HIPPOPHAGY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 810, 26 October 1877, Page 3

HIPPOPHAGY.

It is evident tii.it the consumption o! horseflesh, including that of mules and donkeys, is making definite progre-8 ’in Paris. In the year '1867, the number of horses converted iiffo food in the French capital did not reach 2,000, hut within three years it hail about doubled. The siege of Paris, which canned many to “make a virtue of necessity” in a variety of ways, has had some influence on the taste of our trans-Channel friends. T.ast year about 0,000 horses found their way to the butchers’ shops • kind this year a further increased consumption is shown from the returns of the first six months, which' record a total of 5,283 horsas, mules, and donkeys converted into joints. Thfts it may be.said that blppophasy has fairly established itself among the French, for many of the provincial towns and cities show a somewhat corresponding extension,of the .practice;; Germany, Belgium and Switzerland are also advancing in the same direction./ It is “John Bull,” who more than all the representatives of the human race »ots his face and pala l e resolutely against hippophagy. He can hardly he induced to look at, much less taste, horseflesh, to say nothing of donkeys and mules'. Since the great “ hippie” banquet some years ago at the Langham Hotel, when the horse was served in a score or more different forms, and served well, too, it is a question whether a score of converts have been made to horseflesh as an article of food in this country; and in vain did M. Hecroixe, at a grand hinpophacisHc banquet held at the Grand Hotel in Paris three years ago, offer 1000 francs and a gold medal to any hntcher who would open and keep open a shop in 1 ondon , for the sale of horseflesh for a period of times months. AVe can no more eat onr horses than our dogs or the “harmless necessary cat. ” And yet, prejudice apart, there is no valid objection to be maintained against the flesh of horses. Chemically it contains a larger proportion of nitrogenous material than even a well-fed ox ; and : t is ns easily digested as ordinary beef and mutton, and more so than veal or pork. Perhaps as a “ horsey” nation wo shrink from converting the “ noble animal” we love so well (and often torture so cruelly) into food '; and perhaps, too, there is Someihing more than a lurking suspicion that the flesh of a horse is unwholesome on the ground that it is scheduled in the Political Law as one of the animals which do not “ divide the hoof.” We are. not; howjver, about, to take upon ourselves the advocacy of horseflesh,.if for no other reason, for this —viz , that onr advocacy would not be likelv to produce any result. Still the question is one which the public should not lose sight of. Obi horses might be fattened —say for some three or four months—be{ire they pass into the bands of the butcher, and thus their flesh, which hna become tough from years of hard work, would bo brought to a more tender state. Moreover, old servants who have done well their work in life would enjoy a happy retirement from business, and be Spared the cruel demand on their exhausted powers to the bitter end.