PRODUCTION OP ANIMAL POOD. 
379 
Yes: in France, four million head yield four hundred 
million kilogrammes; and in England, two million yield five 
hundred million kilogrammes of meat, i he cause is that, in 
England, they kill neither so many calves nor so many old 
oxen ; and it is this correct and skilful proportion that gives 
them an economic position much superior to that of France 
in this respect. 
The lirst and most important of the encouragements to be 
given for the production of cattle is, an entire change in the 
present customs of the slaughter-house. “Freedom,” they 
say, is about to succeed monopoly in the great market of 
Paris, and to respond to the incessant and just complaints 
of the consumers; which is good news. The freedom of the 
slaughter-house is as useful to agriculture as to the con- 
sumer; for it will suppress a part of those intermediaries 
who absorb too large a share of the price, and cause the 
consumer to pay too dear for the meat, whilst the producer 
sells it too cheap, and is, consequently, disgusted with the 
market produce. 
Let us judge of this by the following statement, which is 
taken from official documents, and which shows that the 
average price of an ox weighing 350 kilogrammes (775 lb.) 
of net meat is 314f. (£13 Is. 8<£), or per kilogramme 89c. 
to 90c., (or about 4 cl. per lb.) Certainly, there is a consider- 
able difference between this price and the selling price of 
meat ; and if, as ought in justice to be the case, the greatest 
part of it accrued to the grazier, his advantage would be a 
powerful encouragement to production. But, besides the 
indispensable intermediation of the butchers, there are others 
of all sorts. There is the Pay Office of Poissy, which 
charges, besides an interest of five per cent, upon the loan 
granted to the butcher, a municipal right of 3c.; which 
led M. Chale to say, in his deposition before the Parlia- 
mentary Inquiry made in 185.1 : “The Pay Office of Poissy 
is an instrument with which the City of Paris takes 
l,400,000f. from the pockets of the agriculturists, under the 
pretext of ensuring their payments, which they do not ensure 
at all.” Next, there is the town due of 2c. per kilogramme, 
and the abattoir tax of rather more than 7c., making in all 
15c. 3| milles. 
But still this is not all. There is, in consequence of the 
law which makes it imperative to bring all the animals to 
the markets of Sceaux and Poissy, intended for the supply 
of Paris, at least one purchaser at first hand, who forms the 
groups of cattle, and conducts them to the privileged market; 
but there are more frequently two, three, and even four 
