290 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 9. 
; sickle anti other tail feathers of the Silvor-spanglecl Ham- 
. burgh cock would appear to most advantage if merely tipped 
with black on a white ground; but the specimens usually 
seen thus marked have commonly been defective in other 
material points, hence, the prizes have fallen to dark-tailed 
opponents. “ Hamburgh characteristics,” we would observe, 
were written before the last Birmingham exhibition, where 
the spangled-tailed birds certainly came out more strongly 
than on previous occasions. But although a perfectly 
spangled tail would fairly take precedence of one in which 
both black and white are present, the former prepoderating, 
we should still regard the latter in a more favourable light 
than one with irregularly spangled, or with a larger pro¬ 
portion of white. We find the following note attached to 
our memorandum at the last exhibition in Bingley Hall. 
“ The tails of several of the Silver-spangled Hamburghs 
were perfectly spangled on the sickle as well as on the 
other feathers.” In conclusion, we would assure “ Fairplay” 
| that his signature is the sole principle on which all our 
poultry criticisms are ever founded.—W.] 
; HOW LONDON IS SUPPLIED WITH MEAT, 
POULTRY, VEGETABLES, AND MILK. 
London has always been celebrated for the excellence of 
its meat, and her sons do justice to it; at least, it has 
become the universal impression that they consume more, 
man for man, than any other town population in the world. 
It was a sirloin, fresh and ruddy, hanging before the door of 
Gibblet or Slater in a former century, that inspired, we 
| suspect, the song which ever since has stirred Englishmen 
1 in a foreign land, “ The lioast Beef of Old England.” The 
I visitor accustomed to the markets of our large provincial 
towns, would doubtless expect to find the emporium of the 
live-stock trade for so vast a population of an imposing size. 
The foreigner, after seeing the magnificence of our docks, 
the solidity and span of our bridges, might naturally look for 
a national exposition of our greatness, in the chief market 
which is dedicated to that British beef which is the boast of 
John Bull. What they do see in reality, if they have 
courage to wend their way along any of the narrow tumble- 
| down streets approaching to Smithfield, which the great fire 
unfortunately spared, is an irregular space bounded by dirty 
j houses and the ragged party-walls of demolished habitations, 
| which give it the appearance of the site of a recent con- 
ilagration—the whole space comprising just six acres, fifteen 
perches, roads and public thoroughfares included. Into 
this narrow area, surrounded with slaughter houses, triperies, 
! hone-boiling houses, gut-scraperies, &c., the mutton-chops, 
scrags, saddles, legs, sirloins, and rounds, which grace the 
smiling hoards of our noble imperial capital throughout the 
year, have, for the major part, been goaded and contused for 
the benefit of the civic corporation installed at Guildhall. 
Thanks to the common sense which has at length lifted up 
its potential voice, the days of Smithfield are numbered, and 
I those who wish to see this enormous aggregation of edible 
quadrupeds, before it takes its departure to its spacious new 
abode at Copenhagen fields must not delay the visit much 
longer. The host time is early in the morning, say one or 
two o’clock of the “ great day,” ns the last market before 
Christmas-day is called. On this occasion, not only the 
space—calculated to hold -IKK) oxen and 30,000 sheep, 
besides calves and pigs— is crammed, but the approaches 
1 around it overflow with live-stock for many hundred feet, 
and sometimes the cattle are seen blocking up the passage 
as far ns St. Sepulchre’s church. If the stranger can make 
his way through the crow'd, and by means of some vantage- 
ground or door-step can manage to raise himself a few feet 
1 above the general level, lie sees before him in one direction, 
by the dim red light of hundreds of torches, a writhing 
party-coloured mass, surmounted by twisting horns, some, in 
rows, tied to rails which run along the whole length of the 
open space, some gathered together in one struggling knot. 
In another quarter, the moving torches reveal to him, now 
and then, through the misty light, a couple of acres of living 
wool, or roods of pigs’ skins. If ho ventures into this 
closely wedged and labouring mass, he is enabled to watch 
more narrowly the reason of this universal ferment among 
the beasts. The drover with his goad is forcing the cattle 
into the smallest possible compass, and a little further on 
half-a-dozen men are malting desperate efforts to drag 
refractory oxen up to the rails with ropes. In the scuffle 
which ensues, the slipping of the ropes often snaps the 
fingers of the persons who are conducting the operation, and 
there is scarce a drover in the market who has not had 
some of his digits broken. The sheep, squeezed into hurdles 
like figs in a drum, lie down upon each other, “ and make 
no sign ; ” the pigs, on the other hand, cry out before they 
are hurt. This scene, which has more the appearance of a 
hideous nightmare than a weekly exhibition in a civilised 
country, is accompanied by the barking of dogs, the bellowing 
of cattle, the cursing of men, and dull blows of sticks—a 
charivari of sound that must be heard to be appreciated. 
The hubbub gradually abates from 12 o’clock at night, the 
time of opening, to its close at 3 r.ii. next day; although, 
during the whole period, as fresh lots are “ headed up,” 
individual acts of cruelty continue. Can it excite surprise 
that a state of things, the worst details of which we have 
suppressed, because of the pain which such horrors excite, 
sometimes so injures the stock, that, to quote the words of 
one of the witnesses before the Smithfield Commission, “ a 
grazier will not know his own beast four days after it has 
left him ? ” The meat itself suffers in quality ; for anything 
like fright or passion is well known to affect the blood, and, 
consequently,'the flesh. Beasts subjected to such disturbances 
will often turn green within twenty-four hours after death. 
Mr. Slater, the well-known butcher of Kensington and 
Jermyn Street, states that mutton is often so disfigured by 
blows and the goad that it cannot he sold for the West-end 
tables. Many of the drovers, we doubt not, are ruffians, but 
j we believe the greater part of this cruelty is to he ascribed to 
the market-place itself, which, considering the immense 
amount of business to he got through on Mondays and 
Fridays, is absurdly and disgracefully confined. According 
to the official account, the number of live stock exhibited in 
1 1853 was— 
Oxen. Sheep. Calves. Pigs. Total. 
291,571 1,518,010 36,791 29,593 1,893,888 
But this is far from giving a true idea of the whole amount 
I brought into London. Much stock arrives in the capital 
which never enters the great mart. For example, Mr. Slater, 
i who kills per week, on the average, 200 sheep, and from 20 
to 25 oxen, says, in his evidence before the Smithfield 
Commission, that he buys a great deal of his stock from the 
j graziers in Norfolk and Essex. Again, ‘town’ pigs are 
1 slaughtered and sent direct to the meat market, while many 
I sheep are bought from the parks where they have been 
temporally placed till they find a purchaser. A much more 
correct estimate of the flocks and herds which are annually 
i consumed in London may be gathered from a report of the 
numbers transmitted by the different lines of railway, com- 
J piled from official sources by Mr. Ormandy, the cattle-txaftio 
manager of the North-Western Railway. From this able 
pamphlet we extract the following table :— 
Total 
Oxen. 
Sheep. 
Calves. 
Pigs. 
for 1853. 
By Eastern Counties . . 
81,7-14 
277,735 
3,492 
23,427 
386,398 
,, L. & N. Western. . 
70,435 
248,445 
5,113 
24,287 
348,280 
,, Great Northern . . 
15,439 
120,333 
563 
8,973 
145,308 
,, Great Western . . 
6,813 
104,607 
2,320 
2,909 
116,649 
,, L & S. Western . . 
4,885 
100,960 
1,781 
516 
108,142 
,, South Eastern. . . 
875 
58,320 
114 
142 
59,451 
„ h. & B. ft S. Coast . 
863 
13,690 
117 
54 
14,764 
,, Sea from North of 1 
England & Scotland J 
14,662 
11,141 
421 
3,672 
29,896 
,, Sea from Ireland . . 
Imported from the Con- } 
2,311 
3,482 
21 
5,476 
11,280 
55,065 
229 , 91 s 
25,720 
10,131 
320,834 
Driven in by road, and \ 
from the neighbour¬ 
hood of the metropolis - 
(obtainedfrom the toll- 
gate lessees). . . . J 
69,096 
462,172 
62,114 
48,265 
611,647 
Total ... * 
322,188 
1 , 630,093 
110,776 
127,852 2,182,600 
These numbers show at a glance what a part the railway 
plays in supplying animal food to the metropolis, and how 
trifling in comparison is the amount that travels up on foot. 
The Eastern Counties lines, penetrating and monopolising 
