28 THE PROGRESS OF HIPPOPHAGY. 



undergo painful operations, the application of fire for 

 instance, often resorted to in desperation, and not al- 

 ways able to repair the waste induced by excessive 

 fatigue. This period, so very painful to them, and so 

 costly to their owners, would be shortened by the 

 establishment of horse-meat stalls, offering an advan- 

 tageous way of disposing of the animals. 



The advantages to the proprietors of horses are, ac- 

 cording to M. Decroix, equally obvious. An old horse 

 sent to the slaughter-house is at present worth about 

 20 francs ; but when hippophagy becomes general the 

 average price, it is supposed, will be raised to 75 francs ; 

 and as France and Algeria possess three millions of 

 horses, and one million of asses and mules (the flesh of 

 which is better than that of the horse), the public for- 

 tune will be increased by the sum of 119,046; and 

 the working-classes will have a large amount of horse- 

 flesh at less than twopence a-pound. "... 



It were well that everybody should help to beat down 

 prejudice by, at least occasionally, eating horse-flesh. 

 But as the name is not inviting, we propose that the 

 viand should be termed cheval, on the same principle 

 that we derive from the French the names respectively 

 employed to designate the flesh of the sheep, the calf, 

 and the ox. It is to be hoped that the altered nomen- 

 clature will facilitate the introduction to our tables of a 

 valuable and savoury species of food, and that even the 

 most refined ladies will not look shy at roast cheval; and 

 that the fastidious dyspeptic will gladly partake of che- 

 val soup, when assured, on the authority of Liebig, that 

 it contains a notable quantity of that remarkable crys- 

 tallised substance to which he has given the name Tcrea- 

 tine, and which appears to exercise a singular function 

 in the digestion of food. 



But the poor and the working-classes are specially 

 interested in these foreign doings relating to alimenta- 

 tion. In 1862 the poor receiving assistance in twenty 

 districts of Paris were 115,114; to whom were distri- 



