"They," he said to himself, "eat a beefsteak? Never." But they
most of them ate one now and again, unless it was a mutton chop that
tempted them. And they used him for a model much as he did them. "He,"
they would say to themselves, "eat a mutton chop? Never." One night,
however, he was followed by one of the authorities, who was always
prowling about in search of law-breakers, and was caught coming out of
the den with half a shoulder of mutton concealed about his person. On
this, even though he had not been put in prison, he would have been sent
away with his prospects in life irretrievably ruined; he therefore hanged
himself as soon as he got home.
CHAPTER XXVII: THE VIEWS OF AN EREWHONIAN PHILOSOPHER CONCERNING THE
RIGHTS OF VEGETABLES
Let me leave this unhappy story, and return to the course of events among
the Erewhonians at large. No matter how many laws they passed increasing
the severity of the punishments inflicted on those who ate meat in
secret, the people found means of setting them aside as fast as they were
made. At times, indeed, they would become almost obsolete, but when they
were on the point of being repealed, some national disaster or the
preaching of some fanatic would reawaken the conscience of the nation,
and people were imprisoned by the thousand for illicitly selling and
buying animal food.
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