orms no substantial part of the human diet. The teeming millions
of India and China, which constitute nearly half of the whole human
race, eat practically no meat. The thronging millions of Central Africa
thrive on corn, nuts, bananas, peanuts, manioc, sweet potatoes and
melons. The same is true at the present time of the natives of Mexico,
Central and South America, who find in maize, beans, potatoes and
various tropical fruits ample and satisfying sustenance.

The average American consumes 165 pounds of meat a year; the Japanese,
four pounds; the people of South China less--practically none at all.
Taking the human race as a whole, meat fills only a very insignificant
place in the world's bill of fare. Bread is the staff of life, and nuts,
the real meat, are gradually recovering their old prestige. It is only
in comparatively recent years that meat has entered so largely into the
bill of fare of civilized nations. Major J. B. Paget, a writer in the
_English Review_, calls attention to the fact that there has been in
England a deterioration in stature and otherwise since the Peninsular
War, the reason for which he thinks "is not difficult to discover. We
are the same race with the same climate and the same water. The only
difference is our diet."

According to Wellington's Quartermaster General's Report, the rations of
the men who fought the Peninsular War under the Iron Duke, was one pound
of wheat per day and a quarter of a pound of goat's flesh. But they had
to catch the goats who ran wild in the mountains and so they seldom got
that part of their ration.

According to General Sir William Butler these soldiers were "splendid
men with figures and faces like Greek gods." And he adds with regret,
"Such men have passed away."

Major Paget tells us that the Spaniards were greatly impressed by the
fine teeth of these English soldiers and especially of their wives who
accompanied them. Of their diet the Major says:

"These men before they enlisted were nearly all agricultural laborers
who were brought up on a hard, wholemeal bread, garden produce, and
apparently very little meat, as the consumption of meat was then _three
pounds per head per annum_."

It is to be remembered also that nuts form a substantial part of the
diet of that large and interesting family of vertebrates, the primates,
represented by the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-utan and the
gibbon, animals that do not eat meat, and that man is also a p