“He was born in the north of England in 1811; but although his hair was grey, he otherwise appeared better preserved by fifteen years than most persons of his age. His father was a minister of religion, and he was the eldest of twelve children. He was of ancient and distinguished lineage; but his father never having had more than £300 a-year, he was obliged to send his children out early into the world, and so at fourteen he was put into a house of business in a great northern town. “For the first three years he had nothing but his board with one of the senior clerks; but at the end of that time he got as much dry bread and water for his lunch as he could take, and ten shilling a a-week to board and lodge himself. He accidentally obtained some works on vegetarianism, and was resolved to put in practice what he had read, as otherwise he found he could not support and clothe himself decently. I will give now his own words as nearly as I can recollect. “‘I was seventeen years of age then, five feet eight inches high, and strongly built. I had but ten shillings a-week for everything. How should I best lay it out? The senior clerk took me as a lodger at eighteenpence a-week, for one good room. There was a bedstead in it, but no bedding or other furniture. I was resolved to do what best I could, and owe no man anything. Some canvas coverings, which my good mother had put round my packages, served me to make a mattress when filled with hay. For the first eight weeks I slept in my oldest clothes on this mattress. My diet was ample and nourishing, but very cheap. Threepence a-day was the cost. About one pound of beans, which did not cost more than a penny, half a pound of bread daily, and two halfpenny cabbages, and three pounds of potatoes in the week. Two-pennyworth of seed oil, {76a} one pound of twopenny rice, and about a farthing’s worth of tartar {76b} from the wine casks, constituted my very nourishing diet.