he fact that different nations employ as condiments
articles which would be in the highest degree obnoxious to people of
other countries. For example, the garlic so freely used in Russian
cookery, would be considered by Americans no addition to the natural
flavors of food; and still more distasteful would be the asafetida
frequently used as a seasoning in the cuisine of Persia and other
Asiatic countries.

The use of condiments is unquestionably a strong auxiliary to the
formation of a habit of using intoxicating drinks. Persons addicted to
the use of intoxicating liquors are, as a rule, fond of stimulating and
highly seasoned foods; and although the converse is not always true, yet
it is apparent to every thoughtful person, that the use of a diet
composed of highly seasoned and irritating food, institutes the
conditions necessary for the acquirement of a taste for intoxicating
liquors. The false appetite aroused by the use of food that "burns and
stings," craves something less insipid than pure cold water to keep up
the fever the food has excited. Again, condiments, like all other
stimulants, must be continually increased in quantity, or their effect
becomes diminished; and this leads directly to a demand for stronger
stimulants, both in eating and drinking, until the probable tendency is
toward the dram-shop.

A more serious reason why high seasonings leads to intemperance, is in
the perversion of the use of the sense of taste. Certain senses are
given us to add to our pleasure as well as for the practical, almost
indispensable, use they are to us. For instance, the sense of sight is
not only useful, but enables us to drink in beauty, if among beautiful
surroundings, without doing us any harm. The same of music and other
harmonics which may come to us through the sense of hearing. But the
sense of taste and was given us to distinguish between wholesome and
unwholesome foods, and cannot be used for merely sensuous gratification,
without debasing and making of it a gross thing. An education which
demands special enjoyment or pleasure through the sense of taste, is
wholly artificial; it is coming down to the animal plane, or below it
rather; for the instinct of the brute creation teaches it merely to eat
to live.

Yet how wide-spread is this habit of sensuous gratification through the
sense of taste! If one calls upon a neighbor, he is at once offered
refreshments of some kind, as though the greatest blessing of life