in either a wholesale or retail manner to a very
great extent. Some of the very worst description
of diseased animals brought to Smithfield alive
are hero slaughtered, and large quantities of meat
from the country, totally unfit for food, arrive in
every stage of disease, and are sold by the pound
and the stone, to a fearful extent. The following
are the names of the other meat markets, to all of
which some diseased animals and meat find their
way,—and to none of them is any Inspector
appointed:—

"Clare Market, retail; Newport, wholesale and
retail: St. George's, retail; Oxford, retail;
Portman, retail; Brook's, retail; Sheppard's, retail;
Boro', retail; 'Carnaby, retail; Spitalfields, retail;
Finsbury, retail. At all of these markets the meat
is exposed for sale on Saturday evenings, under
the glare of projecting gas burners; and the poor,
who receive their wages on that day, and are the
principal customers, are deceived by its appearance
in this light; their object is of course to obtain
the cheapest and the most economical joints; the
meat without fat, which is generally most diseased,
is selected by them, being considered the most
profitable, though the fact is that this species of
meat has been proved to be the cause of cancerous
diseases, and diseases of the chest and lungs."

The above was attested by one of the
witnesses before the Committee of 1828. To
think of these abominations having gone on
regularly ever since! Why, it looks as though
our legislators had received a communication
from one of the Inspectors, assuring honourable
gentlemen that " it was all nonsense, all
this talk about diseased meat! If the meat
was now and then a little queer—though he
had never seen such a thing—none of the
poor were any the worse for eating it! " But
we will answer for one thing;—the Inspector
never breathed a word about the preserved
meats which so frequently present themselves
with a modest air in purple and white china
as delicacies for rich men's tables!

The foreign stock, and the circumstances
tinder which they arrive, must not be passed
over. They are confined during four or five,
or even six days, in the dark and stifling hold
of the vessel, and it frequently occurs that in
all this time there is scarcely any food given
them (we are assured, on good authority, that
there is often none) nor one drop of water.
The condition in which they arrive may be
conjectured. Besides the extensive preparations
for the Monday's market, which are
made by the drovers and salesmen of the
home stock during Sunday, the desecration of
the " day of rest " is immensely increased by
the supply of foreign stock, which arrives at
the railway at the same time. Foreign vessels,
(we are quoting from evidence before a
Committee) bringing cattle, endeavour to arrive
here on Sunday as early as possible, in order
that the salesman may see the stock before the
animals are brought into the market. There
is also a very large supply of calves from
Holland, which are all carted from Blackwall; and
the confusion and uproar there, and at Brewer's
Quay on a Sunday morning, passes all belief.
Great quantities of cattle are also sent on
Sunday in order to avoid the expence of
lairage or standing-room. About two
thousand men and boys are employed in this
real Sunday desecration. Need we say, it is
of the most shocking and cruel nature? Here
is something really worthy of the storm that
is so much wasted on minor matters in this
much-vexed question.

CLASS OPINIONS.

A  FABLE

A LAMB strayed for the first time into the
woods, and excited much discussion among
other animals. In a mixed company, one day,
when he became the subject of a friendly
gossip, the goat praised him.

"Pooh! " said the lion, " this is too absurd.
The beast is a pretty beast enough, but did
you hear him roar? I heard him roar, and,
by the manes of my fathers, when he roars
he does nothing but cry ba-a-a! " And the
lion bleated his best in mockery, but bleated
far from well.

"Nay," said the deer, " I do not think so
badly of his voice. I liked him well enough
until I saw him leap. He kicks with his
hind legs in running, and, with all his skipping,
gets over very little ground."

"It is a bad beast altogether,"said the tiger.
"He cannot roar, he cannot run, he can do
nothing—and what wonder? I killed a man
yesterday, and, in politeness to the new comer,
offered him a bit; upon which he had the
impudence to look disgusted, and say, ' No,
sir, I eat nothing but grass.'"

So the beasts criticised the Lamb, each in
his own way; and yet it was a good Lamb,
nevertheless.

THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL ON
"LIFE " IN LONDON.

THE Modern Babylon, so great in other
things, has a giant's appetite for mortality. On
an average, a thousand persons die in
London weekly, and are, as a rule, buried under
the ground on which they fall. In old days
there was no general record of the character
and locality of this great concentrated
mortality; but since the establishment of our
present system of registration of births,
marriages, and deaths, we are able to test not only
how many people die, but where they die and
what they die of; and are able to tell
moreover, to a considerable extent, how far the
mortality may be ascribed to inevitable and
how far to removable causes. We can
now, in fact, almost say, how many die by
the folly of man and how many by the law of
nature.

The volumes in which this information is
given are by no means attractive at a first
glance. They appear under the authority of
a government office, and contain column after