110 
The Food of lite People. 
Jk'foro we pass from tbis subject it may be well to suggest 
for consideration whether tbe farmer should not usually under- 
take on his own farm the slaughtering of his beasts and sheep. 
It is clearly of great importance to the goodness of the meat, 
and to its pi'eservation from rapid putrefaction, that the animal 
should be killed in a quiet state. All travelling by rail or by 
road is injurious to a fat animal; and one does not see, prima 
facie, any reason why a bullock or a sheep should not be slaugh- 
tered on the farm where it has been brought to perfection, as 
well as a fatted hog. 
The subject of milk is highly important in many ways. 
Milk. — The transit of milk by railways demands immediate 
attention and improvement. It is almost as bad as possible. 
They manage these things better in France. The milk-can 
which is used on the French railways, and may be seen at the 
house of the Society of Arts, is not nearly so large and heavy as 
the lumbering can, appropriately called the " churn," which is 
used on our English lines. A man can easily lift the French 
can ; it is filled full of milk, and is so stoppered down that there 
is no room for the least motion to churn the milk and separate 
its buttery particles. The can in hot weather is covered with 
a textile wrapper, which is watered with a fine rose before the 
train starts ; and in a long journey the watering is repeated at 
intervals. There are special milk-vans, in which the cans are 
arranged in tiers : and the effect of the whole system is that the 
milk is carried without deterioration. This cannot now be said 
to be the case in England : a very short journey on an English 
line damages the milk and lowers its price ; but a little com- 
bination among the producers of milk in any dairy district would 
be sufficient to compel the railway companies to improve their 
arrangements. 
The subject is extremely important, because milk, being a very 
perishable article, is one in which the home farmer has great 
advantages over the foreigner, and because all the medical 
authorities agree that, with rare exceptions, the supply of milk is 
very inadc(juate to the real requirements of the people of England, 
and especially of the children of England, whose health and 
strength cannot be maintained at their proper standard without a 
much larger allowance of milk than they now obtain. It does 
not appear that the milk sold to the rich in London is much 
diluted after leaving the cow ; but in the sale of cream a gross 
fraud is habitually practised. The cream-measures are commonly 
about 25 per cent, below their nominal capacity, so that the pur- 
chaser of six pennyworth of cream is commonly cheated out of at 
least three-halfpence. When we come to the sale of milk to the 
poor, in low neighbourhoods, we find that the grossest frauds are 
