Sir,—In your report of the Vegetarian Society’s Annual Meeting it is stated (p. 187) that Mrs. Morgan devoted her address to what she regarded as the “biblical authority” for vegetarianism. May I briefly express the contrary opinion that there is much less authority in the Bible, including the New Testament, for the humane diet than for the barbarous one. It has often been invoked by opponents of vegetarianism as lending sanction to butchery; and the rational reply to this stupid argument is to point out that if the Jewish Scriptures sanction flesh-eating, they equally sanction slavery and other savage customs now held to be indefensible—in a word, that it is useless, in the discussion of modern ethical problems, to appeal to what is obsolete.
HENRY S. SALT.
19 Highdown Road, Brighton.
[Mrs. Morgan’s address was more in sympathy with the sentiments expressed in Mr. Salt’s letter, than would be gathered from the necessarily abbreviated report on p. 187.—Eds. V. M.]
The Vegetarian News, Vol. 22 No. 1, January 1925, p. 16