8 HIPPOPHAGY. 



and the benefit of which we may have to-morrow if we 

 please to will it to-day." 



Whether M. Saint-Hilaire ever heard of the well- 

 known recipe for hare-soup, beginning with, "First 

 catch your hare," we know not. Certain it is that 

 he, very considerately, first informs us where we may 

 find the horses on which he invites us to feed. With most 

 praiseworthy precision he states the relative propor- 

 tions of the various animal products consumable in 

 France ; from which it results that the supply of horse- 

 flesh is equal to one-fourth of the animal food consumed 

 at present. " Singular social anomaly, the long endur- 

 ance of which will one day excite amazement ! There 

 are millions of Frenchmen who never eat flesh, while 

 every month millions of pounds of good meat are ap- 

 plied to very secondary uses, or even thrown into the 

 dunghill. Behold what science herself has authorised 

 up to this day, at least by her silence ! as if even she 

 were afraid to oppose a popular prejudice, and to open 

 her hand and spread abroad useful truths which she 

 had in her possession." 



" After the question of quantity comes that of qua- 

 lity," so begins part second of these interesting Let- 

 ters. This is the point where our Professor most needs 

 his rhetorical skill, and appeals to facts and testimonies 

 of the enlightened few who, in Europe, have tried 

 Hippophagy. His appeal to our palate is so irresis- 

 tible that, being about to sit down to dinner, we are 

 heartily sorry at not having the prospect of seeing at 

 our table vol-au-vents d 'amourette from the spinal mar- 

 row of a horse ; nor horse-soup, nor horse-pie d la mode; 

 nor a roast of horse-chine, all of which, we know, 

 were lately received with " explosions de satisfaction" 

 by a party of Parisian HippophagL 



Eeasoning from analogy, we should expect little 

 difference in the nutritious qualities of the flesh of the 

 horse and the ox. Like our best butcher-meat animals, 

 the horse is herbivorous. The only notable difference 



