Dietetics.*

DIETETICS . *

A GEEAT deal too much like Emetics to please our ear ; we are familiar with plain " food , " the more ostentatious and generally less satisfactory " refreshment , " the good old-fashioned homely English " victuals , " or even the very vulgar " grub ;" hut " Dietetics "—No 1 that is too much for human endurance . There is , however , another word joined to this obnoxious one , that may perhaps serve to somewhat modify the uneasy eju ' gastrie feelings produced by that dreadful word "D , "but we won't write it again , and so we take up the somewhat pretentious booklet now under our reader ' s notice .

As it is not probable that any future number of the book will tempt us to recur to it further , we had better say all that we find to say about it now , and so give it one thorough sifting . To begin , then , with the cover , which gives us high promise of the " Reformers '" work , unless the illustrations prove—like those outside the Penny Shows—decidedly the best part of the exhibition , and not only that , but the only place where the startling wonders promised are to be beheld at all . As with those on canvass , so we have a strange misgiving it will prove with these on paper . Howeverlet us see

, what is promised us : It has been said that " he is a benefactor of the human race who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before ; " but what shall we say of this magician , the " Dietetic Fieformer , " who from a single stem , shows us such a growthof , not only the necessaries , but also the luxuries of a Vegetarian Diet . Incidentally we may as well say that we are staunch Vegetarians , for what can be better , ordinarily , than carrots with boiled beefunless it be turnips with boiled mutton 1 whatin a

, , modest way , nicer than beans with our bacon , unless it be green peas with our ducklings 1 Our Reformer , then , exhibits to us a stem which starts with bearing the most prolific peas ( as we presume , although the pods present an appearance mid-way between those of the laburnum and mussel shells ); a little above the ground spring out turnips , carrots ,

parsnrps , onions in profusion ; a little higher are growing cucumbers , and various kinds of vegetable marrows , up to " TWOPENCE MONTHLY . " Onee above this soidid consideration the stem is in a new world , and , fondly turning round , " The Dietetic Reformer ' s " riband , gives birth to pears and apples , grapes and strawberries , such as delight our hearts as being quite as truly " Frugiverous " as we have already confessed to being " Vegetarian . " iNbw let us see what is the performance after all this promise no fairy boweralas 1

; , rises at the wave of the magician ' s wand , no bower of bliss for us—that is all outside ; all that is inside proves to be redolent of stale " saw " -dust and the jewel turns out to be but paste . The magician has circled his wand , or rather we have turned over the cover , and the magician himself , instead of " Reformer , " seems in this downward transformation ^ ne , to have become instead a " Deformer . " Deformer , we say , for what else can we all him who utterlundoes all our preconceived notions of that to which we so

y lovingl y cling for sustenance , and who substitutes for our juicy chop or tender steak , a very stage banquet of " Oatmeal , " " Malt , " and Wheatmeal Biscuits . " Oh ! to what a pass have we come , when , in our future food-guide , we find ourselves addressed , not y the Butcher and Baker of our former life , but by the CORNFACTOR AND SEEDSMAN . " A ] as ! Alas !

Surely-Bottom thou art translated . " a » u nothing now remains but to lay in a stock of downy thistles , lamentations , however , over our happy past will avail us but little , and we had there's better rejoice with our future compeers over their very flourishing balance-sheet