THE SHEEP AND ITS SKIN 



UCH that was written of cattle might be 

 repeated here ; and repeated with the 

 emphasis which belongs to the sacrifice not 

 only of four and a half millions of lives, 

 but of nineteen millions. 



For our tonnage of needful flesh increases 

 amongst the flocks ; and in the end, roughly speaking, each 

 man, woman, and child in England has yearly to account 

 for thirty-five pounds of English-killed beef, sixteen pounds 

 of English-killed mutton, and thirty pounds of foreign 

 meat.^ 



In all, therefore, eighty-one pounds of dead flesh and 

 blood to keep the live flesh and blood young for a year. 

 Surely a burden for us, who stand at the head of the flesh- 

 consuming races to bear with us through our lives ! For 

 rightly or wrongly who can say ? — this burden of lost life has 

 to be carried — somewhither — has to be made of some use 

 somewhere. That our race leads a strenuous life must be 

 admitted. Let us hope the machine is worth its fuel, yet 

 when one thinks of the alarming increase of the submerged 

 tenth, an increase which threatens to become a source of 



1 These numbers are those of the Journal of the Statistical Society. 



