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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    eio-ht or ten years old, becoming often unfit for service, were sold to ]iersous who ill-fed and ill-treated them, whereas hy being fattened and .«old for food they would produce a profit and give wholesome nonrishment to the poorer classes. Dr. Chapot, having remarked that the objection against horse-flesh was mainly caused by a fear of the effect of the dangerous maladies to which that animal was subjected, M. Quivogne replied that no alarm need be felt on that score, if, as is the case at the horse slaughter- houses in Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich, a veterinary surgeon Avere placed as inspector. Mr. Engstrora, British Consul at Gothenburg, in one of his reports states that the price of ox-beef and other meat having advanced so much, had led of late to the use of horse-flesh among the poorer classes, at a cost of about lid. to 2d. per pound. In the last seventeen years nearly 30,000 horses have been killed, and the flesh used as food, in Berlin. In 1853 there were five slaughter-houses, in which 150 horses were sold; in 1858, 686 were sold. The horses slaughtered for the purpose of food, in 1860, were 613 ; in 1861, 700; in 1862 an impetus seems to have been given to the sale of horse-flesh, 1042 horses having been sold for this purpose; in 1863 the number had increased to 1742, and in 1865 to 2240. The meat is perfectly wholesome and very tolerably palatable, resembling rather coarse beef. Grand dinners were given hy a society interested in its introduction, at which horse-flesh alone was produced, prepared in various ways. Old cab-horses, wall-eyed and broken kneed, are found to be delicious eating, when treated by a really artistic hand. Within the last three years the average of horses eaten has been about 4000 per annum; and now there are nineteen butcheries devoted to this slaughter, which is carried on under strict police supervision and regulations. The flesh is sold at about 2^d. per pound. What can he done with dead Dogs ?—The rapid increase and expense of dogs. is endeavoured to be kept in due bounds in many countries by a tax on them. In England and Scotland this tax brought in for the year ending March 1872 close upon 280,000Z., which shows that there were 1,400,000. In Ireland the duty is only 2s., against 5s. in Great Britain, but duty is paid on upwards of 271,000 dogs.