But the fact that living at the expense of life, cuts down, here and there, in the prime of life, or even at the age of fifty, a few individuals, though this of itself is no trivial evil, is not all. Half of what we call the infirmities of old age--and thus charge them upon Him who made the human frame _subject_ to age--have their origin in the same source; I mean in this living too fast, and exhausting prematurely the vital powers. When will the sons of men learn wisdom in this matter? Never, I fear, till they are taught, as commonly as they now are reading and writing, the principles of physiology. HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. Although individual cases of abstinence from animal food prove but little, yet they prove something in the case of a man so remarkable as John Howard. If he, with a constitution not very strong, and in the midst of the greatest fatigues of body and mind, could best sustain himself on a bread and water, or bread and tea diet, who is there that would not be well sustained on vegetable food? And yet it is certain that Howard was a vegetable eater for many years of the latter part of his life; and that had he not exposed himself in a remarkable manner, there is no known reason why he might not have lasted with a constitution no better than his was, to a hundred years of age. GEN. ELLIOTT. The following extract exhibits in few words, the dietetic history of that brave and wise commander, General George Augustus Elliott, of the British army: "During the whole of his active life, Gen. Elliott had inured himself to the most rigid habits of order and watchfulness; seldom sleeping more than four hours a day, and never eating any thing but vegetable food, or drinking any thing but water. During eight of the most anxious days of the memorable siege of Gibraltar, he confined himself to four ounces of rice a day. He was universally regarded as one of the most abstemious men of his age. "And yet his abstemiousness did not diminish his vigor; for, at the above-mentioned siege of Gibraltar, when he was sixty-six years of age, he had nearly all the activity and fire of his youth. Nor did he die of any wasting disease, such as full feeders are wont to say men bring upon them by their abstinence. On the contrary, owing to a hereditary tendency, perhaps, of his family, he died at the age of seventy-three, of apoplexy." ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA. The following testimony is from the Encyclopedia. I do not suppose the writer was the friend of a diet exclusively vegetable; but his testimony is therefore the more interesting. His only serious mistake is in regard to the tendency of vegetable food to form weak fibres. "Sometimes a particular kind of food is called wholesome, because it produces a beneficial effect of a particular character on the system of an individual. In this case, however, it is to be considered as a medicine; and can be called wholesome only for those whose systems are in the same condition.