126 STATES OF THE RIVER PLATE. 



III. 



There are considerations in connection with the condition 

 of our cattle, the travelling and slaughter of the same, 

 and the supply of meat in the markets, which stand apart 

 from the mere commercial question, and directly affect 

 the population of our cities and the surrounding districts. 

 These considerations are of a very serious and important 

 character, bearing on no less a matter than the general 

 health and mortality. 



Year by year, the consequences of the condition of our 

 meat supply are becoming more marked and more grave. 

 The rapid increase of the city population, the larger 

 supply of meat required, and, by reason of the gradual 

 driving back to greater distance of the cattle establish- 

 ments, the close feeding of the camps, and, consequently, 

 the inferior condition of the animals, the exhausted state 

 in which they reach the killing-grounds, and the long 

 period of hunger and thirst which they often experience 

 on the way, and in the pens (corrales} of the killing- 

 grounds, and in the bare paddocks to which they are 

 driven day after day, to return again and again to the 

 corrales until sold to the butcher all these circum- 

 stances contribute to affect our meat supply, to render it 

 inferior, and, in the majority of cases, absolutely un- 

 wholesome. 



I have shown, in the course of these papers, that the 

 flesh of animals killed under the conditions above repre- 

 sented is in a state of decomposition. The waste of 

 substance and nutritious matter is far in excess of the 

 reconstruction or organisation capable of being effected 

 by the quantity of food taken by the animal. A given 

 amount of food, in the requisite constituent properties, 



