HIPPOPHAGY IN PAEIS. 19 



Though the Parisians cannot buy the flesh of the horse 

 in the public markets or in private shops, it is never- 

 theless an article of considerable consumption. Sys- 

 tematic efforts are being made to extend the use of it ; 

 and so far from being sentimental, and listening to the 

 outcry of some who protest against the barbarity of 

 eating an old friend who may have served us faithfully 

 in love or in war, the horse-flesh-eating movement is 

 mainly promoted by the Society for Preventing Cruelty 

 to Animals. At the beginning of last year, this Society 

 appointed a Commission to take all steps in order that 

 the flesh of the horse shall become an article of public 

 consumption. 



The Commission was of opinion that the best way of 

 accustoming the poor to the new diet was to offer it 

 gratuitously. It, therefore, opened a subscription for 

 the purpose of buying healthy worn-out horses, and 

 giving them away. The list was soon numerously 

 signed. M. Ducoux, formerly Prefect of Police, and 

 Director of the Cab Company, paid his subscription in 

 kind by presenting a horse to be distributed among the 

 poor at Easter. The Countess of Clerambault, of whose 

 comical conversion to the creed of the hippophagi we 

 have yet to tell, is also to give a horse, so convinced is 

 she now of the importance of affording the poor oppor- 

 tunities of getting rid of prejudice against such valuable 

 food. 



It is thus manifest that the zeal, eloquence, and abil- 

 ity of the lamented naturalist, Isidore Geoffroy Saint- 

 Hilaire, are bearing fruit, and that there will soon be 

 the fulfilment of his ardent wishes that the working- 

 classes in France should participate more freely of ani- 

 mal food, not from creatures to be acquired abroad and 

 acclimatised with care and cost, but already existing 

 in France abundantly. France contains more than 

 3,000,000 horses. It is calculated that these animals 

 are renewed every fifteen years : for at the expiry of 

 this period they are worn out, and must be got rid of. 



