ARTICLES OP FOOD. 37 



country, lias been extensively circulated. We mny admit that 

 horse soups, and horse stews, and all the made dishes for which 

 French cookery is famous, may be agreeable, and disguised, as 

 they are, may be pronounced good as beef. But that, when 

 the natural juice and flavor is preserved, as in a roast, it cannot 

 be distinguished from beef, is an assertion that no re|)orts of 

 French savans can render credible ; they must tell it to the 

 horse marines — we should be asses to believe it. However, it 

 may be, that from France, whence come so many edicts of 

 fashion and science, Avill come the law to eat horse meat, and 

 that it will yet be seen on our butcher stalls, side by side, 

 with beef and mutton. Then at least the horse show in an 

 agricultural society's exhibition will be legitimate and unob- 

 jectionable. 



Wild animals have ever afforded an important aliment and 

 an esteemed luxury. Every variety have been, eaten, the car- 

 nivorous as well as the herbiverous ; yet with that strange per- 

 versity of prejudice that lias always existed with respect to 

 food, every race of hunters has arbitrarily excluded some kinds 

 as unlit for food. 



Our indignation is aroused when we consider the misery and 

 degradation imposed upon agricultural laborers in past ages by 

 the passion for the chase. A simple desire to procure the ani- 

 mals for food has by no means been the principal incitements 

 to the wrongs and o])pressions heaped upon the tillers of the 

 soil. The cruelties and exactions of the game laws have 

 equalled any other slavery that has ever existed. In France, 

 at the commencement of the Revolution, the game laws fettered 

 the most important operations of agriculture. The most 

 destructive animals, wild boars, and herds of deer, were allowed 

 to range unobstructed, to fatten upon the growing crops. Mow- 

 ing, hoeing and weeding were prohibited, lest some species of 

 birds or the eggs, should be destroyed ; and using certain kinds 

 of manure was forbidden, lest the flavor of some delicate species 

 of game should be injured. 



Fi^li, have in every age afforded an abundant supply of food. 

 To the Jews they were in part prohibited, and other nations 

 have at times rejected them. It is a singular fact, that in Eng- 

 land, not long after the Reformation, and while all usages of 

 the Romanists were held in abhorrence, it was found necessary 



