The Country Gcuilcmaiis Magazine 



the people are much superior to the ordinary 

 run of Irish agricultural labourers. There is no 

 doubt that the allotment system is a good one, 

 and we should wish to see it established in 

 every parish in the kingdom. 



Mr Denton's paper cannot fail to produce 

 good results. The question is beginning to 

 be better understood, and the false colouring 



which prevented many from discerning the 

 real facts of the case, and the proper reme- 

 dies to be applied, is being dispelled. To 

 Mr Denton, and those who supported him, 

 much of the credit will undoubtedly be due 

 for bringing about a wholesome change in 

 public opinion on this most important 

 matter. 



HIPPOPHAGY— SHALL WE EAT OUR HORSES? 



THAT there is no accounting for tastes 

 has long been acknowledged as a fact 

 which cannot be disputed, and of which our 

 daily experience supplies us with many ex- 

 amples. Ample illustrations of it are to be 

 found in the various articles which form 

 human food in different parts of the world ; 

 and here another proverb comes into play, 

 for, truly, " what is one man's meat is very 

 frequently another man's poison." In our 

 own country we have instances of the great 

 difference that exists in the matter of taste 

 with respect to food. In some parts shell- 

 fish, for instance, are loathed, and we have 

 seen people who could not be persuaded 

 that oysters and cockles were fit to be eaten, 

 and, although they had almost inexhaustible 

 supplies of those articles at their command, 

 were actually on the verge of stai-vation. The 

 English peasant considers bacon almost essen- 

 tial to his existence, and a pig the most use- 

 ful animal in the world; while the Scotch 

 Highlander, embued apparently with semi- 

 Hebraic notions, declines to " go the whole 

 hog," living or dead. 



We have been accustomed to consider 

 animal food as limited to beef, mutton, and 

 pork, with odds-and-ends of course, in the 

 shape of poultry, fish, and game. Why 

 horseflesh — we beg pardon — chevaline, has 

 been excluded from the list seems difficult 

 to say. The horse is fed on clean, whole- 

 some food, hay or grass, oats and beans, 

 and in this respect the diet is superior to 

 that of the ox fed on linseed-oil cake, or of 

 the pig, that scavenger of the farm-yard, and 



wholesale consumer of all sorts of garbage 

 and slops. Yet v/e ignore altogether the 

 oilcake when we sit down to " the roast beef 

 of old England," and no visions of the 

 swill-tub interfere Avith our enjoyment of pig, 

 when presented to us either in the shape of 

 pork or bacon. The mere idea of horse- 

 flesh as an article of diet is apt, however, 

 to give us " a queer turn ;" and in this 

 way, a prejudice, for we believe it to be 

 nothing else, is the means of sending annually 

 a vast amount of wholesome meat to feed 

 dogs and cats, Avhich, but for this prejudice, 

 would be hailed as a valuable addition to our 

 insufticient supplies of animal food. It has 

 been our lot, unfortunately, more than once, 

 to have occasion to regret what was evidently 

 a waste of valuable food, when a horse, in 

 good condition, has come suddenly to grief, 

 and gone literally to the dogs. 



Of late, some strenuous efforts have been 

 made to familiarize people with the use of 

 chevaline, as horse-flesh is now somewhat 

 euphonically designated, and those efforts 

 have not been altogether without success. 

 The dinner, which took place lately at the 

 Langham. Hotel, where chevaline in various 

 forms was the sole description of animal food 

 supplied, has done much to lessen the feeling 

 of aversion against horse-flesh as an article 

 of diet, at least among the better classes of 

 society ; for even the example of our neigh- 

 bours in France was scarcely sufiicient to 

 overcome the prejudices of the British 

 stomach in this matter, knowing that French 

 cooks can turn even an old shoe into a tooth- 



