"MEAT WORKS THE WARK." 29 



bated 162,535 francs worth of meat cooked and raw ; 

 that is, each of the poor received about 2J lb., costing 

 about fourteenpence, in the year. In a capital where 

 butcher-meat is so dear, it is certainly inexplicable that 

 any obstacle should be thrown in the way of obtaining 

 an additional supply. Any increase of agricultural pro- 

 duce, however limited, is hailed as a public boon ; but 

 with whimsical inconsistency many of the Parisians 

 still deride the proposal to introduce into the markets 

 the annual addition of about a hundred millions of 

 pounds of excellent animal food. It is most short- 

 sighted policy to under-feed the man who feeds us that 

 is, the working-man. You may house him better and 

 raise his wages ; but to enable him to bear up against 

 toil and sickness you must give him more animal food. 

 " Pour bien travailler ilfaut bien manger" says M. De- 

 croix ; which is the French form of the Scottish pro- 

 verb, " It's the meat that works the wark, and no the 

 lang day." This remark is specially commended to 

 the consideration of agriculturists in Scotland. No 

 class of the community eats so little butcher-meat as 

 that of the ploughman. Fortunately he is not discon- 

 tented : weekly he sees mountains of beef and mutton 

 transported from the farms where his labour produced 

 that which enabled his master to gratify the carnivor- 

 ous longings of the community. And yet his teeth do 

 not seem to water ! Visions of rump-steaks, rounds of 

 beef, and savoury soups, appear not to impair his appe- 

 tite for the inevitable brose. Well, if he be satisfied, 

 why discompose his mind and derange his digestion, it 

 may be, by cultivating a taste for mutton broth, or che- 

 val soup ? To those who so speak we reply, he has 

 an apparatus for masticating and assimilating animal 

 food precisely like your own. And if, as we know is 

 the case, he be no longer fit for the regular work of the 

 farm at the age of little more than fifty years, we think, 

 as a question of social economy, it deserves to be con- 

 sidered whether the sameness of his vegetable diet has 



