M. DECROIX EATS HIS HORSE. 21 



surgeon, Guard of Paris, not only read a paper on horse- 

 flesh as an aliment, but supported his arguments by 

 inviting his hearers to judge for themselves by present- 

 ing soup, roast, boil, stew, all of horse-flesh. 



Our intrepidity in "eating a horse" is as nothing 

 compared with that of this most intrepidly benevolent 

 hippophagist. Engaged in military service in Algeria 

 during the campaign of 1859, he was obliged to sacri- 

 fice his horse, which had been seized with paralysis of 

 the hind legs. In his previous campaigns in Algeria, 

 the Crimea, and Italy, he had seen good dead horses 

 constantly allowed to rot, and was no wiser than his 

 comrades who witnessed this shameful waste without 

 thinking of their folly. But the paralysis of his own 

 steed recalling to him the exhortations of the hippo- 

 phagi, the valorous veterinary surgeon, instead of bury- 

 ing his defunct horse, ate him. And now he declares 

 that to thousands in Algeria and France he has given 

 horse-flesh, to their perfect content, yea, even delight. 

 He groans at the remembrance of the miseries of the 

 English soldier in the Crimean war, while relief was at 

 hand in good horse-flesh. He believes that hippo- 

 phagy will render great service to armies in the field ; 

 and that when horse-flesh is openly sold in shops and 

 markets, soldiers will lose their prejudice against it, and 

 that sailors will not throw wounded horses into the sea, 

 especially when their rations are salt meat producing 

 scurvy. He also justly remarks, that to understand its 

 advantages to an army during a campaign, it should not 

 be compared with the flesh of good animals, but with 

 that of the lean, worn-out, wretched oxen, which follow 

 expeditionary columns. 



But our benevolent veterinarian has illustrated the 

 value of horse-flesh to civilians in a way perfectly 

 unique. Something magnanimous was to be expected 

 from a man who ate his own horse. We sometimes, in a 

 loving and philosophical that is, hippophagous spirit, 

 look on a neighbour's horse, in temporary forgetfulness 



