AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 147 



The price of meat is reckoned from that of '* rind- 

 fleisch," as the price of corn of all kinds is calculated from 

 that of rye, as the standard. Little as the butcher has 

 to do in the village, and easily as he can evade all pre- 

 scriptive price by substituting inferior quality where good 

 beasts are not vrell paid for, the black board, with its 

 lines for the price of enumerated articles sold by him, 

 still mai'ks the butcher's shop, and affords a kind of 

 assurance to the credulous peasant that he shall not be 

 worse treated than his neighbour. The excise of meat 

 is continued in the Prussian towns by the authorities, 

 because it affords a means of estimating the slaugh- 

 tering-tax, which is still levied in place of the pro- 

 perty-tax in many places. It is as popular, however, 

 amongst the citizens as the famed excise of bread used to 

 be amongst the housewives of London during the war, 

 when no other resource was supposed practicable against 

 the enormities of bakers and mealmen. 



The fixing a price for articles of food deprives the poor 

 of the possibility of selecting a less costly joint when cir- 

 cumstances are adverse. On the other hand, as the 

 poor have no means of bribing the butcher to begin a 

 new cut when they come, and to cause him to leave any 

 stump that may lie upon his block for the smart cookmaid 

 or housekeeper of a richer neighbour, it operates as an 

 excuse for oppression in many ways. Not only must the 

 butcher's customers take the cut as they find it, if he 

 chooses to make them follow in their turn, but he claims 

 the exclusive command of a certain market, without inter- 

 ference, as a recompense for the supposed curtailment of 

 his profits by the excise. The licence to open a butcher's 

 shop is therefore not easily obtained. The price of meat 



