Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (London), Sunday, December 25, 1898:
The Eve of Christmas By The Editor
MISTAKEN GRUMBLING – Mr. Josiah Oldfield, M.A., writes from the Temple to "enter the most emphatic protest against the materialisation and the brutalisation of Christmas." By this he means the killing and eating of poultry and cattle. "I appeal for a vegetarian Christmas," says this writer; "and for a termination of this degraded and degrading festival, which horrifies every Hindu who comes to our shore, and makes Christmas a time of deepest heart-sorrow and pain." This is on a par with those reformers who would banish all beer and wine because certain persons abuse instead of using the good things of life. It is temperance, both in eating and drinking, that will bring its own best reward in this and all other seasons. In other fields besides the material one a measure of common sense is needed to correct the follies and weaknesses of those teachers who are ever falling into what Tennyson so aptly denounces as THE FALSEHOOD OF EXTREMES.
The Times, November 1, 1910:
Albert Hall concert review
ORDER OF THE GOLDEN AGE. – If the thousands of people who spent three hours at the Albert Hall concert on Saturday night were members or even adherents of this order, the fruitarian's golden age would be a good deal nearer than we should judge it to be from the evidence of the average dining room or restaurant. The Order of the Golden Age is a 15 year old organisation, with offices in the prosaic Brompton Road, whence the gospel of natural diet is propagated by the usual method of books and pamphlets. "Thousands of cultured men and women, including eminent leaders of thought in Church and State," according to a statement on Saturday's programme, have been persuaded to live on "fruit, cereals, nut-foods, vegetables and dairy produce." It would be interesting to know whether the three field-marshals, three princesses, nine duchesses, and dozens of other titled persons in the list of "patrons" are among the thousands of cultured converts. The concert itself was not an actively proselytizing function; though suggestions of a golden age might be discovered in many of the numbers. Mr. Manitto Klitgaard wandered in song over a "glorious golden" path, and expressed a wish to clasp all creation to his heart. Miss Edith Kirkwood tripped like a fairy on the green. Mr. W. Carter's choir apostrophized the Rowan tree, to which Mr. Fred Godley added the singing burn and heather. Miss Gertrude Lonsdale took us out among little bleating lambs. Mr. Iver McKay "Plucked the blue flow'rs Among the golden corn." Miss grace Kenza floated down a stream in the moonlight." Dr. Sibley's organ solo was less pacific. At one point it suggested, perhaps, a conference of lions on the subject of vegetarianism. Whatever else the music of the evening was meant to convey, it conveyed much pleasure even to the carnivora among the audience.