[No. 112. ^ 271 • 



weather the ensuing spring. And a more common and lament- 

 able case is. that in the progress of summers heat, aided by a 

 southern latitude, the beef when exported to the West Indies or 

 elsewhere, degenerates with a still more rapid process of putre- 

 faction. 



^' The inspectors who repack our beef, the merchants who own 

 it, and the masters of vessels who carry it abroad, are all witnes- 

 ses of these facts. 



" But the waste and destruction of property are not the worst 

 consequences of trusting the preservation of beef to Liverpool, 

 salt. The exhalations from such masses of animal flesh, as they 

 undergo corruption, and turn to rottenness, are remarkably nox- 

 ious. They poison the surrounding air by their deleterious pre- 

 sence. They have sickened and destroyed repeatedly in New- 

 York, the inhabitants, who were unfortunate enough to be in the 

 neighborhoodof such nuisances, and enveloped in their unwhole- 

 some atmosphere. Pestilence and desolation have prevailed in 

 the vicinity of these putrifying remains of oxen, bulls and cows. 



^- The misery endured by cities is also incidental to ships, 

 within the sides, and under the hatches of a vessel, septic vapors 

 are copiously engendered, and most highly concentrated. Exist- 

 ing there in their greatest virulence, they excite fevers of the 

 most fatal -forms that afflict the human race, and thus, from the 

 nature of their cargoes, can it be understood wherefore vessels 

 that carry beef, &c., to the West Indies are commonly sickly, and 

 by the time they get back, are in an odious and intolerable state 

 of uncleanliness. Too pestilential from the venom engendered 

 within them, to be admitted to port, tiiey are proper subjects of 

 alkaline jjurificatim^ by which alone canjhey be reudered sweet, 

 safe, and wholesome. 



'•Thus, besides the sacrifice of property, we tind tliat tlie em- 

 ployment of Liver[)Ool salt, in pickling beef, leaves it liable to 

 corrupt; and tlie consequences of this corruption are pestilential 

 exhalations, stirring up yellow fevers, and other malignant dis- 

 tempers in the neighborhoods of cities and vessels, where the 

 bodies of thvse herds of slaughtered meat cattle haj»pen to be 

 deposited. Indeed, the mischief accruing to housekeeping, to 

 city police, and to navigation, from this source, almost exceeds 

 enumeration. 



