Waste products and undeveloped substances : a synopsis of progress made in their economic utilisation during the last quarter of a century at home and abroad / by P.L. Simmonds.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Waste products and undeveloped substances : a synopsis of progress made in their economic utilisation during the last quarter of a century at home and abroad / by P.L. Simmonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    to cover them. The oil will come to the top, and should be carefully skimmed off, and then passed through a clean cloth into casks to settle. The oil, known as neatsfoot- oil, is worth about 4s. per gallon. It is used for tanning and saddlery purposes, as well as for machinery, ihe first exportation of bone-dust from Victoria commenced in 1865 and was valued at 79Z.; in 1870, 3353 tons were exported, valued at 22,69lL ; and manure, valued at 10-303Z. . , ^. -uT -u The ' Daily Telegraph,' in an article recently published, states : There is a vast quantity of animal ' offal,'_ as much as serves to stock at least half-a-dozen shops, at which a brisk and no doubt a very profitable, business is done daily. [There are, in fact, 113 tripe-dressers and vendors of this offal in London.] Nor is the favour with which the said food is regarded due to any endeavour on the part of the vendors either to disguise its real nature, or by skilful artifice to make it appear nicer-looking than it naturally is. Undoubtedly, the heads and 'plucks' and hearts, suspended in huge crimson bunches, do look grimly offalish displayed in the shops of the tripe-sellers; and it is hardly calculated to propitiate the scruples of the fas- tidious to observe that no pains are taken to keep far apart the offal that is human food and the horse-flesh in which the tripeman likewise deals, vending it as sustenance for cats and dogs. I think that the sheep's heads make the most ghastly display. At one shop there was a huge bench standing outside, and on this were heaped, I should say, at least fifty mutton craniums ' in the blood,' just as they were severed from the carcase. The rough-and-ready offal dealers had not taken the trouble even to strip off any of the woolly skin ; that as well as the neck part was dabbled red, some of the heads had horns and no ears, some had ears and no horns; and there were half-a-dozen poor mothers busy overhauling the pile, fishing out heads that looked promising, handling them, turning them about, and holding them up by a bit of skin, or a red hoin for more critical investigation of their ' meatiness.' Tenpence ap- peared to be the ruling price for a sheep's head ; but this was without the tongue and brains, deprived of which there seemed to me to be but a very indifferent tenpenn'orth remaining. The tongues were retailed at three pence each.