102 ANIMAL FOOD EESOUECES OF DIFFEKENT NATIONS. ■ 



of good cooking, for it is on record that as late as 1629 

 a man was condemned to death and executed in France 

 for the crime of eating horseflesh on a Saturday in 

 Lent. 



A hundred and fifty years later, the use of the ab- 

 horred flesh was publicly advocated by a French phy- 

 sician. Not many converts to the doctrine were made, 

 however, until the retreat from Moscow. During that 

 terrible march, when the alternative was starvation, the 

 French soldiery ventured to eat their disabled horses, 

 and discovered that horseflesh would not only sustain 

 life, but was really savoury and inviting. Several ol 

 the surviving officers afterwards endeavoured to break 

 down the prejudice against horseflesh, and advocated its 

 regular use in times of peace, but without much efl"ect. 



Hugard, an eminent veterinary surgeon, states, tha^ in 

 the scarcity which followed the Revolution of 1789, the 

 greater part of the meat consumed in Paris for six months 

 was horseflesh, and that it caused no ill effect on the 

 public health. 



In Russia the custom has always prevailed, the Greek 

 Ohurch never having meddled with the matter. 



The distinguished army surgeon. Baron Larry, made 

 his wounded patients eat horseflesh in the campaigns of 

 the Rhine, of Catalonia and of the Maritime Alps, and 

 he ascribes to it the cure of a great number of his sick 

 in Egypt. The sale of horse-meat has now become a 

 legalised and recognised trade in many of the Conti- 

 nental States, especially in France and Germany. 



The Prefect of Police of Paris before legislating, ap- 

 pointed a commission of eminent and competent judges 

 to inquire into the quality as human food, of the flesh 

 taken from horses which had died, or were killed, in the 

 city and its environs. Although prejudiced at first 

 against horseflesh like the general public, the commis- 

 sion ultimately reported that the meat was good and 

 savoury, and there was little sensible difference found 

 between it and beef. 



Since 1860, when the first slaughtering of horses for 



