Various

“ Moiselet, to set me to rights, gave me a cup of coffee without sugar; after coffee came glasses of water. No one can conceive the care which my new friend took of me; but when drunkenness is of such a nature it is like death—all care is useless. Drunkenness overpowered me. I went to bed and slept; at least Moiselet thought so; but I saw him many times fill my glass and his own, and gulp them both down. The next day, when I awoke, he paid me the balance, three francs and fifty centimes, which, according to him, remained from the twenty-franc piece. ”

“ The Bisharye, a tribe of Bedouin Arabs, eat raw flesh, drink raw sheep's blood, and esteem the raw marrow of camels their greatest dainty.
The Patagonians eat raw flesh with no regard to cleanliness. The Greenlanders subsist on fish, seals, and sea-fowls, prepared and devoured in manners truly disgusting; train-oil is their sauce, and the blood of seals, their favourite beverage! Some of the North American Indians diet on the flesh of the sea-dog, parts of the whale and its fat, and an oil made of the blubber of both of these animals. ”

“ To the people who would like to go to Vauxhall in fine weather, second-rate Italian singing and broken down English prima donnas are no inducement, a bad ballet in a booth has no attraction, and an attempt at variety mars the whole affair. Vauxhall is a delightful place to go to in fine weather with a pleasant party; give us space to walk, light up that space, and shelter us from the elements, set the military bands to play popular airs, and we ask no more for our four or five shillings, or whatever it is ”

“ The Russians (there is no disputing on tastes) hold train-oil to be a prime luxury; and I remember seeing a group of them following an exciseman on the quays at Dover to plunder the oil casks, as they were successively opened for his operations. A poor Finland woman, who for her sins had married an Englishman and followed him to this country, was very glad to avail herself of her husband's death to leave a land where the people were so unhappy as to be without a regular supply of seal's flesh for their dinner. ”

“ While the good man lived, her affection for him somewhat balanced her hankering after this native luxury; but no sooner was the husband dead, than her lawyer-like propensity re-assumed its full force, and, like Proteus released from his chains, she abandoned civilized life to get back to her favourite shores, to liberty, and the animals of her predilection. "If I were rich," said a poor farmer's boy, "I would eat fat pudding, and ride all day on a gate;" which was evidently his highest idea of human luxury. ”

“ With the Chinese, rice is the "staff of life," but all kinds of animal food are eagerly devoured; and pedlars offering for sale rats, cats, and dogs, may be seen in the streets of Chinese towns. It is uncertain whether a depraved taste or lack of superior animal food, induces a really civilized people to devour such flesh. Weak tea, without sugar, or milk, is the common beverage of the Chinese; in the use of ardent spirits they are moderate. ”

“ A few days later their district was ravaged by a succession of storms, their suspicions grew into certainty, and, assembling in considerable numbers, they attacked the unconscious botanist with a volley of stones, and cursed him as a storm-raising enchanter. ”

“ Spaniards of all ranks, use fruit, vegetables, fish, and olives, for their principal diet, and oil and garlic are used plentifully in their culinary operations; chocolate is their chief beverage, but at dinner ladies drink nothing but water, and gentlemen a little wine. The fare of the Portuguese peasantry is meagre in the extreme, although, they are, in fact, surrounded with the abundant luxuries of nature ”

“ The New Zealanders are cannibals sometimes in a dearth, and to gratify a spirit of vengeance against their enemies. The New Hollanders, near the sea, subsist on fish eaten raw, or nearly so; should a whale be cast ashore, it is never abandoned until its bones are picked; their substitute for bread, and that which forms their chief subsistence, is a species of fern roasted, pounded between stones, and mixed with fish. The general beverage of the negro tribes is palm-wine. ”

“ There is no term in political philosophy more ambiguous and lax in its meaning than Luxury. In Ireland, salt with a potato is, by the peasant, placed in this category. Among the Cossacks, a clean shirt is more than a luxury—it is an effeminacy; and a Scotch nobleman is reported to have declared, that the act of scratching one's self is a luxury too great for any thing under royalty. ”

“ Half a dozen Bosjesmans, will eat a fat sheep in an hour; they use no salt, and seldom drink anything, probably from the succulent nature of their food. The Caffres live chiefly on milk; they have no poultry, nor do they eat eggs. When flesh is boiled, each member of a family helps himself from the kettle with a pointed stick, and eats it in his hand. Their substitute for bread, which is made of Caffre-corn, a sort of millet, is the pith of a palm, indigenous to the country. ”

“ These theologians will not allow a man to eat his breakfast with a relish; and impute it as a vice if he smacks his lips, though it be but after a draught of water. Nay, there have been some who have thought good roots and Adam's ale too great luxuries for a Christian lawfully to indulge in; and they have purposely ill-cooked their vegetables, and mixed them with ashes, and even more disgusting things, to mortify the flesh, as they called it—i.e. to offer a sacrifice of their natural feelings to the demon of which they have made a god. ”

“ Reflecting on the extent of his loss, the Curè nearly fell to the ground. Moiselet was in a most pitiable state; the dear man afflicted himself more than if the loss had been his own. It was terrific to hear his sighs and groans. This was the result of love to one's neighbour. M. Senard little thought how great was the desolation at Livry. What was his despair on receiving the news of the event! In Paris the police is the providence of people who have lost any thing. ”

“ Civilization, which received a temporary check during the revolutionary war, has resumed its march in double-quick time since the Continent has been opened. Champaigne and ices have now become absolute necessaries at tables where a bottle of humble port and a supernumerary pudding were esteemed luxuries, fit only for honouring the more solemn rites of hospitality. ”

“ In New Caledonia so great is the scarcity of food, that the natives make constant war for the sake of eating their prisoners, and sometimes, to assuage the cravings of hunger, they bind ligatures tightly round their bodies and swallow oleaginous earth. ”

“ The Siamese, besides a variety of superior food, eat rats, lizards, and some kinds of insects. The Battas of Sumatra, prefer human flesh to all other, and speak with rapture of the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. Warm water is the usual beverage of the Manilla islanders. The Japanese, amongst other things, drink a kind of beer distilled from rice, and called sacki; it is kept constantly warm, and drunk after every morsel they eat. Cocoa-nut milk and water, is the common beverage of the natives of the New Hebrides. ”

“ Books, likewise, which were a luxury scarcely known to the wisdom of our ancestors, are a luxury now so indispensable, that there is hardly a mechanic who has not his little library: while a piano forte also has become as necessary to a farm-house as a mangle or a frying-pan ”

“ This is eaten with their fingers, since they have neither knives nor forks, and the Koran prohibits the use of gold and silver spoons. Coffee and sherbet are their ordinary beverages, and by the higher classes of "the faithful," wine is drunk in private, but an intoxication of a singular and destructive description, is produced by opium, which the Turks chew in immoderate quantities. The food of the Circassians consists of a little meat, millet-paste, and a kind of beer fermented from millet. The Tartars are not fond of beef and veal, but admire horse-flesh ”

“ Moiselet, said I to myself, will follow me to Germany: people do not travel or live on air: he relies on living well there: he is old, and, like king Solomon, proposes to tickle his fancy with some little Abishag of Sunem. Oh, father Moiselet has found the black hen ”

“ No disgust is evinced by the Bosjesman Hottentots at the most nauseous food, and having shot an animal with a poisoned arrow, their only precaution, previous to tearing it in pieces and devouring it raw, is to cut out the envenomed part. ”

“ The real and true test of a refined polity is not the gallows; but is to be found rather in such well-imagined insolvent laws, as discharge a maximum of debt with a minimum of assets; and rid a gentleman annually of his duns, with the smallest possible quantity of corporeal inconvenience. When luxuries become necessaries, insolvency is the best safety-valve to discharge the surplus dishonesty of the people, which, if pent up, would explode in dangerous overt acts of crime and violence ”

“ Even he was more reasonable than those sectarians, who have prevailed in almost all religions, and who, believing that the Deity created man for the express purpose of inflicting upon him every species of torture, have inveighed against the most innocent gratifications, and have erected luxury into a deadly sin. ”

“ A bald head, at the present day, is as great an indecency as Humphrey Clinker's unmentionables; and a dismantled mouth is an outrage on well-bred society. Then, again, how necessary is a cigar and a meerschaum to a well-appointed man of fashion, and how can a gentleman possibly show at Melton without at least a dozen hunters, and two or three hacks, to ride to cover! ”

“ Diogenes, who prided himself on cutting his coat according to his cloth, and thought himself a greater man, in proportion as he diminished his wants, placed his luxuries in idleness and sunshine, and seems to have relished these enjoyments with as much sensuality as Plato did his fine house and delicate fare. ”

“ A gentleman who had resided some time in this country, informs us, that by the Italians, puppy-broth was reckoned a sovereign remedy in some slight indispositions, and that he has constantly seen in the markets young dogs skinned for sale. Of the Turks, the ordinary food is rice, sometimes boiled with gravy, and sometimes made into pilan ”

“ Is not a silver fork, moreover, an acknowledged necessary in every decent establishment? while the barbarous Mussulman dispenses with knives and forks altogether, and eats his meal, like a savage as he is, with his fingers. Nor can it be deemed an objection to this hypothesis, that the Turk, who rejects all the refinements of European civilization, excepting only gunpowder, esteems four wives to be necessary to a decent establishment; while the most clear-sighted [pg 46] Englishmen think one more than enough for enjoyment. ”

“ The Lattakoos eat, with equal zest, the flesh of elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, giraffes, quaggas, &c.; and sometimes, under an idea that it confers valour, human flesh, of which they have otherwise great abhorrence. They are very disgusting in their manner of preparing food. The Abyssinians usually eat the flesh of cattle raw, and sometimes, although we believe the fact has been much controverted, immediately as it is cut from the living animals. ”

“ There the fame of parties and dinners is confined to the rooms which constitute their scene, and the names of the individuals who partake of them never travel out of their own circle. How widely different is the practice of the London Journals! A lady of fashion can find no place so secret where she can hide herself from their search. ”

“ The coffee bean is cultivated in the interior, and is thence brought to Mocha for exportation. The Arabs themselves use the husks, which make but an inferior infusion. Vegetables are grown round the town, and fruits are brought from Senna; while grain, horses, asses, and sheep, are imported from Abyssinia. There are twelve schools in the town; and, inland, near Senna, there are colleges, in which the twelve branches of Mohomedan sciences are taught, as is usual in Turkey and India. Arab women marry about the age of sixteen ”

“ He would not touch a penny that did not belong to him. The hole, made with much skill, was soon ready to receive the treasure which it was intended to preserve, and six feet of earth were cast on the specie of the Curè, to which were united diamonds worth 100,000 crowns, belonging to M. Senard, and enclosed in a small box. The hollow filled up, the ground was so well flattened, that one would have betted with the devil that it had not been stirred since the creation. "This good Moiselet," said M. Senard, rubbing his hands, "has done it all admirably. ”

“ In the mountains near Rome, the peasants regard with suspicion a singular costume, a stern cast of countenance, or any striking personal formation, in the strangers who arrive there. All travellers, thus peculiarly marked, are supposed to be enchanters and treasure-seekers, and the young Germans, in their black dresses, untrimmed beards, and long hair, are especial objects of suspicion.—Blackwood's Magazine. ”