350 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



killed in the country, and at some seasons of the year brought 

 even from remote parts of Scotland. But I shall perhaps surprise 

 some of my readers by informing them that London is full of 

 slaughtering-houses. The police of London is so exemplary, 

 and many of these places are kept with such perfect neatness, 

 that even the nearest neighbors are not apprized of their exist 

 ence.* This fact may be recommended to the attention of the 

 butchers in the vicinity of Boston, and some other of our large 

 towns. Their neighbors certainly will join in this recommenda 

 tion, for most of these slaughtering establishments are an intol 

 erable nuisance. In some of the best streets in London, where 

 the meat-shops are found, will be found behind these shops the 

 slaughter-houses, where this meat is killed. You will some 

 times see cattle and sheep brought in by the front door of very 

 respectable looking houses, (for the yards of the houses are oth 

 erwise inaccessible,) like acquaintances of the family. Back 

 of these shops, I have been introduced into elegantly furnished 

 drawing-rooms, and did not discover that the slaughtering estab 

 lishment was immediately adjoining, until I looked out of the 

 window. There is not the slightest odor perceptible, to offend the 

 senses. The animals come out in a very different form from, what 

 they go in. The blood goes at once into the common sewers, 

 and the offal is carefully removed. In the neighborhood of the 



* One great means of the extraordinary cleanliness of London is, that no swine 

 are ever allowed to be kept in it. The lower class of Irish, who migrate to Lon 

 don in vast numbers, (for where, indeed, do not these laborious creatures migrate ?) 

 are thus obliged to abandon the tender familiarities of their early years, which 

 have &quot; grown with their growth, and strengthened with their strength.&quot; As the 

 ruling passion, however, is always strong, and the Irish heart, even in the hum 

 blest condition, is distinguished by warm affections, they contrive, as some of the 

 gentlemen of the health commission have informed me, many times in a very 

 adroit manner to evade the law, and the pig and the donkey are often regularly 

 installed lodgers in their rooms, and free sharers at their humble board. It is 

 said that when the terror of the Asiatic cholera prevailed, and a health com 

 mittee visited the premises of the poorer classes in Edinburgh, with a view to 

 remove the incitements of disease, they found in one of the upper chambers of one 

 of the very high-storied houses of that city, inhabited by an Irish family, a large 

 hog among the children. Upon inquiry how he could have been got up there, 

 the owner replied with genuine Hibernian simplicity, &quot; Plaze yer honor, he was 

 never got up here at all at all ; but he was barn here.&quot; I do not know why an 

 Irishman should not be attached to his pig, as well as a nobleman to his dog. In 

 substantial usefulness, the pig would not suffer by the comparison. I cannot say 

 as much of his moral developments. 



