Vegetarianism. TO THE EDITOR Ol TIlE TIEsE. Sir,-I am receiving numerous letters reqoesting tlhat various matteri may be explained1 in Tue Times, too trivial for your attention or for your columns. The 'common ruse of the p)coplo should solve many of theim. But thero are numnerous complaints and suggestions from the corn merehants of Alark-lano deserving of carefu! attention, and oxpoeitiwin, and publication. Many puggest othor legumes tse quite as valuable as lentils, if not more go. One even vontures to writo that J. an misleading tho people by exciting desire for lentils which canuot be gratificd. H-o does niot believe, be writts, that t ere are ? 0 quatters of lentils it, all London. Yet he has applica- tions daily for them and cannot supply them. I freely admit that it id protable that there are tens of tbousands of poople seoking lentils and cannot get thom. As to lentilg in Lomlon, I sho.ld be surprised to find that there are as many an G0 quarters tbere. Tha object of my agitating the subject of lCn113 is far svider than any present question of supply to urgent demnands. I wanted, and want, to impress the people with their food value. I wanted too, and still want, to excite a demand that would bring abotit a regular importation of new lentils. At prehOnt, what we have are stale aud old, and require much soaking and very much boiling. In Egypt there are lentils and lentils. The lentilsof Pelusium, near Palestiue, wcre of old e3teemed tbo best. (Virgill' Georgics," I., 228.) Thero is oae sOrt specially dis- tinguislhed in the Mlishna aS excellent. Pliny alludes incidentally to the red one, and the red disb of tho pottage. Dr. Shaw (I., 217) states that theso red lentils easily dissolve in boiling, and mcke a chocolate-coloured .ottage mtucli esteemed in North Afrika aud WVestern Aia. There is no reason, but, a want of knowledge on tho part of our people, and cousequently a want of demand, why we should not have the best variety. TherO is salt waiting for export at Droitw ich and in Cheshire, and there aro lentils waiting ia Egypt to be ex- clhaged for salt. Our merchants hesitate to acsept ship. beat of lentils. The lant cargo imported into Liverpool fuutid not a buyer for human food; and even the people there did not know that they were cheaper and b tter foid for their borses tbai beans, so they were ground and sold as pig feed. That was abomination upon abomina- tion. e only cargo now iu Great Britain is in Glo- cester, and that ono is not owned by say ona tbere-it b thero oa sale bY comimission. If tny memory is correct it has been there on sale two years, and would not havo been sold as human food but for your assistance to ?oe in rattking known their food value. Principal and agent wuuld have had but little encouragement to meddlc with lentils but for the demand lately created. The Ignorance of the Englieh in fooI is most rernarkable. A mnanufacturer in Staffordshire, who wants to feed the hungry, writes to me,-" Give me the English name of lentils ; no one here knows them under that foreign term." A lady, the wifo of one of our richest commaoners,writes.- "I am ashamed to say tbat I never knew the word lentil aud never saw the artileo." Both persons would be sur- pried to learn that " lentile" is our old English Biblical wor(; that adassld,A was tbe old learned Hebrew word for them that /aKxs is the word for them in the Septuagiat; and that tens is the word in the Vulgato of the Catholic Church. To thlis day in Syria thoy are called in Arabic addits. Then a clergyman writes that be thought lentils were unknown and extinct since the days of Jacob and }.sau-gone for ever like the manna in the wilderness, and gone like the powers of Urim and Thuammim. )e wanted a fow in a letter to see them, and in the letter all Uaout them, for liu had got to mnake speeches at two dinners, and he would expound leutils. Then a lady in D)ublin regarded lentils as some asimal, probably a cross between a gooso and a lobster, and wants to ltnow how much water to each ! Now, all this ignorance is passing away. The corn dealera in Mark-lane, write saying,-"Advocate something that we can sell and equal' uselul as lentils to the people." One sends me blue peas and calls my atten- tion to them. Another sends me a bushel of white haricot beans. A third sends me a bushel of split peas. Thent are admirable arguments. They enable me to give food and lectures in cooking to my poorer neighbours. The lectures on cookery arc bighly appreciated and attended to wheon you give the materials. All these articles I have regularly every winter in mny kitchen, and, when cooked, upon my tablo. I esteem them all equally with lentils. For public infortnation I will examine tbeir food and money valuo. According to Boussingault's Ecale, 66 parts of white haricot beans, or 67 parts of lentils, or 67 parts of peas are equivaleit to 100 parts of wheat flour. At onco your sinplest reader can easily estimate the very high value of the legumes a food. No wonder Daniel said, '-Give us pulse to eat ad water to drink," and challenged their countenances against those who ate flesh and drank vwine. It should be noticed that the leatils referred to are Italian or French, containing only 84 per cent. of solid matter, while the EgyWtian contain 91 per cent. Haricot beans are very nourishiDg indeed. Simply boiled soft and eaten with parsley sauce and pota- toes, tbero is a dish at a fourth the cost of flesh meat, yet giving fourfold the nutriment. But other very attractive dishes can be mado with haricot beans. Somewhat in the manner of tho Mexican national dish frijoles: boil them until soft, drain trn into the frying- pan wIth sage and onions, and fry with olive oil, then eat with potatoes. A more attractive or moro useful dish at this arctic season at the coat cannot be made. Another way is leave out the sage and onions and flavour with cayenne or curry powvder; or malke tomato sauoe for tho beans. These heans aro good and pleasant when cold;, thereforo a workling-man's dinner oncecooked1 part will do for supper without any second cooking. Tne wbolesale price of new fine haricot beans at Mark-lane is 70s. per qunrter-a little less than 2d. per pound. So they can be and are sold at 2.d. or 3d. per pound. Here tlher is a great boon to the many who haro limited means. Then the samplo of London split peas is nbout as good as it is possible to get tbom. No one surely requires to be told 'vhat good soup thoy make. We use with them the pulp out of fully ripo vegetable marrows. They are usualy kept hung up in country houses for that purposo and to preserve the seeds that they contain. Of courso the usual Ulavouring herbs are added. Split peas are sold wholesale at 44s. per quarter of %0lb., or 46 cwts.-only a fractien over ld. per pound. Generally the price retail should not be nuorothan2d.per pound. How trixingis the cost of human food if only what is necessary is sought I 4d. to Gd. per day is sufficient to provide for a strong man aud keep him in health and strength. For oatmeal should not be omitted here. Best Scoteh coarse oatmeal ca be bought at the mill for lid. per pound. Nearly id. more wtil be required to bring it home. A pound will make the break- fast for four strong men if boiled for half an hour as por- ridge. For child or man better food there is not on earth. Every pound gives more nutriment than four pounds of lean buef. Economic dietary, important as it is, falls very short of the importanc of sanitarydiet. The dietetio cure of rbeu- mnatism, &c., by simplo vegetables and fruits, as snnounced in The Ytnes, has aroused a marvellous sensation through- out our islands and the Continent. It has sent a ray of hope to make cheery and pleasant the dark chambers of human suffering. It bas met the eye of meu on crusches and given them a bright hope of renwoed strengthani activity. It has impelled eminent menical men to write and ask for the favour of some hints on diet to cure them of rheumatism and touralgia. It has started a gentleman in the South of Franco to mako a special joureoy from there to Elcrefordshiro to have tho honour or pleasure of a consultation and learn how the great dietetic curo mnay be readily worked. It has sent to tao the most toue iag letters detailing long and ~serious suffering, with most earnest appeals for help. "Weo have lost all faith in doctors and drugs," they ssi'- "we have long felt that dioet is the nueans ot cure, hut did rdt know ow to begin." One lady writes " I have been under nine doctors, and yet I ai alive. Eight seriously injured me. I havo taken enough of drugs to set up a deserving young mtan in business aas send him on rbe road to fortune. Here I am at 40, sitting over the fire like an old crone at S0. A trained artist, yet doing nothing; tho enforced idleness moro painful than the racking jointb." Ou and on I could go, quotinag letters of erriblo suffer- ing. HIere and there arthritis coming on; soon the frame will bo rigid as cast iron, bringing fearful sufferinig and fearful trouble, as was the last ten years of the life of Professor Cairnes. His usoeful life was cuat short after years of indescribable suffcring; and yet no one could tell him, " Out off your llesh food, and take oranges and other fruits freely, atn celery and other vegetables at every )meal,and the disease will leavo you, and ynouhall be activo and strong." I boldly tell you, Sir, that you never published anything of more value thau tho dietetio curo of rhemuatism, &c.-the rimplo way to save 23.000 Iives a . !ea , ann -- sae ro icaerlal sufrg num n~~~~~. -u ..- . -_ r1 ..". a 7aer, nud save from incaleulablo sufferings iuum- berless people. This vegetarian teaching not only places human food on a scientific fotmdation, but at once It removes three-fourtbh of hunman diseases. It uproots drunkenness without leaving even a desire for alobolio drinks. And ay I it can do far more. It would destroy our game laws aud our ganm presarves. The man who now holds 20,000 acres as sacred to wild birds that he may bave tho pleasure of torturing and killing them, that he may feast on their torn limlbs, would tben find himself r4garded as a public nuisance, and so great a malefactor and so akin to a murderer and a tyrant that he must emigrato and herd with tho red men of Amnerica to save himself from a more serious punisbment. Then spade husbandry would competo with the steam plough. Our landless peasautry then wouli be striving to outdo the farmersl as public benofactors. Our hills would then be clothed with fruit trees, and our barren meadows becomo rich orchards. Vegetariauism would suppreas all poverty and nearly all suffering. It Avould miake excessive luxury, on the one hiand, im possiblo, and ab>ect pover;y, on the other hand equally improbable. All warn would cease. Mankind would becomno one great brotherhood. " Iwho wbole crea- tion groameth and travaileth ia pain together until now "' but it woulfthon bo hoeled and hlarmonized. All shap kings and ham thrones would vanish as a vision, and He alone whose right it is to reigni would be King over a re nowed peoplo m a renewed world. I am, Sir. your obedieont sorv-,, WYWiLAAaL l3BBON VARD, ,F* S. aThirty- year-old Vegetarian. Perristori Towers, tors, Ucrefordshire. | JTEGBTA j?.?ANIS