by David Esdaile
DOCTOR JOHNSON'S beautiful story of 'Kasselas' has made everybody acquainted with the Abyssinian prince who, satiated with the good things of this life, offered a noble reward to the inventor of a new pleasure. The pleasure which the learned, eloquent, and most benevolent Professor of Zoology to the Faculty of Sciences at Paris proposes for our acceptance is certainly not new ; for many a comfortable meal of nutritious horseflesh ay, of ass, mule, and zebra flesh has been made of old time, and by many nations further advanced in acquaintance with alimentary substances than we con-
* 'Lettres sur les Substances Alimentaires, et particulierement
sur la Viande de Cheval.' Par M. Isidore Geofifroy Saint-Hil-
aire, Membre de 1'Institut, Professeur de Zoologie a la Faculte"
des Sciences de Paris, &c. Victor Masson ; Paris.
2 HIPPOPHAGY.
ceited modems are to this day. But the varied learn-
ing, the literary skill, the benevolent enthusiasm, the
noble contempt for that peculiar cachination for which
the equine race gets credit, although only from man do
we hear what he chooses to call a horse-laugh, these
are displayed by our learned Professor with a profusion
by which we have been most agreeably surprised. We
took up his book with no great expectation of being
either gratified with a literary treat, or converted to the
faith of the, as yet, small and derided sect of the Hip-
pophagi. And yet here are we seriously about to tell
the public that M. Saint-Hilaire's Letters are most in-
teresting, and that to laugh at the idea of eating horse-
flesh is great folly in these our days, when so many are
so unable to answer the daily-recurring question, "What
shall we eat?" and when so many must receive from
charity their daily bread.
Wise and intellectual folk may turn away in affected
indifference to flesh - pots and creature - comforts. As
for ourselves, we are not ashamed to confess that, in
Count Kumford's Essays, we have read with great de-
lectation a most appetite-raising chapter, entitled "Of
the Pleasure of Eating, and of the Means that may be
employed for increasing it." Moreover, knowing how
intimately interblended are the moral and the mental
with the physical elements of our wondrous being, we
subscribe, with a moderate allowance due to the mot
of a wit, to the aphorism of a contemporary French-
man : " Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what
you are."* Mem sana in corpore sano being the per-
fectibility of human nature in this life, a treatise on
the best mode of keeping soul and body together on
alimentary substances, in short is deserving of the
most careful study, because involving principles for
the evolution and application of which there is re-
quired the highest philosophy. Starve a man, or
maintain him by a minimum expenditure of nutrition,
* " Que je sache ce que tu manges, et je saurai qui tu es. "
MISERIES OF SEMI-STAKVATION. 3
and what a miserable creature do you make him !
Stunted in his physical organisation, his mental pow-
ers share in the resulting debility ; and how readily
our moral perceptions sympathise with our bodily
condition, we all of us occasionally know, when dis-
ordered health tries our temper and obscures our judg-
ment. We therefore assent to this characteristic de-
claration in one of the earliest productions of the
benevolent Dr Chalmers : " Let it be remembered that
Philosophy is never more usefully, and never more
honourably, directed, than when multiplying the stores
of human comfort ; than when enlightening the hum-
blest departments of industry ; than when she descends
to the walks of business, to the dark and dismal recep-
tacles of misery; to the hospitals of disease, to the
putrid houses of our great cities, where Poverty sits in
lonely and ragged wretchedness, agonised with pain,
faint with hunger, and shivering in a frail and un-
sheltered tenement. Count Eumford deserves the gra-
titude of mankind." This panegyric on Count Rumford,
better known to the scientific world under his English
title of Sir Benjamin Thomson, is abundantly merited.
His Essays are full of important experiments in nutri-
tion, and from them are derived almost all our so-called
novelties in modes of heating and ventilation, as well
as in the construction of cooking utensils of every kind.
From them the philanthropist will learn with delight how,
on New-year's Day, the philosophic Count captured all
the swarming beggars of Munich, introduced them into
a military workhouse, and soon made them fat, happy,
and industrious. From them also the careful housewife
will learn with surprise how truly says the poet,
"Man needs but little here below ; "
for the Bavarian soldier, who is very fond of eating,
and whose situation is as comfortable as that of any
soldier in Europe, lives, we are told, on twopence
a-day ; so skilled is he in the science of cookery.
4 H1PPOPHAGY.
If our old friend Count Kumford deserves to live in
the public memory as a benefactor to the human race,
because of his benevolent ingenuity in turning to the
best account the usual articles of food, M. Saint-Hilaire
claims a niche in the temple of fame on account of his
eloquent and scientific demonstration of the excellent
qualities of a species of food the prejudice against the
use of which, in Europe at least, is inveterate, and
almost universal. The human stomach, at least when
hungry, is not apt to be sentimental ; but it is aston-
ishingly apt to be squeamish and whimsical. Hence
the strenuous efforts of his Government have only par-
tially induced the white-snail-eating Austrian to par-
take of horse-flesh ; and if Louis Napoleon were to de-
clare it his imperial pleasure that Paris should consume
a large proportion of this really excellent food, what a
dangerous commotion would there be among the frog-
eaters on the banks of the Seine !
M. Saint-Hilaire is well aware of the inveteracy of
the prejudice which obstructs his philanthropy ; for nine
years he exposed its folly in the presence of the enlight-
ened audiences which yearly listened with delight to
his lectures in the Museum of Natural History ; and,
so anxious was he to give it the coup-de-grace, that for
several months he suspended the publication of his
4 General Natural History,' in order that he might publish
the thoroughly practical work on which we are now
commenting. " May it," he exclaims, " be the death-
blow to that silly prejudice against which I have been
contending for nine years, and against which I shall
contend so long as I witness the deplorable spectacle
of millions of Frenchmen deprived of animal food ; eat-
ing it six times, twice, once a-year ! and in presence of
this misery millions of pounds of good meat given over
to industry every month for secondary purposes, aban-
doned to swine and dogs, or even cast into the dung-
hill."
To know that there are many as miserable as them-
COMPULSORY VEGETARIANS. 5
selves is a kind of comfort. We therefore compassion-
ately remind these distressed Frenchmen, that though
to be omnivorous is one of the distinctions betwixt man
and the brutes, yet, in fact, only a small proportion of the
human race is actually carnivorous ; and that for more
than sixteen hundred years the entire population of the
earth was restricted to a vegetable diet ; for not till after
the Flood did the Almighty say to Noah and his sons,
"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you ;
even as the green herb have I given you all things."
(Gen. ix. 37.) As an additional crumb of comfort for
non-flesh-eating Frenchmen, we add, that the idea of
" John Bull" living on animal food is unhappily a fic-
tion. " If ' John Bull ' means two-thirds of the popula-
tion, ' John Bull ' is living on vegetable diet, and not
more than one-third of him is nourished by meat/'*
Speaking of the Dorsetshire peasantry, Mr Thornton, in
his work on Over-Population, observes : u As for meat,
most of them would not know its taste, if once or twice
in the course of their lives on the squire's having a
son and heir born to him, or on the young gentleman's
coming of age they were not regaled with a dinner of
what the newspapers call 'Old English Fare.' Some of
them contrive to have a little bacon in the proportion,
it seems, of a half-pound a-week to a dozen persons ;
but they more commonly use fat, to give the potatoes a
relish ; and, as one of them told Mr Austin, they don't
always go without cheese." In Scotland, the mass of
the people are compulsory vegetarians, oatmeal and
milk being the national fare. Pigs are kept by the
Scottish peasantry very generally, but often they are
not eaten by their families, but sold, owing to the high
price given for pork by kramers** that is, men who
go through the country buying pigs, butter, and eggs
* Symon's 'Arts and Artizans.'
** Kramer is in Germany the term for a petty huxter, or small
merchant. It is curious to find the word similarly applied in
Forfarshire.
6 HIPPOPHAGY.
for London and other great cities. Ireland is notori-
ously the land of pigs and potatoes, but unfortunately
the Irish peasant does not eat but sells his pig " the
gentleman that pays the rint."
If the cold of these northern regions did not sharpen
the appetite, and demand the use of fatty substances
for the comfortable nutrition of human beings, the
people of the British Isles would have little reason to
complain because of being generally restricted to vege-
table fare, small acquaintance with flesh-pots being the
lot of the people almost everywhere ; a mere fraction of
the human race being carnivorous, though furnished
with means of masticating and assimilating animal food.
But with our climate, and with the active labours re-
quired from most of us, the liberal use of animal food is
indispensable for the development and maintenance of
our bodily vigour. We lately read with amazement of
the vegetable fare solely employed by a singularly lusty
English blacksmith a teetotaller, moreover. But how
long will his strength endure? We beseech him to
meditate on the fate of M. le Docteur Stard, who, trying
a philosophical experiment, died while flattering him-
self that he was only weakened by a vegetable diet.
Let him also meditate on this novel illustration of the
saying that " hunger will tame a lion." A lion, fed for
many years on milk-soup ! was presented in 1855 to
the Menagerie of the Museum of Natural History, Paris.
The poor brute was as quiet as a sheep, and so debili-
tated as to be in extremis. An instant change of diet
was resolved upon. In a month horse-flesh restored
his natural ferocity, and now he is magnificent ! In
constitution, a brose-fed Scottish ploughman is on the
verge of old age in his fiftieth year. We invite atten-
tion to this fact, and we trust those interested in the
public hygiene will ponder well the distressing statement
that in some parts of England scanty nutrition is un-
fitting the labourer for toil, and, by weakening his thews
and sinews, incapacitating him for serving his country,
NEED OF ANIMAL FOOD. 7
either in peace or in war ; for guiding the plough, or
wielding sword and bayonet. The recruiting officers in
the south-eastern counties complain that in size and
strength the peasantry are inferior to those of the north
and north-midland counties, and farmers observe the
same variation in the amount of labour which they can
obtain from their men.* This deteriorated race gives
birth to a yet more enfeebled offspring ; so that the de-
sire to arrest this degeneration of the physical constitu-
tion of the British people should make us give willing
ear to such a man as M. Saint-Hilaire, when propound-
ing his views on a matter of such importance as that
regarding the means of public nutrition.
He discusses, in the first place, the normal laws of
nutrition established by Liebig and other eminent
chemists, who demonstrate that flesh-eating animals
are in general stronger than the herbivorous on which
they prey, and that no other substance equals animal
food in the production of flesh, and in the reparation of
muscular energy expended in labour. Hence the neces-
sity of providing it for the labouring classes everywhere,
and especially in northern climates and in great cities.
Is it sufficiently supplied? Evidently not. Adopting
83 kilogrammes a-year as the normal rate of nutrition
necessary for the comfortable existence of human beings,
M. Saint-Hilaire demonstrates that this is so far from
being attained in France, that to arrive at it demands
the production of three and a-half times more animal
food than France actually produces. Instead of 83 kilo-
grammes, Frenchmen, on the average, only consume 28
kilogrammes of animal food per annum. " The differ-
ence between the normal and the actual consumption is
enormous," exclaims the Professor, "the deficit im-
mense ! " We need hardly inform our readers that he
proposes to supply this deficit by the consumption of
horse-flesh, "a reserve for which we need not cross
the sea, nor even the frontier, which is always at hand,
* Thornton on Over-Population.
8 HIPPOPHAGY.
and the benefit of which we may have to-morrow if we
please to will it to-day."
Whether M. Saint-Hilaire ever heard of the well-
known recipe for hare-soup, beginning with, "First
catch your hare," we know not. Certain it is that
he, very considerately, first informs us where we may
find the horses on which he invites us to feed. With most
praiseworthy precision he states the relative propor-
tions of the various animal products consumable in
France ; from which it results that the supply of horse-
flesh is equal to one-fourth of the animal food consumed
at present. " Singular social anomaly, the long endur-
ance of which will one day excite amazement ! There
are millions of Frenchmen who never eat flesh, while
every month millions of pounds of good meat are ap-
plied to very secondary uses, or even thrown into the
dunghill. Behold what science herself has authorised
up to this day, at least by her silence ! as if even she
were afraid to oppose a popular prejudice, and to open
her hand and spread abroad useful truths which she
had in her possession."
" After the question of quantity comes that of qua-
lity," so begins part second of these interesting Let-
ters. This is the point where our Professor most needs
his rhetorical skill, and appeals to facts and testimonies
of the enlightened few who, in Europe, have tried
Hippophagy. His appeal to our palate is so irresis-
tible that, being about to sit down to dinner, we are
heartily sorry at not having the prospect of seeing at
our table vol-au-vents d 'amourette from the spinal mar-
row of a horse ; nor horse-soup, nor horse-pie d la mode;
nor a roast of horse-chine, all of which, we know,
were lately received with " explosions de satisfaction"
by a party of Parisian HippophagL
Eeasoning from analogy, we should expect little
difference in the nutritious qualities of the flesh of the
horse and the ox. Like our best butcher-meat animals,
the horse is herbivorous. The only notable difference
HORSE-FLESH NUTRITIOUS. 9
is the greater amount in the flesh of the horse of the
principle of kreatine, that nitrogenous substance dis-
covered in 1833 in beef-soup by Chevreul, who has
found it in all the vertebrate animals, and which, ac-
cording to Liebig, plays an important part in almost
all vital actions. This excess of Jcreatine should add
to the alimentary value of horse-flesh. Theory and
experiment are on this point in happy union ; and M.
Saint-Hilaire quotes varied and most competent testi-
mony showing its superiority. We can only refer to
the experience of the illustrious surgeon Larrey, who
thus sums up his long and distinguished practice in
camps and hospitals :
*' I have very often, and with the greatest success,
given horse-flesh to the soldiers and the wounded of our
armies. In several of our campaigns on the Ehine,
in Catalonia, and the maritime Alps, I caused it, under
various circumstances, to be given to our soldiers ;
but, above all, we found the very great benefit of this
meat during the siege of Alexandria in Egypt. Not
only did it save the lives of the troops defending that
city; it powerfully contributed to the cure and invigora-
tion of the numerous sick and wounded in our hospitals,
and likewise aided in the removal of a scorbutic epidemic
which seized the whole army. There was a regular daily
distribution of this meat ; and most fortunately the
number of horses was sufficient to bring the army up
to the time of the capitulation. These animals, of the
Arab breed, were extremely thin, owing to the scarcity
of fodder, but they were generally young. In order to
overcome the prejudice of the soldiers, I was the first
to kill my horses and eat this food.
" After the battle of Esslingen, shut up in the island
of Lobau, with the greater part of the French army
and about six thousand wounded, I caused soup to be
made of the numerous horses scattered over the island,
and belonging to the generals and superior officers.
The breastplates of those dismounted, and of the
10 HIPPOPHAGY.
wounded, served as coppers for cooking this meat ;
and instead of salt, of which we were destitute, it was
seasoned with gunpowder. I only had the trouble of
pouring the soup from one breastplate into another
through a linen cloth, and of then allowing it to clarify
by rest. Marshal Massena, commander-in-chief of the
troops, was right glad to share in my repast, and was
very well pleased with it. Experience thus demon-
strates that horse-flesh is most proper nourishment for
man."
Oh that this had been remembered in the Crimea !
We should never have heard of the sufferings of the
wretched horses which crunched each other's tails ;
and many a sick and wounded man might have received
that nourishment for want of which he pined and died
on the bleak plateau around Sebastopol. In the debate
on the Crimean Commission, in the House of Commons,
General Peel, speaking of the want of forces for the
making of a road from Balaklava to Sebastopol, ob-
served that " it had originated from the impossibility
of finding forage for more than a certain number of
animals in the Crimea, and that number was already
exceeded by the horses of the cavalry, the artillery, and
others. The common-sense view would have been to
reduce the number of horses to the power of feeding
them. The proper course would have been to have re-
embarked a portion of them." Not a hoof of them,
say we. They should have been slaughtered and
eaten, instead of being permitted to die by inches, and
their carcasses to diffuse the odour of the most fetid
corruption in the vicinity of over- wrought, under-fed,
sick and wounded men. What was excellent food for
Frenchmen would have been equally good for British
troops ; and if Massena and Larrey thought horse-flesh
dainty fare when seasoned with gunpowder, we are
very decidedly of opinion that General Peel would
have no reason to complain were he doomed for a few
months to a dietary such as nerved the French defen-
"GOUT" OF HORSE-FLESH. 11
ders of Alexandria, and the isolated troops in the isle
of Lobau. The conclusion of the distinguished Parent-
Duchatelet, the highest authority in all that affects the
public health, is in these words : " This kind of food
was very good and much sought after in ancient times.
It has not changed its nature, and it is as suitable for
modern stomachs as it was for those of our ancestors ;
for stomachs strong and healthy, but also for the sick
and wounded, whose strength it restores, and whose
convalescence it confirms. And it is not necessary that
the animals should be fat, or that they should have never
suffered, as some may suppose ; for beneficial effects may
be obtained from horses extremely emaciated by famine."
So that we are not amusing our readers with the un-
profitable talk of a mere litterateur, but communicating
the knowledge of facts, by the application of which the
wants of the poor may be supplied, the sick and debili-
tated restored and invigorated, the health of armies
maintained, great battles won, and prolonged sieges
endured.
But "what is the gout of horse-flesh?" Have pa-
tience, courteous readers, and we shall make your teeth
water 1 Horse-dinners vulgo (banquets hippophagiques,
in Parisian phrase) have been quite the vogue of late
in Paris, Kcenigsbaden, Wirtemberg, Weimar, Munich,
Vienna, Dresden, and many other places ; many of
those in Germany being by public subscriptions. Those
in Paris have been especially recherches, and attended
by such a variety of distinguished guests as to elevate
them to the rank of scientific experiments. Though in
possession of the culinary triumphs of the German
Hippophagij we shall spare our readers the recital, and
give them instead an account of a Parisian "horse-
dinner," from, the graceful pen of the witty M. le Doc-
teur Amedee Latour, who takes care to inform us that
it was not written on his rising from table, but twenty-
four hours after, when, he solemnly depones, he was
suffering not the least digestive remorse. " The expe-
12 HIPPOPHAGY.
riment begins. M. Eenault has most intelligently made
the arrangements. Side by side are the subjects to be
experimented on the matters to be compared.
" Horse-soup Beef-soup.
Horse -boil Beef -boil.
Roast-horse Roast-beef.
le The same quantity, the same sort judge and com-
pare nothing better.
lc Horse-soup general astonishment ! It's perfect !
it's excellent ! it's feeding ! it's like venison ! it's aro-
matic I it's rich- tasted ! it's a' first-rate and admirable
soup !
" The beef-soup is good, but comparatively inferior,
of less marked gout, less flavoured, less tasty. The
jury unanimously find that the horse yields soup of
superior quality, that it is impossible to distinguish the
taste of it from that of the richest beef-soups, and that
persons not warned could not find out the difference.
The same colour, the same clearness.
" Boiled-horse the flesh is browner than beef ; it is
drier, and less resisting under the teeth ; no particular
taste ; it is the taste of boiled beef, but not of the first
class. I have eaten better beef, but also much worse.
Upon the whole, it is very eatable ; poor people who
buy inferior beef, or cow-beef, would find a very sen-
sible difference in favour of boiled-horse.
" Roast-horse. It is the chine of the animal slightly
salted and highly spiced. An explosion of satisfac-
tion! Nothing finer, more delicate, or more tender. The
fillet of venison, whose aroma it recalls, is not its supe-
rior. It's perfect in all points.
"Summing up: Soup superior.
Soil good, and very eatable.
Roast exquisite.
" Is not this a very interesting experiment ?"
Truly yes, say we. And here is another, rather
"BANQUET HIPPOPHAGIQUE." 13
comical. M. Saitit-Hilaire was President of the So-
ciety of Acclimatation. Having invited a member of this
society to taste of a kind of meat undoubtedly new to him,
the learned doctor thought his opinion was sought for
in regard to some rare and newly-introduced animal ;
and so, after having duly tasted it, he gave it thus :
" In my opinion it is of the utmost importance to accli-
matise this animal." It was horse-flesh !
These things being so, how comes it that there is
such a prejudice against such a valuable article of
food ? Our Professor hunts down this prejudice wher-
ever displayed. He first falls foul of certain Chinese
doctors who have interdicted the use of horse-flesh in
their much-admired production, Chi-wou-pen-thsao-hoei-
tsouan. And certainly he does make mince-meat of
these poor Chinese, who, in the plenitude of their wis-
dom, declare that to eat of a white horse with a black
foot, or of a white horse with a black head, will make a
man mad. These worthies also teach that to hang up
a monkey in a stable is an infallible preventive of all
horse-diseases.
In reference to European prejudice, M. Saint-Hilaire
remarks : " One cannot directly attack, as I have at-
tacked, an old idea without encountering the warmest
opposition, any more than you can pull up a deeply-
rooted tree without vigorous efforts." And so he rides
his hobby with a firm seat, and is as little daunted by
the folly of fools as by the sneers of witlings, or the
objections of reasonable people. He discusses with
much dignity and good temper the objections of his
learned friends, MM. Valenciennes and Milne Edwards,
and proves that they are in error when supposing that
only the flesh of young horses is good, inasmuch as
most satisfactory meals have been made upon animals
from seventeen up to twenty-five years old. To certain
objectors, to whom he declines to apply the epithet
savants, who allege that the public sale of horse-flesh
would excite among those using it a feeling of ill-will
14 HIPPOPHAGY.
against the consumers of superior butcher-meat such
as beef, veal, and mutton' he says : " Why not on this
principle renounce also butcher-meat ? Those who only
eat beef might be jealous of those who eat poultry and
game." As to the rise in the price of horse-flesh, and
the consequent limitation in the use of it when its
consumption shall become general, it is argued that it
will be long before this happens ; and that, when it
does happen, it will be a public benefit, by reducing
the price of butcher-meat. One fourteenth of an addi-
tion to the meat consumed at present will infallibly
arrest that rise in the price of meat, of which in France
there are such complaints. As to the jokes of a portion
of the press, our philosopher laughs when they are
witty ; when heavy he heeds them not. Telum imbelle
sine ictu. A certain religious journal is afraid that eat-
ing of horses must end in eating of men ! " When all
the horses are slaughtered, men must eat one another."
Our Professor looks very grave on being thus accused
of preaching Anthropophagy I As to the sentimentalists
who declaim against slaying and devouring an animal
which is our friend, companion, and servant in our
labours, pastimes, and wars, their whining is disposed
of by the fact that the horse-eating movement is mainly
supported by the societies instituted for the prevention
of cruelty to animals. It is undoubtedly more merciful
to fatten an old horse, and then eat him, than to work
him till he is a moving skeleton, a mass of sores, a sight
so piteous as to call forth the indignation of every
rightly-constituted mind. Those savage abusers of a
noble animal, who torture and starve the horse, may
not listen to your humane interpositions in its behalf ;
but they will hear you when demonstrating that it is
their interest to send their horses to the knackers in
tolerable condition ; because as they (i. e., the horses) are
to be eaten, it is manifest that while a skin full of bones
may be worth five shillings only, a much higher price
will be given for a horse tolerably plump.
EQUINE STATISTICS. 15
In conclusion, we protest against the senseless waste
of horse-flesh which has hitherto prevailed ; we invite
public trial of its qualities ; and in order that our read-
ers may have some idea of the ability of the Scottish
farmer to meet the demands of those we convert to
Hippophagy, we beg to add that, according to the agri-
cultural statistics for 1856, there were in Scotland very
nearly 180,000 horses. And M'Queen's statistics inform
us that in the British empire there are 2,250,000 horses,
valued at 67,000,000. A very considerable proportion
of these should be eaten. Malformation, incipient dis-
ease, accidental injuries, render it more profitable to
kill than to rear, at great expense, animals incapaci-
tated for labour. Send an injured or enfeebled horse
to grass, and in four months he will be fat and fit for
the table. In answer, therefore, to our next query,
" Should we eat our horses?" we reply, "Under certain
circumstances, undoubtedly;" and in no case ought we
to bury the flesh of the horse, when we have the strong-
est reasons for regarding it as alike nutritious and palat-
able. Owing to the great value of the horse, the use
of its flesh, as an article of human food, must in this
country be limited. Let us, however, avail ourselves
of it so far as practicable ; and in order that it may no
longer be wasted, let us dismiss the silly prejudice
which causes even a half-starved labourer to exhibit
irrepressible disgust when exhorted to partake of a
kind of food occasionally within his reach, and known
to possess in abundance those elements of nutrition so
scantily supplied by the common fare of the working
classes.
We invite our readers to test its value, as we have
recently done, in a spirit of philosophical inquiry, and,
we solemnly declare, without the slightest digestive
remorse, though to the horror of our cook, a privileged
old servant, who rules the roast, and us too sometimes !
Misled by her imagination, and not following her nose
assuredly, she declared that she perceived " a fearful
16 HIPPOPHAGY.
smell before the stuff cam' near the door." After we
had eaten delicious soup and excellent stew, prepared
by her reluctant hands, the worthy woman thought she
should pray for us. " The Lord be wi' the maister !
After eatin' o' sic an onnat'ral brute, he's shure to tak'
the worst kind o' jaundice, for it's aye ta'en wi' an
awfu' scunner."*
We are happy to announce that the jaundice was all
in her eye, and that we are enjoying peace of mind
and body after this first, but we hope not last, trial of
hippophagy.
If any exclaim, " Horrid man ! to advise the eating
of horse-flesh," quietly, good friends, if you please !
Have you not eaten of it disguised as Bologna sausage,
or "Kussian ox-tongues," which, though of undeniable
merit, are well known to be those of horses ?
* Anglican, intense disgust.
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