The Victory of the Marrozv-Bonc and Cleaver 



341 



That we may not be accused of exaggeration, we 

 will just recall one or two little matters which should 

 not be forgotten. The butchers raised prices as high 

 as they dared when the cattle plague began, and they 

 keep them at the same point now that it has gone, 

 giving them, if anything, a turn higher. There were 

 this week twice as many head of foreign cattle in the 

 market as in the corresponding week last year, but 

 prices did not fall on that account. The supply of all 

 kinds of cattle was of inferior quality ; this is, as has 

 been often pointed out, the i-esult of placing the 

 farmer wholly at the mercy of the butcher ; 

 and so long as the cordon continues, inferior cattle will 

 be sent to the London market. But though this was 

 so, the supply altogether was larger than it has been 

 for some time. What was the consequence — prices 

 went down ? Not at all ; meat was 2d. a stone dearer 

 than the Thursday before. Again, a favourite argu- 

 ment is that some witnesses gave evidence that if they 

 had the option to sell their cattle at Islington, or send 

 them elsewhere out of the metropolis if they could not 

 get the price they asked, they would realize 2s. per 

 head more in a general way for their stock ; and this 

 sounds rather alarming. As about this 2s. some mis- 

 conception exists, we will endeavour to throw a little 

 light on it. The graziers and farmers — those especi- 

 ally of Aberdeen and Ayrshire, who were during the 

 plague the main purveyors for the London meat mar- 

 ket — affirm unanimously that since the regulations 

 have been in force, whereby London exclusively is 

 made an infected district, which no beast may leave 

 alive, they receive;i^2 less than before for each beast from 

 the London butchers, London being a kind of cul de 

 sac presided over by butchers and jobbers. This the 

 grazier M'ould not so much mind if the retail price 

 were lowered in proportion, because he is well aware that 

 cheap meat means large consumption, and that he 

 can afford to sell his beasts for half pi-ofits provided he 

 can dispose of twice as many. But, in point of fact, 

 what does he see? Why, that the retail price in Lon- 

 don is exactly what it was before. It is the butcher 

 who saves this £2. He gives £t, or ;;^5 or;,^7, as the 

 case may be, for what fomierly he gave;^5, £'j, or £g, 

 asking and obtaining from his customers the same full 

 rates as before. These £2 are thus traced into his 

 pocket ; but we defy the keenest inspector to trace 

 tliem any further, and this money, and who shall have 

 it, is the key to the whole affair. The gi-azier desires 

 that, if he lowers his prices, he should have a larger 

 sale ; the butcher loves high prices and small trouble ; 

 the London consumer stands aghast at his weekly meat- 

 bills ; the poor are helpless and ignorant, and their 

 cause is betrayed by those who professedly are their 

 friends. If the importation of foreign cattle were 

 stopped entirely, the Scotch or English grazier would no 

 doubt refuse to supply until he could obtain the £2 

 M-hich, in the end, the butcher would be forced to re- 

 coup; but this would not benefit the consumer. But 

 by oflfering proper wharf accommodation, lairs, graz- 

 ing, and quarantine grounds to foreign cattle dealers. 



and perfect liberty of locomotion and sale, as 

 well as security against infection to the good and 

 healthy stock of our home dealers, there would be 

 at once a breakdown of monopoly, and the establish- 

 ment of an active competition. This would make the 

 butchers our servants instead of our masters, as has 

 too long been the case, and the £2 in dispute would 

 be i-epresented by a general reduction in the price of 

 meat. This is, so far as a careful investigation of 

 evidence has led us, a complete history of the extra_;,^2 

 per beast which has been paraded as the most formid- 

 able of arguments. And yet we are asked to believe 

 that the butchers so dislike high prices that, out of 

 love to hungry humanity, they would spend money out 

 of their own pockets to print tracts and fee counsel, in 

 order to keep down or lower the price of meat ! It is 

 a maxim with the police that, whenever a fraud, or 

 what is technically termed "a plant," has been planned 

 or committed, you must look for the culprits among 

 those who have or would have benefited by its suc- 

 cess. And we own that, as soon as we behold the zeal of 

 the butchers in scotching this bill, the loudness of their 

 professions, the generosity oi their contributions — 

 when we heard how much they feared that the poor 

 would be starved for lack of offal, and the 

 stomachs of the rich disordered by the consuming of 

 inferior meat — we did immediately conceive a suspicion 

 of their motives and a prejudice in favour of the bill. 



The truth is, there is little use in crying, "Peace, 

 peace," when there is no peace or likelihood of it. 

 Even while the bill was being withdrawn, accounts 

 were received of fresh outbreaks of the plague within 

 three or four days' distance of our own shores. Mr 

 Stuart Mill very properly observed, that in all future 

 regidations it would be right to proscribe not only in- 

 fected countries, but all others which were used as a 

 line of communication from such countries. The re- 

 laxations which have just been granted by order of the 

 Privy Council go quite as far as can be done with 

 safety, perhaps further ; and if the plague is reim- 

 ported, the reckoning of the agricultural interest, and 

 the English people generally, with Messrs Gibson, 

 Ayrton, and others, will be a rather hea\'y one. As 

 it is, no cattle can leave the metropolitan area until 

 after all kinds of formalities and many weeks 

 of waiting, nor can one be moved in any direc- 

 tion for more than 600 yards without a license ; 

 and, altogether, the inconvenience and trouble 

 of transit are so enormous and prolonged that we 

 imagine few comitry salesmen will avail themselves of 

 the new orders. We repeat it that it does seem hard 

 that, in order to protect one twenty-sixth part of our 

 whole cattle supply [i.e., the foreign), our own un- 

 deniably healthy and superior stock should be thus 

 branded, and consumers and farmers alike be incon- 

 venienced and plundered for the sake of the London 

 butcher interest. The extortion of which these persons 

 have been guilty has been repeatedly exposed. They 

 may be a very estimable and disinterested body of 

 men ; but those ^\ ho will take the trouble to read the 



