194 Animal and Animal Products Trades 



The suggestion is that the periodic changes in the conditions of the 

 roads disturbed the regular supply of the market and gave occasion 

 to the jobbing business. The legislation of the day tried to abolish 

 jobbing within eight miles of London/ but failed miserably, a fact 

 which attests that some natural conditions existed such as the above 

 mentioned roads, which gave a continuing opportunitv and need for 

 the jobber in connection with the great market. His function was, 

 in short, to steady the market and equalize the distribution among 

 markets'. 



SALESM.A.\ AT SMITHFIELD. 



Smithfield Market for several centuries was the great cattle, sheep 

 and horse market of London, the greatest in the British Isles. In 

 1603, Stow showed that the once large field had been encroached upon 

 and inclosed; only a small portion remained of the field which had 

 served formerly as a market for horses and cattle, and as a field for 

 military exercises, jousts, tournaments and great pageants and 

 triumphs, "before the princes and nobility both of this realm and 

 foreign countries."' In the early eighteenth century Smithfield had 

 specialized in certain grades of animals. Calves and sucking pigs 

 were sold in Newgate and Leadenhall.^ Middling stock found poor 

 sale at Smithfield, but it was the best sort of market for the largest 

 and fattest animals, and for the small and lean.'* In 1725 Smithfield 

 was supplying a little less than one-half the meat consumed in the 

 city. The carcass butchers bought stock in all the towns in the 

 counties about London, and at the fairs in Northampton, Cambridge 

 and Norfolk, and these animals were not sent through Smithfield. 

 The farmers also slaughtered their animals outside London and 

 brought in the carcasses. By these sources the other half of the 

 London consumption was supplied. Altogether in this year the city 

 was consuming 98,244 cattle, 711,125 sheep and lambs, 194,760 calves, 

 186,932 hogs and 52,000 pigs.' In 1800 the total annual consumption 

 was about 110,000 head of neat cattle and 770,000 sheep.*' The prog- 

 ress of these immense herds towards London must have been a sight 

 comparable to the Union Stock Yards in the American markets today ! 



1 22-3 Chas. II, Cap. 19. 



■'Stow, Survey, 351. 



3 Maitland, II, 757. 



^Gent. Mag., 1743:538. 



5 The data for this year are taken from Maitland, London, II. 757. 



"Middleton. \'ie\v of Middlesex, >A\. 



