carting stone and sand under savage drivers ;
ending by dropping down on the road
exhausted, and by dying in harness. Were I a
horse, with such a prospect, my adhesion to
hippophagy would be very emphatic. How
infinitely better for an aged hack to be fatted
and to live in clover during his declining days
than to be starved, beaten, and compelled to
drag burdens very much beyond his strength.
Authorities say, that in order that horseflesh
should attain its proper excellence, the
animal ought to be kept in repose during the
last six or seven weeks of his existence—a
longer period of good-living and ease would
give a corresponding improvement of
condition. This system, if general, would, in
fact, amount to the pensioning off of all our
horses past service for a definite instead of an
indefinite length of time, to be terminated by
sudden death from the butcher's hand instead
of by the slow decay of expiring old age. If
it will pay to fatten an ox who has served his
time in the plough, or a cow who has fulfilled
her contributions to the dairy, it would also
remunerate the grazier to fatten a horse past
work, supposing that his carcase could be
disposed of as readily as those of the ruminants.

And what prevents it? Prejudice, and
nothing else ! the same prejudice which
makes the English refuse to taste frogs and
escargots, though both are esteemed and
expensive dishes on the continent ; which
makes the Orientals reject the flesh of the
hog, though here we know how good it is ;
which causes, in short, nearly one-half the
world to loathe nutriment which is greedily
consumed by the other half ; which has
given rise to the true, but unreasonable, fact,
that one man's meat is another man's poison.
Starving Irishmen would not eat Indian corn.
And on what solid base is this prejudice
founded ? on custom—on the want of being
used to the strange aliment—and on nothing
more ; for young children, of whatever
nation, to whom frogs, the meal of maize,
and pork are given to eat, relish them as if
they were not regarded by multitudes as a
pollution, a horror, and a sin.

I think that in these remarks there
are no false premises, nor begging of the
question; in that case, it can do us no
harm merely to listen to what the
hippophagists have to say. One learned and
powerful advocate, M. Isidore Geoffroy St.
Hilaire, professor of zoology at the Museum
of Paris, has endeavoured, by means of his
public lectures, to bring the question of the
use of horseflesh to an affirmative solution,
which he hopes will arrive at a not-distant
future; because, as he remarks, the agitation
is made at a time when the alimentary
supply is more and more narrowly hemmed
in by the dilemma of insufficiency or of
sophistication.

Almost all our auxiliary animals, says
the professor, are, at the same time, fit
for aliment. This fact admits of easy
explanation. By multiplying these animals,
man at the same time creates an immense
fund of strength and a great quantity
of alimentary matter ; and he is induced
to profit by the latter when the former are
defective or have become useless. Why,
then, should not the horse—an animal of
lofty stature, and one of our most important
auxiliaries—why should not the horse, or, to
speak more correctly, why should the horse
no longer be devoted to the feeding of the
people ?

At the present day, except in a few
scattered districts, nothing except his strength
is demanded of the horse in return for the
food which he consumes. When the horse
approaches decrepitude, or is the victim of
any accident which diminishes his services or
renders them impossible, he is a capital on
the point of being sunk without return; a
few odds and ends of his remains are all
that are turned to any use. Nevertheless,
his flesh would offer a valuable resource for
alimentation, did not a deeply-rooted prejudice
discredit it in the public mind, by
attributing to it unpleasant circumstances from
which, in fact, it is exempt. Buffon himself
did not hesitate to condemn it, as a very
inferior aliment; but undoubtedly the great
naturalist was inspired on that subject by the
general opinion, and only spoke by hearsay;
for it is scarcely probable that a joint of
horseflesh ever figured, as a dish, on the table
of the Seigneur of Montbard. There are
not less than two millions of horses in France.
Whatever small portion of all these animals is
used for food, is very trifling in quantity, and
is always served up by fraudulent means. In
Paris there is a daily clandestine trade in
horseflesh, both for the restaurants, who serve it as
fillet of venison; and for the poor, who in that
case pay for it more than its real market-value
as meat. A possible result of the
clandestine sale is, that glandered horses may be
brought to market; and it is now an
established fact that that terrible disease, the
glanders, is communicable to the human
system. But, by a public and open sale,
under the same authorised inspection as is
exercised at the abattoirs, all danger of the
kind is avoided. Under the existing system,
the outer integuments and the offal only of
the horse are employed in the arts, while
millions of men are obliged to abstain from
meat and even from bread, feeding on chesnuts
or potatoes. Like the ox and the sheep,
the horse is essentially herbivorous; no
noxious element is elaborated in his economy.
His flesh is richly azotised and free from the
slightest unwholesomeness. Moreover, it is
far from being disagreeable to the taste, as
will appear from a few out of numerous
testimonials.

The Baron de Tott relates in his Memoirs,
that, when entertained in his capacity of
Envoy from the King of France, at the table
of Krim Gueray, the Khan of the Tartars,