Butte Record

Eating Meat.—The Americans are the greatest eaters of animal food. The pork consumed in the United States is three times the quantity consumed by the same number in Europe, if statistical accounts are to be believed. Animal food is very generally set on the tables three times a day in the western country. An Irishman writing home and extolling the luxuries of his condition in the new world, added by way of a clincher, that he commonly took meat twice a day; upon which his employer asked him why he did not state the whole truth? He replied that if he had said three times all his friends would have believed that he lied. This was going a little too far for common credulity. But after all, the Americans are a spare, hungry-looking people, not appearing as if well nourished. The inhabitants of Northern Europe and Asia are physically and morally weak, though living mostly on fish and flesh. The Scotch and Irish who eat but little meat, are strong, capable of great labor and fatigue, and more able-bodied men than the English, who are more addicted to animal food. The strongest men in the world of whom we have any account, are the porters of Smyrna, who never taste flesh. The South Sea Islanders are very powerful men upon a diet mostly of vegetables and fruit. It is said that the soldiers of Greece and Rome seldom tasted meat, though qualified by physical courage and endurance for the conquest of the world. The suspicion is quite strong that Jonathan would gain flesh and improve his general appearance by the substitution of bread and vegetables as a part of his diet for animal food.