176 
Statistics of Live Stock and Dead Meat 
nation on the part of a portion of the labouring classes to 
abstain from the consumption of meat until prices shall have 
declined to a lower range. Even as it is, nearly all inferior 
joints are disposed of at a rate which is a loss to the butcher, 
so that the effect of our present high prices falls first and 
chiefly on the upper and middle classes of society, who buy 
the prime joints at prices further enhanced by the difficulty of 
disposing of inferior joints, and secondly, on the ljutcher, who, 
of late, has hardly derived any profit from his trade. The rise 
in price is chiefly due to changes connected with the compara- 
tive prosperity of our artizans ; but the burden has fallen even 
more severely on others than on them. 
Higher wages, extraordinary activity in commerce, and a 
teeming population have, we have no hesitation in saying, not 
only reduced the available supplies of stock in the country, and 
introduced a system of breeding different from that of some 
twenty years since, but they have placed the country in a 
position from which it seems difficult to escape. We need 
not, perhaps, enter into particulars to prove that wages are 
now higher, and that the population has increased ; but we 
may refer to one fact which, at once, is conclusive as regards 
our commercial greatness. The " official " value of our imports 
and exports of produce and manufactures, in 1859, was nearly 
450,000,000/. sterling, against about [220,000,000/. in 1839. In 
the past six years we have exported over 160,000,000/. in bullion, 
and fully that enormous quantity has been imported. Here, 
then, Ave see a state of prosperity without a parallel in the 
history of any country. This prosperity must, of course, " be 
fed," and it remains for our graziers and breeders to determine 
how far, and by what means, they can increase the supply of 
animal food to keep pace with the wants of the times. 
There is another point to which we may here allude, as tend- 
ing to keep up the value of live stock, viz., the enormous price 
of tallow in our markets. The operations of the speculative class 
in Russia, in 1859, prevented the usual quantities of tallow from 
being shipped to England, and the result was, that at one period 
the quotations for Siberian qualities in London were as high as 
64s. per cwt. The decline in the consumption produced a fall of 
fully 10s. per cwt. ; but owing to the scarcity of home-made tallow 
a portion of the decline has been recovered. Rough fat has of 
course fluctuated with the value of tallow. In the early part of 
the year the first-named article was worth os. Ad., now it is 
selling readily at 2s. 9^c/. per 8 lbs. Thus it will be perceived 
that a refuse has realised the value of good consumable food in 
ordinary periods of abundance. If fat is to continue at a high 
