112 
The Food of the People. 
iiionts of meat. Add, however, to the extract some other sub- 
stance which contains fibrine and albumen — for example, egj^s or 
lentils, or ripened grain seeds, i, e., bread — and you have the full 
equivalents of meat. No one, who has been in the habit of 
taking the extractum carnis regularly as a part of his food, can 
doubt that it has helped to feed him. If we had discovered a 
certain method of bringing fresh, uncooked, unsalted joints of 
mutton and beef from the ends of the world, from Australia and 
South America, to be sold in this country at a reasonable price, 
it would be foolish to manufacture the extract, except for the 
use of invalids, and as the beefy element of soups, handy and 
ever ready for use ; but at present we are merely groping after 
such a method, and trying experiments ; and therefore it is very 
desirable that we should at present continue to import such 
parts of the beef of South America and Austialia as can be 
reduced into this highly portable and almost imperishable form, 
more especially as by the addition of eggs, or vegetable equiva- 
lents, we can supply efficient substitutes for those parts which 
at present we have no certain means of bringing from distant 
lands. 
It must be admitted that the probability of large and ever 
increasing importations of meat from the colonies and foreign 
countries presents a serious lookout for the British farmer ; but 
he will do well to consider whether there may not be some 
streaks of brightness in the horizon. 
In the first place it is clear from indisputable evidence that 
great numbers of the people of this country are at present insuffi- 
ciently fed. A very large part of the population of towns, and a 
considerable part of the population of rural districts, are shown 
by good medical witnesses to be undergoing a steady course of 
physical degeneration from this cause. Nor is physical de- 
generacy ever unaccompanied by intellectual and moral de- 
generacy. While, therefore, the tendency of the labour market 
is constantly towards a rise of wages, and the farmers in some 
districts are the objects of obloquy, because they do not pay 
higher wages, the value which they receive for their payments 
has in some counties no corresponding tendency to rise ; and the 
labour available in the lowest waged districts is scarcely worth 
the low wages that are paid. The farmer, therefore, of all men, 
has the greatest interest in the improvement of the physical, 
moral, and intellectual condition of the farm labourer. It is far 
better for all of us to pay a good price for a good article than a 
low price for a bad article. 
It may be taken as certain that the home supplies of animal 
food must be supplemented from beyond seas. It is useless to 
say that, if the condition of things, and the public opinion in 
