten and seventy years of age I had eaten and drunk forty-four four-horse waggon-loads of meat and drink more than would have preserved me in life and health! The value of this mass of nourishment I calculated to be worth seven thousand pounds sterling! and it occurred to me that I must, by my voracity, have starved to death fully one hundred persons! This is a frightful calculation, but irresistably true; and I think, dear Murray, your waggons would require an additional horse each!" So that Sidney Smith eat a great deal in excess; and it appears that his Lordship eat still more. They knew what the consequence was of eating to excess, and how fre quently it produced disease. Lord Byron at one time was subject to epileptic fits, and, by way of curing himself, he adopted a very stringent and frugal diet, and he subdued the malady by extreme abstinence, frequently only partaking of vinegar and potatoes to his dinner. People must pay the penalty if they eat too much. Then, again, as to the sort of food; people gorge themselves with animal food, and certainly, it sustains them in life, but what would be the consequence if they par took only of that food which was most beneficial to health, and which nature has ordained we should live upon? Man wants certain substances to support the human frame, and if he selected that food which was most conducive to the sustentation of the body, there was no doubt he would get a more robust frame, endure greater fatigue, and life would be materially prolonged. We have to recover the waste of our bodies by the food we partake of. We have to get heat and flesh-forming principle. An adult and vigorous man wastes five ounces of food daily, and hence he requires the same amount of flesh-forming material. Fibrine, albumen, and casine

contain them in exactly the same proportions as are found alike in vegetable and animal food, having the same composition as dry flesh and blood. The lion, living on other animals in the forest, may be said chemically to eat the substance of his own body, and so it is in other analogous instances. The nutrition of vegetable feeders is precisely the same. Vegetables, indeed, are the true makers of flesh, since animals merely arrange the flesh which they find ready formed in vegetables. Thus we may have them at first-hand or second-hand. He would say at once take them at first-hand, and then you get them free from those diseases that animals are subject to. They had had many falling into this view, and who had professed to follow it for a time, but either appetite, or the recommendation of the medical man, or the entreaties of their friends, had warped them from their purpose, and they had turned back to the flesh-pots; but they had not adopted the better way. (Hear, hear.) For they had shortened their lives; because if they only partook of that food which was most conducive to health and longevity, they would take that which was plain, nutritious, and giving the support that they could not possibly get from animal food, unless they subject themselves to diseases which animals have. The importation of sheep from abroad brought small-pox amongst the sheep of this country, and thousands died, and, he dared say, in a diseased state were sent to market to be consumed by human beings. They knew the hog was subject to measles; and how frequently had our shambles been found to be covered with diseased carcases, that had been seized by an inspector, which, if they had not been so seized, would have been sold and partaken of by human beings. He would say the best way was to adhere to the principles of Vegetarianism, and he had no doubt that health would be insured for a very considerable period of time. Then with regard to the influence the eating of animal food had on the mind, if a man wanted to think seriously upon any subject-if he wanted to make any mathematical and abstruse calculations, he might depend upon it that if he partook of animal food he was not in the fittest state to make such calculations. (Hear.) If he would only abstemiously live, take nutritious but plain food, his intellect would be clear, and he would go through those difficulties that he could not surmount by partaking of animal food. (Hear, hear.) Sir Isaac Newton was one who was continually making calculations: he always found it necessary, when he had something important to think upon, to live very abstemiously, so much so that he sometimes forgot to eat at all. (Laughter.) Shelley regarded with ineffable contempt the sensualities of the table; and sometimes had to enquire, like Newton, if he had dined. He was of opinion that abstinence from animal food cleared the intellectual faculties. He (the President) could say, from his own experience that at his advanced age he felt that his mind was not much impaired: he was not as vigorous as he was fifty or sixty years ago, but still, in his seventy-eighth year, he thought he was not a bad specimen of the Vegetarian regimen. (Applause.)

Mr. DAVIE said he had often given his experience, and to say anything about it would be almost useless, except to those who had not tried the system; but as there were some there who were not Vegetarians, perhaps they would be none the worse if he were to repeat it. Some fifty years ago curiosity led him to make a trial of Vegetarian diet; his prejudices were all against it. His attention, however, was called to the subject accidentally from having been guilty of what the president had alluded to-overeating; at least he thought so now, though he did not think so at the time. He had been living some three weeks in England, and after getting home to Scotland he became very unwell. A medical man was called in, who, by and by, suggested that he had better try a farinaceous diet. He said he was willing to try it, and adopted it for a short time. He liked the food very well, and, by and by, on being induced to try a beefsteak again he had a repugnance to it. His health returned, and he began to think what could induce his medical friend to recommend a farinaceous diet for him. One day when in the doctor's consulting-room he noticed a work entitled " Fruits and Farinacea " This work fell into his hands afterwards, and he discovered, as he thought, the cause of his illness; namely, that he had overeaten himself when in England. He then thought he would give the system a fair trial. He weighed himself then, and tried it for three months, and found he had not lost or gained anything in flesh and weight; but he felt so much buoyancy and such a feeling of youth restored to him that from that day forth he had persevered with it. He did not know what would induce him to abandon it.

He was quite sure all who adopted the principles would enjoy life better, and he had no doubt life would be prolonged. He felt himself twenty years younger ever since he had been a Vegetarian. He could not boast of the years of their president, but he could say he felt very young at sixty-four years of age. He was told by those who knew him before he was a Vegetarian that he was now in his youth. He told ladies if they wanted to paint their cheeks he could recommend nothing better than a Vegetarian diet, and he thought it would be the cheapest cosmetique they could apply. He found that, comparatively speaking, a large proportion of the working classes of the Scotch people were Vegetarians. They could not get the amount of animal food that English people did. He was sorry to say the love of such food was increasing with them as they bad the means. He tried as much as he could to undeceive them, but it was a very difficult matter. He was quite sure he could not have done the work he had, either of body or mind, if he had not been a Vegetarian. He thought he should be committing a kind of suicide if he were to eat animal food again. He did not think Vegetarians were so liable to overeating as those who ate animal food. Animal food produced a kind of alcholic craving, and people did not know when they had had enough. He never felt that hunger and craving; he sometimes felt a kind of weakness if he wanted food for a very long time, but did not feel that tearing, craving desire that the eaters of animal food have. A medical man who was lecturing in Dunfermline lately, said people might eat a great amount of food and yet not build the body; and he gave an instance of a person's son who had a very great desire for food. His parents indulged the child;-there was no satisfying of his craving, but all the while he never made a single ounce of flesh; he was daily becoming weaker and weaker, and evidently approaching that stage when death would have terminated his life, but the craving continued and no amount of food seemed to satisfy him. This gentleman had the child pointed out to him, and he said, "You are overfeeding that boy; you must not give him one-fourth part of the food that he is getting now, because it is not doing him any good." The mother said, "We can't keep it from him." He said, "You must do it by force, or the child will die of overeating." The mother adopted the plan, and the result was that the boy regained his health and strength on a very small amount of food. He (Mr. Davie) thought that not many of the friends present would be guilty of taking tobacco. He liked to put in a word against it when he could, as well as against alcohol. The gentleman that he had been speaking of above was lecturing once, when he had for a chairman the chief magistrate of the town. He was lecturing on the water-cure, and was very desirous that parties, if they had any doubt, would put questions to him. He was recommending strongly the Turkish bath. After he had concluded his address, the chairman stated that he had had a Turkish bath once in London, and how very much he was benefitted by it, and he said that he had his bath and a cigar. He (Mr. Davie) asked the lecturer if he would be kind enough to tell him if the cigar was a necessary accompaniment of the Turkish bath? and what connection there was between cigars and the Turkish bath? The chairman w a little tickled, and felt a little blushing. The lecturer did not want to offend his chairman, and he began by saying, "you know there are some very delicate ladies, and they think that in the forenoon they will be very much better for a glass of wine, and they take it, and they really do feel better for it. So there are some gentlemen, when they come home from business, they will have a glass of beer, or a glass of toddy; they think they feel better for it, and they really do feel so; and another takes his cigar; but," says he, "they are all just drawing on capital; the lady is drawing on the capital of her health; so is the man with his toddy and beer;" and he (Mr. Davie) believed that those who eat animal food were just drawing on their capital too. (Hear, hear.)

was

Mr. SHIELD (of Liverpool) said he could testify to the friends present the great pleasure he felt at being amongst a number of individuals like-minded with himself; having the same sympathies; and pioneering this movement, which they all felt to be one which would have considerable influence upon the future. He knew that meetings of this sort did very much to strengthen the movement. He remembered how one tended to confirm him in the Vegetarian practice. A journal which was not now in existence (Howitt's Journal) gave a short report of the annual meeting in 1850. At that time he was practising the Vegetarian system, but merely from impulse rather than judgment and the teaching of intellect. He commenced the

practice when he was about thirteen years of age, in consequence of being disgusted with the incidents connected with the killing of animals. At that time he met with some opposition at home from his grandparents, who thought he was going to kill himself. He happened to take cold, and they were beginning to work upon him, when he read the account of the meeting alluded to above in Howitt's Journal, and that tended to strengthen him in his practice. He had only practised about six months then, and it shewed him at once that he was right. He could see there was something to say in favour of it as a principle; and it fortified him, and enabled him to withstand the adverse influence he was subject to. It would now be one of the most difficult things to entice him to give up the practice, and one which would deprive him of the greatest pleasures of life. (Hear, hear.) He had had many unfavourable influences to prevent him becoming a good specimen of Vegetarianism, but he could say with truth he had been in every respect better since being a Vegetarian; and as regards capacity for exertion in different ways, he would bear comparison with young men of his own station in life, and exposed to the same influences. (Hear, hear.) He thought if they were not at present making any very great accessions to their numbers, yet there was a silent under-current working on the public mind, leading them to regard Vegetarianism in a more favourable light than hitherto. There were several influences working in their favour; and one was this Banting system which was being so much talked about. This system, which included in its practice the partaking largely of animal food, was daily exciting the jealousy of the medical profession, who would confute it with Vegetarian arguments. In fact it had been done. Dr. Edward Smith had advanced some very favourable testimony for Vegetarian diet in Ireland and Scotland. He said that excess in animal food would lead to far greater evils than excess in farinaceous and oily kinds of food, and would lead to gout, and to confirm heart disease; and no doubt many other doctors would take the same ground. He (Mr. Shield) thought also that Vegetarians were building up a very good fabric of practical experience. There were many Vegetarian patriarchs in Manchester. That was only to be expected, where the system had been in existence so long; but even in Liverpool the periods of abstinence ranged from ten to twenty years. He thought in this way they were furnishing a vast amount of fact, which would be very useful to confute those persons who would not pay attention to theory. He would also like to mention his approbation of the present position of the organ of the society, and to testify to the excellent manner in which it was conducted. (Hear, hear.) A copy of the present number of the "Dietetic Reformer" had been sent out to one of the old editors of the periodical, whom he dared say many there would know; he referred to Mr. Henry Clubb, who was at a place of great notoriety, that was Vicksburg. Mr. Clubb was a captain in the United States army. He was a Vegetarian at the time he joined the army, and he (Mr. Shield) believed he continued one. (Applause.) Mr. BARKER said, during the last few weeks his mind had been so fully occupied with the multitudinous details connected with the Alliance movement that he had great difficulty in bringing it away from that subject. That movement, he would venture to say, was the greatest social, moral, and political movement of the day. (Cheers.) But, great as that movement was, there was a light in which they might say that this movement was greater. As Dietetic reformers they had a larger question than even temperance reform. Dietetic reform not only repudiated the use of and pronounced against the sale of intoxicating liquors, but it went further and deeper,-it led people to look to their food, as well as their drink. The Dietetic reform question, therefore, was a wider question, viewed philosophically, viewed morally, and viewed in its general issues, than the temperance movement. Dietetic reform, as he apprehended it, included temperance reform, and something more. Of course temperance reform, as it appeared before the public, was a greater practical question than Dietetic reform; but it was because the temperance question lay nearer the surface, and the facts connected with drinking were of a more palpable and obvious kind. There were great social facts, that must be dealt with by the law, by the magistrates, and by the police; and, therefore, the temperance question came up naturally before the Dietetic question. If there were any Dietetic reformers there who had not taken that view, he commended it to their consideration. If they were not teetotallers they were not thorough Dietetic reformers. If there were any of their Vegetarian friends who had not taken hold of the temperance movement,