50 G Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



toudency, in cases of calamity, to make caiiital out of it. The railway 

 comjjanies arc said to charge three times as much for carcases as for 

 live beasts, although a truck will carry twice as many of the former as 

 of the latter. In favour of the poor, therefore, there should be some 

 provisions for the convenient carriage of oifal by means of some kind 

 of travelling larder. On the occasion of my visit to Newgate Market, 

 the meat generally appeared to be in fair condition. Dead meat 

 comes from abroad; and Mr. Barron says that the 112 Belgian sheep 

 suspected of having the plague were sent to England as mutton. Let 

 us hope that due care will be talccn, and that we shall not hear of 

 death in the pot. There is a curious record in the ' Gentleman's 

 Magazine,' that during the great plague the experiment of feeding on 

 diseased meat was tried in Flanders, on some condemned soldiers, 

 and that they ate of it with impmiity. 



Sir Walter Stirling : That is the case now in this country, is 

 it not ? 



Dr. Crisp : Yes. I myself have positively eaten plenty of it : and 

 there is not the slightest harm in it. 



Earl Cathcart : But j^erhaps it is a slow poison. 



We will now go on to the live-meat market at Islington. That 

 is a magnificent market. You see there Spanish cattle with long 

 horns, and white and black Dutch and French cattle ; and Monday 

 last witnessed the unparalleled fact that the market was nearly as 

 full as it was prior to the breaking out of the j^lague, nearly every 

 one of the animals being a foreigner. It is a strange circumstance, 

 and well worthy of note, that on Monday there were 4160 foreign 

 cattle in the market, or very nearly as many beasts as there were 

 previous to the stoppage of the movement of English stock. 



There is one thing which should be observed as aifecting agri- 

 cultm-ists, and that is the cruelty of sending clipj)ed sheep uj) to 

 market in March and April. There they were, standing in the cold 

 morning air, shivering dreadfully. It is curious to observe that, 

 within eight years, the foreign imports have risen from three hundred 

 a-week to twelve or thirteen thousand. 



We are now brought to what, at a previous meeting, I ventured 

 to say is the great turning-point in all these discussions, that tm-ning- 

 point lying in the word confidence. Now, the six millions of cattle, 

 twenty-five millions of sheep, and three millions of pigs in Great 

 Britain, all liable to our imported infectious disease, are surely worth 

 caring for. They are the food of the people. I for one freely admit 

 all the difficulties of legislating and of administering the law in 

 relation to this matter. What I mean by confidence is this : We 

 want imperial authorities to see the danger, and to see us safely 

 through it. We want a compound Hercules for the British augean 

 stable. We don't want any limited liability : we want a responsible 

 Government committee — a board constituted with due regard to a 

 division of labour, with the check and s\)\\v of fixed responsibility. 

 It is not enough to have two or three right hon. gentlemen who 

 may chance to gather together. This responsible board or committee 

 — and this is an important point, if you look back to past history — 



