tions
are different; but here in England I look upon vegetables with a
considerable amount of suspicion, because they are so often grown upon
sewage farms, and as rapidly as possible, with the object of getting
the maximum of weight in the minimum of time. All the quick-growing
vegetables, especially cabbage, and rhubarb, are regarded by me as
dangerous food ; not that they contain disease themselves, but that
their tissues are overladen with incompletely transformed fertilizing
matter, and, therefore, they do not provide a completely organized
pabulum for the human organs to feed upon."
The
Paris working-man never drinks tea, and very rarely beer; but if he be
a sober man he drinks his litre, or litre and a half,—that is to say,
about two pints,—of red wine every day, and possibly a -petit verre, or
two, of horrible cheap cognac, or of marc, a colourless liqueur made
from shelled barley. He also drinks absinthe sometimes, when he can
afford it, but this is not often the case, for even the cheap kind
costs twopence, or, twopence-halfpenny, a glass.
As a rule the Paris wTorkman
takes his midday luncheon with him; and it consists of a huge chunk of
bread, some cold vegetables,—which he heats up himself, or can get
heated for him at the place he buys his wine, —and cheese, which
contains a great deal of nourishment at a small price. Dessert in these
meals,—" red handkerchief luncheons," as they are usually
called,—consists of a tablet or two of gritty chocolate.
Certain
it is that a light breakfast has much to do with capability, and energy
for work throughout the morning. As a remarkable instance of this fact,
Mr. Absolom, who played Cricket for Cambridge from 1866 to 1869, is
credited with having breakfasted, prior to a
