- 
499 
tion: Berlin is credited with 176 pounds per capita; Vienna, 209; Paris, 
2424; London, 2644. This very large city consumption must greatly 
reduce the average of the rural districts, but statistical inquiry has not 
yet gathered enough local and elementary facts for generalizations of 
even approximate accuracy. 
Theconclusionsof M. Zundel have raised several very interesting ques- 
tions among European statisticians, some of which seem to unsettle what 
have hitherto been received asestablished truths. Comparing the English- 
manand the Spaniard, the extremes in the aboveseries of flesh-eaters, the 
former consumes seven and a half times as much meat perannum as the 
latter. Whatever muscular superiority may be claimed for the English- 
man, it is evident that he is not equal to seven and a half Spaniards. 
Hence his surplus of meat consumption is not all expended in the produc- 
tion of brawn and muscle. The cold, humid climate of the British isles de- 
mands a larger amount of the concentrated aliment found*in animal food, 
in order to maintain the average normal tone of the system, than the dry, 
hot climate of the Spanish peninsula. Butit is a well-known fact that 
the flesh-eating races of Northern Europe have always excelled the vege- 
tarians of the Mediterranean peninsulas in massive physical strength. 
Again, the difference between city and rural consumption requires 
an extended range of facts foritsexplanation. It would be exceedingly 
rash to assume that city people are better fed, on the average, than coun- 
try people, considering the number and necessities of the indigent classes 
of each. It is notorious that in physical health and strength the peas- 
antry have the advantage. The excess of city consumption does not, 
then, operate to enhance the muscular or vital force of the population ; it 
is needed to repair the waste of physical energies resulting from quick- 
ened nervous activity. The numerous and wearing excitements and 
agitations of a multitude crowded into a small space, and in a constant 
struggle for subsistence in mechanical or commercial occupations, gen- 
erally of a sedentary character and calculated to repress the free develop- 
ment of physical manhood, create a constant drain upon the constitu- 
tion, which can be met only by the free use of food in which the nitrog- 
enous elements are abundant and readily assimilable. Some, who are 
not disposed to question the preceding generalization in regard to meat 
consumption, suggest that the peasant finds his proportion of azote in 
other kinds of food, as, for instance, the oats diet of Scotland. Others 
contend that the excess of meat consumption in the larger cities is 
greater in appearance than reality; that the facilities for statistical in- 
quiry in the rural districts and in smaller towns being more limited, 
the results do not approximate so nearly to the truth. It is agreed that 
nothing in the later developments of this question invalidates the princi- 
ple hitherto accepted, viz, that in two individuals of equal constitution 
and organic force, living in the same climate and under other circum- 
stances equally influencing vital action, the sum of mechanical effects 
will be in proportion to the amount of nitrogen actually assimilated. 
M. Zundel’s statistics indicate an inferior quality in the meat con- 
sumed by the populations of Central Europe outside the great cities. 
Cattle-dealers agree that in rural markets well-fattened animals are not 
more profitable than those in moderate conditions—that the fattening 
process is in many instances one: of unmingled loss. In Southern 
Germany the net meat product of the animal formerly amounted 
to 53 or 54 per cent. of the live weight, and of late has fallen 
as low as to 45 per cent. Formerly in Paris the proportion was 
from 55 to 60 per cent., but of later years has fallen to 52 an 
55 per cent. The English have always demanded a high standard, an 
hence their marketed animals are expected to net 65 or even 
