I don't consider alcohol or tobacco to be in the least necessary or beneficial to a person who is in good health; and I am of opinion that any supposed necessity of one or the other to the hardest and best mental or bodily work, by such a person, is purely fanciful. He will certainly do harder and sounder work without them. I am speaking, of course, of a person in health; by a person not in health they may be used properly, from time to time, as any other drug would be used. HENRY MAUDSLEY. February 13, 1882. SIR THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, K. C. B., D. C. L. In reply to your inquiries, I can give you my experience in a few words. I can offer no opinion as to the effects of tobacco, as I have never been a smoker. My experience of many years favours the view that moderation in food and drink is the great secret of physical health, mental activity and endurance. On several occasions while working twelve and fourteen hours a day, I tried total abstinence, but I found myself dyspeptic and stupid, and was obliged to resume my accustomed potations. I have found that any unusual amount of alcohol, while stimulating mental activity for a time, soon produced lassitude and sleepiness. T. ERSKINE MAY. February 23, 1882. REV. JOHN E. B. MAYOR, M. A. FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. When I was a school-boy of eight or nine, I was persuaded to buy some cigars and put one to my mouth for a moment. I threw it away, and have never touched tobacco since. I compute that I must have saved some 1500 pounds by abstaining from this narcotic. My two brothers--one 3rd wrangler, the other 2nd classic--have also abstained for life. I know no indulgence which leads people to disregard the feelings of others so utterly as smoking does; nor can I believe a deadly poison can be habitually taken without great injury to the nerves. Alcohol I have not touched for more than two years, nor flesh meat, nor tea, nor coffee. All my life long I have had no difficulty in adopting any diet whatever; but I am sure that since I confined myself to fruits and farinacea, life has gone easier with me. No one ever heard me complain of the want of a dinner, or of the quality of what was set before me; but I now know that a day or two's fasting will do me no sort of harm, [Footnote: Twice in my life I have tried the experiment of a _strictly_ vegetarian diet (_without milk, batter, eggs, fish or flesh_)-once when I was about twelve years old, and again, for forty-eight days, beginning On the 25th June, 1878. I had been for some months taking regular exercise (a rare thing with me), walking on four miles every morning from six to seven, so that I was in rude health. I was just beginning a stiff piece of literary work on Juvenal, which involved the daily examination of several hundred passages of authors, chiefly Greek and Latin; and I wished to try how far vegetarian diet would enable me to resist the depressing influence of fasting.