Curiosities of civilization : reprinted from the "Quarterly" & "Edinburgh" reviews / by Andrew Wynter.
- Andrew Wynter
- Date:
- [between 1860 and 1869?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Curiosities of civilization : reprinted from the "Quarterly" & "Edinburgh" reviews / by Andrew Wynter. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![teration in the same proportion as many other articles of minor demand. We need scarcely say that meat is exempt so long as it remains in the condition of joints; but immediately it is prepared in any shape in which its original fibre and form can be hidden, the spirit of ci-affc begins to work. The public have always had certain prejudices against sausages and polonies, for example ; and, if we are to believe a witness examined on oath before the Smithfield Market Commissioners in 1850, not without reason. It is a very old joke that there are no live donkeys to be found within twenty miles of Epping ; but if all the asinine tribe in England were to fall victims to the chopping-machine, we question if they could supply the cL-la-mode, polony, and sausage establishments. Mr. J. Harper, for instance, being under examination, upon being asked what became of the diseased meat brought into London, replied :— It is purchased by the soup-shops, sausage-makers, the d,-la-mode beef and meat-pie shops, &c. There is one soup-shop, I believe, doing five hundred pounds per week in diseased meat. This firm has a large foreign trade [thank goodness !]. The trade in diseased meat is very alarming, as anything in the shape of flesh can be sold at about one penny per pound, or eigbtpence per stone I am certain that if one hundred car- cases of cows were lying dead in the neighbourhood of London, I could get them all sold within twenty-four hours : it don't matter what they died of. It must not be imagined that the oi-la-mode beef intei-est is supplied with this carrion by needy men, whose necessities may in some degree palliate their evil dealings. In proof of this we quote further from Mr. Harper's evidence. In answer to the question, Is there any slaughtering of bad meat in the country for the supply of the London market he says,— The London market is very extensively supplied with diseased meat from the country. There are three insurance offices in London in which graziers can insure their beasts from disease. It was the practice of one of these offices to send the unsound animals dying from disease to their own slaughter-houses, situate a hundred and sixty miles from London, to be dressed and sent to the London market Cattle, sheep, &c., are insured against all kinds of diseases ; and one of the conditions is, that the diseased animal, when dead, becomes the property of the insurance conijiany, the party insuring receiving two-thirds of the value of the animal and one- third of the salvage ; or, in other words, one-third of the amount the beast is sold for whoa dead.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20401309_0070.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
