MEAT PRESERVATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2058, 1 May 1907, Page 4

MEAT PRESERVATION.

AN ITALIAN METHOD. Tito Crnvori method ol preserving meat, of tvliich n groat 1 ion 1 wns hoard sonic months ago, lias boon subjected to searching inquiry and experiment by a number of University prolossors, and is reviewed in a recent report by the Italian Minister of Agriculture. By the Oaveri process meat is preserved in a fit and edible condition by tbo uso of perfectly harmless chemicals. Ordinary antiseptics aro not used at, all, and tbo usual method ol salting is regarded as quito insulli■iont. Instead tbo slaughtered aniuals, from whoso veins tho blood has ■oon drained, aro injected with a uxturo of kitchen salt 2o parts, ■otic acid 4 parts, and water 100 ,arts. Thoso aro, of course, merely bstancos which aro found nominally n our bodies, and constantly foim iirt of our regular food. The ament of this solution injected is oneonth in weight that of the animal treated. In ono of tho experiments i slioop and a calf were treated, and tho carcases subsequently hung up loi :evonty-f\vo days in a room kept at ■v constant temperature ol COdog. Falir. They wore then skinned and tressed in tho usual way. Tho heart, brains, liver, and intestines were noimal in appearance, though somewhat macerated. Tho fat was perfectly preserved, and the flesh is described as boing bright rod in color, moist, and of an agreeable odor. There was no trace of even incipient decay anywhere ; and, the final prool being in tho eating, the meat was subjected to various usual culinary operations, and was found to bo tender, digestiblo, nutritious, and to taste 1 'even bottei than ordinary meat.” Bacteriological examination proved tho meat to be free from bacteria, and all the professors wore .unanimous in tho conclusion that the Cravcri process of preservation promises great advantages ovei all others. —Chambers’ Journal.

CAPTAIN JACKSON BARRY

The late Captain Jackson Barry, whose death was recently reported was well known throughout Now Zealand, and especially in Auckland, where ho resided for several years. He had a roving and adventurous life, and while comparatively wealthy at the time, ho later fell upon evil days, and for several years subsisted upon public and private charity. Born in Cambridgeshire in 1819, he went at nine years of age to Sydney in the ship lied Rover, with the first free immigrants for New South Wales. Ho was employed for some years m the ex-convict settlement tfriving stock, and in 1835 was sent with a party of men with draught horses to Adelaide, a long, dangerous journey through rough country “swarming with hostile blacks.” Skirmishes with these were frequent, and tho young adventurer enjoyed keenly what he called “tho fun.” In 1837 he was twice shipwrecked, tho second tiim being cast ashore with another man, and the captain’s .widow, on a barren part of tho West Australian coast “vory much bruised and weak, and without a vestigo of clothing left,” starvation also staring them in the faco. They subsisted on cockles, and afterwards the flesh of a seal which they killed, until, after nine days, they were rescued. Next year saw Barry sailing as trading master in the barque Swallow, of Sydney 3 in the Malay Archipelago, and on the. conclusion of tho trip he went to Calcutta in charge of a shipment oi troop-horses. He arrived at Calcutta when cholera was raging there, and shipped on a man-of-war to get away from the disease. Going down the Hoogli, ho says, in one of his works, “we were frequently, indeed, daily, ordered to go and cloar the paddlo wheels and hawsers of the corpses floating down the riverf the natives there having a custom of placing their dead at low water mark, and allowing the tide to carry them away. Later Barry’s warship found herself in Chinese waters at the outbreak of the first Chinese war, and “fun with the Chinkies,” as he calls it, was as pleasing to Barry’s fighting blood as “fun” with tho Australian blacks. Whaling off the New Zealand coast for some years was followed by a long sojourn in California during the first days of the gold discoveries. Here Barry married his second wife, spending £SOO upon the wedding feast. After troubles with white desperadoes, fights with scalping ■ Indians, and other adventures, Barry left goldmining in America, soon to take up the same pursuit in Victoria. In 1861. be brought a cargo of horses to the Eldorado just discovered in Otago, and his subsequent adventures in New Zealand were only loss exciting than those in wilder parts.